Director of Platform Engineering & Operations

NetApp, Inc.

8d

About The Position

NetApp is seeking a strategic and execution-oriented Director of Platform Engineering & Operations to lead a global organization responsible for enterprise compute, storage, and DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) services across on-premises and cloud environments.
Based in RTP, this leader will oversee a globally distributed team across Bangalore, San Jose, RTP, and other key sites. The role carries full lifecycle accountability across platform engineering and 24x7 operations, with a strong emphasis on modern infrastructure management practices, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD-driven infrastructure delivery, AI-Ops enablement, and enterprise-scale automation.
This leader will play a critical role in transforming and scaling NetApp’s internal infrastructure platforms to be resilient, secure, automated, and cloud-forward.

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) Enterprise storage technologies (block, file, object, hybrid architectures) 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.

Nice To Haves

• 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
• Strategic thinker with strong execution discipline
• Data-driven decision maker
• Change agent with transformation experience
• Collaborative cross-functional partner
• Talent builder and culture champion
• Customer-first mindset

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.

Benefits

• Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package.
• This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s).
• These offerings are subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies.
• We will provide detailed information about the specific benefits for your region during the recruitment process.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director