AVP, Technology Platforms & Operations
About The Position
Pacific Life’s Workforce Benefits division is a growth engine for the enterprise—operating with the speed of a startup and the rigor of a Fortune class financial services organization. In this influential leadership role, you will champion the seamless delivery of technology platform services that support Pacific Life’s Workforce Benefits division. Your expertise in service delivery will ensure that our platforms consistently perform at a high level—maintaining stability, security, and scalability while supporting ongoing innovation. As the steward of operational excellence, you will drive initiatives that enhance reliability and efficiency, positioning the organization for continued rapid growth and success. As the business continues to scale, we are seeking an Assistant Vice President (AVP), Technology Platforms & Operations accountable for the reliability, resilience, and day-to-day operational excellence of the Workforce Benefits technology platform services. This role owns the “run” dimension of the operating model—ensuring platforms are stable, secure, scalable, and cost‑effective while enabling rapid product innovation. This AVP leads platform services, infrastructure, DevOps, incident and service management, DR/BCP, and operational readiness across the technology footprint, partnering deeply with enterprise infrastructure, engineering excellence/SRE, service management, and risk functions. The role reports to the WBD CIO and operates as a critical stabilizing force as the business scales. This role requires being on-site in Newport Beach, CA (preference) or Charlotte, NC.
Requirements
- 12+ years of experience leading enterprise platform operations, infrastructure, or SRE functions.
- Proven track record operating large‑scale, cloud‑based platforms in regulated environments.
- Proven success leading teams at scale in a highly regulated industry and complex matrixed organization.
- Strong understanding of service management, DR/BCP, DevOps, and operational risk.
- Executive‑level communication skills and calm, decisive leadership under pressure.
Responsibilities
- Ensure availability, performance, and resilience of all WBD platforms
- Own incident management, service management, DR/BCP, and operational readiness
- Lead platform modernization, operational automation, and cost‑to‑run optimization
- Establish strong operational metrics, governance, and transparency
- Build a durable platform talent and leadership bench
- Own day‑to‑day operational health of core business platforms, infrastructure, and shared services.
- Ensure platforms meet enterprise standards for availability, security, compliance, and recoverability.
- Lead incident response, root cause analysis, and systemic remediation.
- Establish mature service management practices including change control, release readiness, and operational metrics.
- Partner with Enterprise Service Management (e.g., change board, incident management) to ensure alignment and compliance.
- Drive consistent reporting on uptime, incidents, DR posture, and operational risk.
- Lead DevOps, infrastructure, and platform engineering capabilities to improve automation, observability, and scalability.
- Partner with Product Engineering to ensure platforms enable—not constrain—delivery velocity.
- Optimize cost‑to‑run while maintaining reliability and growth readiness.
- Act as the primary interface to enterprise infrastructure, platform teams, and engineering excellence for SRE.
- Partner with operational leaders to align technology operations with business needs and service expectations.
- Proactively surface operational risks and capacity constraints to executive leadership.
- Build and develop platform engineering, operations, and reliability leaders.
- Clarify role ownership across platform and service teams to reduce noise and escalation.
- Foster a culture of operational excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Benefits
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- Wellbeing Reimbursement Account
- Paid Time Off
- Holiday Schedules
- Financial Planning Time Off
- Paid Parental Leave
- Adoption Assistance Program
- Competitive 401k savings plan with company match and an additional contribution regardless of participation
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Executive
Education Level
No Education Listed
