Director of Operations Excellence

Realtor.com•Austin, TX

71d•Onsite

About The Position

Recognized as the No. 1 site trusted by real estate professionals, Realtor.com has been at the forefront of online real estate for over 25 years, connecting buyers, sellers, and renters with trusted insights and expert guidance to find their perfect home. Through its robust suite of tools, Realtor.com not only makes a significant impact on the real estate industry at large, but for consumers, navigating the biggest purchase they will make in their life, by providing a user experience that is easy to use, easy to understand, and most of all, easy to make decisions. Join us on our mission to empower more people to find their way home by breaking barriers to entry, making the right connections, and building confidence through expert guidance. Director, Operations Excellence, based in Austin, TX We're looking for a Director of Operations Excellence to build and lead a new centralized organization that drives operational maturity, reliability, and efficiency across Realtor.com's 600+ developer engineering organization. This role will establish and scale our Operations Excellence function, bringing together Platform Reliability Engineering, Quality Engineering Operations, Financial Operations, and Release & Change Operations into a unified, strategic capability. You will be responsible for defining the vision, strategy, and execution roadmap for operational excellence at scale. This includes building high-performing teams, establishing operational frameworks and standards, driving adoption of operational best practices, and delivering measurable improvements in site reliability, product quality, cost efficiency, and release velocity. You'll partner closely with engineering leadership, product teams, and platform engineering to elevate operational maturity across the entire technology organization. This is a unique opportunity to build something from the ground up - shaping culture, processes, and systems while strategically integrating existing talent from across Realtor.com into a cohesive, high-impact organization.

Requirements

10+ years in engineering, operations, or platform leadership roles with significant experience in operational excellence domains
5+ years leading engineering teams, with proven ability to build, scale, and develop high-performing organizations
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
Deep expertise across multiple operational excellence domains: Site Reliability Engineering, Quality Engineering, FinOps/cost optimization, and/or Release Management
Strong understanding of AI-enhanced operational and development tools and their strategic application
Demonstrated success establishing operational excellence frameworks, KPIs, and governance models at scale
Experience with modern operational tooling ecosystems including monitoring and observability platforms (NewRelic, Datadog, Splunk), quality tools (SonarQube, test automation), cost management tools (AWS Cost Explorer, FinOps platforms), and CI/CD systems
Track record driving measurable improvements in DORA metrics, MTTR, incident reduction, deployment frequency, and operational costs
Proven ability to influence without authority and drive organizational change across engineering teams
Strong business acumen with experience building budgets, business cases, and ROI models for operational investments
Excellent communication and executive presence, with ability to translate operational complexity into business impact

Nice To Haves

Experience building or scaling centralized operational excellence, SRE, or platform engineering organizations from the ground up
Background in both product engineering and operational roles, bringing empathy for developer experience
Deep expertise in cloud architecture and AWS operational best practices
Experience with large-scale incident management, crisis response, and operational resilience programs
Knowledge of chaos engineering frameworks and resilience testing methodologies
Familiarity with developer productivity measurement and engineering effectiveness frameworks
Technical certifications in SRE, cloud architecture, or operational excellence domains
Experience working in high-growth technology companies or digital marketplace platforms
Track record publishing thought leadership on operational excellence, SRE practices, or engineering effectiveness

Responsibilities

Build and lead the Operations Excellence organization, scaling teams across Platform Reliability Engineering, Quality Engineering Operations, Financial Operations, and Release & Change Operations
Recruit, develop, and retain top engineering and operations talent while fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and operational discipline
Establish team structures, roles, and responsibilities that balance centralized expertise with embedded support models
Integrate existing Realtor.com employees strategically into the new organization, leveraging institutional knowledge while establishing new operational standards
Create career development frameworks and technical growth paths for operational excellence team members
Drive cultural transformation around operational excellence, making reliability, quality, and efficiency core engineering values
Define and communicate the long-term vision and strategy for operational excellence across reliability, quality, cost optimization, and release management
Establish operational excellence frameworks aligned with industry best practices including SRE principles, DORA metrics, FinOps methodologies, and quality engineering standards
Set strategic priorities and investment roadmaps across all operational excellence domains
Partner with executive leadership to align operational excellence initiatives with business objectives and technology strategy
Drive the integration of AI-augmented operational tools and developer productivity enhancements into operational workflows
Influence engineering and product roadmaps to prioritize operational health, reliability improvements, and technical debt reduction
Own operational KPIs and SLAs across site reliability, quality metrics, cloud cost efficiency, and release management performance
Drive measurable improvements in MTTR, change failure rates, incident reduction, deployment frequency, and cost optimization targets
Establish governance models and operational review cadences with engineering leadership to maintain visibility and accountability
Build and maintain operational dashboards, scorecards, and reporting systems that provide real-time visibility into operational health
Lead incident response coordination, blameless postmortems, and systemic reliability improvement initiatives
Oversee implementation of operational tooling ecosystems including monitoring platforms, quality tools, cost management systems, and CI/CD pipelines
Champion chaos engineering, resilience testing, and proactive operational readiness practices
Partner with Platform Engineering, Infrastructure, Security, and product teams to embed operational excellence practices into development workflows
Collaborate with engineering leadership to drive adoption of paved path platforms, standardized tooling, and operational best practices
Serve as the voice of operational excellence in technology leadership forums, advocating for operational investments and architectural improvements
Build strong relationships with product portfolio leaders to understand domain-specific operational challenges and tailor support accordingly
Work closely with Developer Productivity and AI Initiatives teams to integrate operational excellence with broader engineering productivity goals
Engage with vendor partners and industry peers to stay current on operational excellence trends and emerging practices
Own budget planning and resource allocation across the Operations Excellence organization
Build business cases and secure funding for operational excellence initiatives, tooling investments, and headcount growth
Drive cloud cost optimization initiatives, working with FinOps team to reduce AWS spend while maintaining reliability and performance
Demonstrate ROI on operational excellence investments through metrics on incident reduction, deployment velocity, quality improvements, and cost savings
Manage vendor relationships and contract negotiations for operational tooling and services