Director, Cloud Engineering and Operations

Cisco•San Jose, CA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Enterprise AI Platforms & Infrastructure (EAIPI) team powers Cisco’s digital transformation by owning and operating the full infrastructure stack—including data centers, GPU clusters, storage, orchestration, and full-stack observability—within a complex hybrid-cloud environment. Our mission is to provide robust AI and infrastructure capabilities to Cisco’s global enterprise, product business units, and workforce. We operate as "Customer Zero," partnering with Cisco product organizations to validate new technologies under real-world production conditions, ensuring operational excellence and reliability before external release. As the Director of Cloud Operations, you will lead the strategy, engineering, and operational excellence of Cisco’s enterprise multi-cloud ecosystem (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and others). Positioned at the intersection of infrastructure, security, developer velocity, and financial efficiency, you will influence how thousands of Cisco engineers build and operate cloud workloads. You will define and enforce cloud governance and compliance, drive developer enablement through a product-led approach, manage enterprise FinOps and cloud economics, and lead cloud operations toward autonomous, AI-native infrastructure. Success in this role means maintaining 24/7 operational resilience, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and scaling a diverse, world-class engineering organization.

Requirements

12+ years of progressive cloud engineering experience, including 5+ years in senior leadership managing managers and technical leads in large enterprises.
10+ years of expertise in multi-cloud architecture and operations across AWS, Azure, GCP, and hybrid environments.
5+ years of experience scaling FinOps frameworks, governance models, and cost-management tools (e.g., Cloudability or cloud-native tools).
5+ years of experience of modern SRE practices, observability platforms (Splunk, Datadog, Prometheus/Grafana), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), and CI/CD automation.
AWS/GCP Professional Certifications and FinOps Certified Practitioner (FOCP).
Experience with agentic workflows, AIOps, and AI-driven automation in enterprise IT.
Demonstrated success leading large-scale organizational transformations and complex platform migrations.
Exceptional communication skills to translate complex technical requirements into executive business strategy.

Responsibilities

Lead the strategy, engineering, and operational excellence of Cisco’s enterprise multi-cloud ecosystem (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and others).
Define and enforce cloud governance and compliance.
Drive developer enablement through a product-led approach.
Manage enterprise FinOps and cloud economics.
Lead cloud operations toward autonomous, AI-native infrastructure.
Maintain 24/7 operational resilience.
Foster a culture of continuous learning.
Scale a diverse, world-class engineering organization.

Benefits

medical, dental and vision insurance
a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
paid parental leave
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
restricted stock units
10 paid holidays per full calendar year
1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
paid year-end holiday shutdown
4 paid days off for personal wellness
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (non-exempt employees)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt employees)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)