AVP of Observability Engineering

The Hartford

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future. The Observability Engineering team is seeking an accomplished and visionary AVP of Observability Engineering to lead the design, delivery, and continuous evolution of a cutting-edge, AI powered observability ecosystem. This leader will ensure security, efficiency, and resiliency across The Hartford’s technology platforms by driving innovation in monitoring, logging, alerting, and content delivery networkcapabilities. You will own a team of subject matter experts who are responsible for the full agile lifecycle of product development, support, and operational responsibilities of maintaining key instrumentation platforms, and will partner with our SRE group to offer the highest levels of availability. In this pivotal role, you will own and optimize enterprise observability platforms including Splunk, Dynatrace, Akamai, and related tooling, while embedding Generative and Agentic AI capabilities to transform how we detect, diagnose, and resolve issues. Your mandate includes leveraging AI-driven insights for anomaly detection, automated RCA (Root Cause Analysis), and predictive alerting to reduce MTTR and improve reliability. This is not just about monitoring—it’s about predictive resilience. By combining industry-leading observability tools with AI, you will redefine how The Hartford anticipates and resolves issues, ensuring exceptional customer experience and operational stability. This role will have a Hybrid work schedule, with the expectation of working in an office (NYC, Columbus, OH, Chicago, IL, Hartford, CT or Charlotte, NC) 3 days a week. Candidates must be authorized to work in the US without company sponsorship.

Requirements

10 or more years of experience in Infrastructure Engineering, SRE, Cloud Engineering, or Observability systems.
Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
Proven leadership in observability or reliability engineering roles, with hands-on experience in Splunk, Dynatrace, Akamai, and cloud-native monitoring.
Expertise in SRE principles, proactive monitoring, and performance optimization.
Familiarity with GenAI technologies and their application in IT operations (e.g., anomaly detection, automated RCA, AI-driven dashboards).
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
Track record of driving innovation and continuous improvement in observability practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience working in big tech, banking, insurance or other highly regulated industries strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Define and execute the observability strategy for The Hartford, ensuring alignment with business objectives and resiliency goals.
Champion innovation by overlaying AIcapabilities into observability workflows—enabling intelligent alert correlation, automated incident summaries, and proactive risk mitigation.
Oversee enterprise observability platforms including Splunk (logging, dashboards, compliance) and Dynatrace (APM, infrastructure monitoring).
Establish OTel-first instrumentation standards (traces, metrics, logs), semantic conventions, sampling strategies, and correlation patterns (span-to-log, service-to-customer journey).
Drive integration with cloud-native services (AWS, GCP, Azure) and containerized environments (Kubernetes, Docker).
Establish and monitor golden signals, error budgets, and SLOs to ensure top-quartile reliability.
Implement AI-powered anomaly detection and predictive analytics to reduce alert noise and improve incident response.
Embed AI-driven automation for: Intelligent log summarization and RCA. Automated dashboard generation and KPI insights. Conversational interfaces for observability queries using LLMs.
Define KPIs for observability maturity (e.g., % of apps logging to Splunk, alert coverage, MTTR).
Ensure compliance with Hartford’s logging and monitoring standards across applications and infrastructure.
Partner with SRE, Platform Engineering, and Security teams to deliver secure, scalable, and resilient observability solutions.
Engage with senior leadership to communicate progress, risks, and innovation opportunities.
Lead and develop a high-performing team that can deliver on goals and objectives