Director of Platform Engineering & Operations

NetApp is a leader in intelligent data infrastructure, delivering unified storage and integrated data services. The Director of Platform Engineering & Operations will lead a global organization responsible for enterprise compute, storage, and DDI services across on-premises and cloud environments, focusing on transforming and scaling internal infrastructure platforms.

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute the strategy for enterprise compute, storage, and DDI platforms across hybrid (on-prem and cloud) environments
• Drive modernization of infrastructure services using IaC, GitOps, CI/CD automation, and policy-as-code frameworks
• Lead the evolution toward self-service platform models with clear service catalogs, SLOs, and reliability metrics
• Partner with executive stakeholders across IT, Security, Engineering, and Product to align platform capabilities with business priorities
• Establish multi-year roadmaps for infrastructure transformation, cost optimization, resilience, and scalability
• Oversee architecture, engineering, and lifecycle management of:
• On-prem and cloud-based compute platforms
• On-prem and cloud-based storage platforms
• Global DDI services (DNS, DHCP, IPAM)
• Certificate lifecycle management
• Standardize infrastructure patterns across data centers and public cloud providers
• Implement Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, etc.) as the default operating model
• Integrate infrastructure provisioning and lifecycle management into CI/CD pipelines
• Drive cloud-native and hybrid design principles including automation-first, immutable infrastructure, and blue/green deployment patterns
• Ensure platforms are secure-by-design and compliant with enterprise and regulatory standards
• Lead global 24x7 operations with clear accountability for uptime, performance, availability, and incident response
• Implement and mature SRE-aligned practices including:
• SLO/SLI frameworks
• Error budgets
• Proactive reliability engineering
• Drive continuous improvement through post-incident reviews and operational analytics
• Own operational governance including capacity management, change management, and problem management
• Ensure business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are tested and validated
• Champion AI-Ops capabilities to enhance observability, predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and root cause automation
• Integrate telemetry, logging, and monitoring platforms into unified operational dashboards
• Leverage machine learning–driven insights to reduce MTTR and prevent incidents
• Drive aggressive automation targets to reduce manual intervention and increase operational scalability
• Promote event-driven remediation and self-healing infrastructure capabilities
• Lead and develop a large, geographically distributed organization across Bangalore, San Jose, RTP, and additional global locations
• Build a high-performance culture grounded in accountability, innovation, and collaboration
• Develop succession planning, leadership bench strength, and talent development programs
• Foster a “follow-the-sun” support model for global operational excellence
• Promote inclusive leadership and strong cross-regional collaboration
• Own budget planning, forecasting, and cost optimization across infrastructure platforms
• Optimize cloud and on-prem infrastructure spend through FinOps practices
• Manage strategic vendor relationships across compute, storage, networking, cloud, and DDI providers
• Drive measurable efficiency gains through automation and standardization

Requirements:

• 12+ years of progressive experience in infrastructure engineering and operations
• 7+ years of leadership experience managing global, distributed teams at scale
• Deep expertise in hybrid compute platforms (virtualization, containerization, public cloud IaaS/PaaS)
• Deep expertise in enterprise storage technologies (block, file, object, hybrid architectures)
• Deep expertise in global DDI services (enterprise DNS, DHCP, IPAM architectures)
• Demonstrated experience implementing Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD-driven infrastructure delivery
• Proven track record driving automation at scale across enterprise infrastructure
• Strong experience with AI-Ops platforms, observability stacks, and operational analytics
• Experience leading both engineering (build) and operations (run) functions within a unified organization
• Experience in a global technology or SaaS organization
• Familiarity with NetApp storage technologies and hybrid cloud solutions
• Strong understanding of security, compliance, and regulatory frameworks
• Experience with FinOps methodologies and cloud cost governance
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent professional experience