Senior Director, Network Development

Oracle•Nashville, TN

5d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Director Network Development will lead engineering teams responsible for the operational excellence, reliability, and continuous improvement of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s global physical network. Reporting to the Vice President of Engineering, this leader will play a critical role in ensuring OCI’s datacenter and backbone networks operate at hyperscale with the resiliency, performance, security, and availability required by Oracle’s cloud customers. This is a senior technology leadership role requiring deep physical networking expertise, strong operational judgment, hyperscale infrastructure experience, and the ability to lead globally distributed teams. The Senior Director will be responsible for driving network operations, production readiness, incident response, change management, observability, capacity health, lifecycle management, and continuous service improvement across OCI’s global network footprint. The role spans physical network operations, backbone and transport reliability, interconnection readiness, hardware lifecycle execution, automation, monitoring, capacity planning, vendor coordination, and operational governance. This leader will work closely with Architecture, Product, Operations, SRE, Security, Data Center, Supply Chain, and executive stakeholders to ensure OCI delivers secure, reliable, high-performance connectivity for enterprise, AI, HPC, multicloud, and cloud-native workloads.

Requirements

Deep physical networking expertise
Strong operational judgment
Hyperscale infrastructure experience
Ability to lead globally distributed teams
Experience with network operations, production readiness, incident response, change management, observability, capacity health, lifecycle management, and continuous service improvement
Experience with physical network operations, backbone and transport reliability, interconnection readiness, hardware lifecycle execution, automation, monitoring, capacity planning, vendor coordination, and operational governance
Experience working closely with Architecture, Product, Operations, SRE, Security, Data Center, Supply Chain, and executive stakeholders
Experience in defining and governing multi-year architecture and design standards
Experience sponsoring transformational programs (e.g., SDN/intent-based networking, zero-trust segmentation)
Experience establishing enterprise validation strategy for new architectures, hardware/firmware, and software at scale
Experience aligning network roadmap with product and platform strategies
Experience setting group strategy for network automation frameworks, pipelines, and “policy as code”
Experience prioritizing automation investments
Experience ensuring secure-by-design automation practices
Experience owning group wide test strategy and acceptance criteria
Experience institutionalizing quality gates and change readiness reviews
Experience running governance forums
Experience defining network health strategy, SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets
Experience leading executive-level incident management
Experience driving resiliency investments
Experience aligning network strategy with Cloud/Infra, SRE, Security, Product, and Finance
Experience building leadership capacity through coaching, succession planning, and inclusive practices
Experience owning strategic vendor relationships and contract negotiations
Experience governing capacity planning and forecasting models
Experience setting performance targets and optimization strategies
Experience balancing cost, performance, and resiliency trade-offs
Experience providing strategic oversight on the management and execution of large-scale projects or initiatives
Experience setting strategies for appropriately delegating work, setting priorities, and aligning projects with business needs
Experience driving the strategic planning process across teams
Experience setting a strategic direction for collaborating with cross-functional teams
Experience driving a culture of teamwork
Experience promoting a culture of transparency and inclusivity
Experience developing and implementing strategies for specialized, advanced problem-solving efforts
Experience overseeing teams leveraging innovative techniques to address significant ambiguous issues
Experience championing continuous learning
Experience inspiring teams to build and maintain expertise
Experience contributing to the organization’s strategy for learning and development
Experience driving a culture of continuous improvement
Experience overseeing work to implement large-scale approaches and methods for continued improvement
Experience setting the strategic direction, prioritizing, and approving the roadmap of improvement initiatives
Experience driving and ensuring consistent application of performance management strategies, systems, processes, and guidelines
Experience creating an organizational culture of career development
Experience driving consistency in the application of talent development procedures
Experience partnering with HR and executive leadership to envision and execute a talent management strategy

Responsibilities

Define and govern multi-year architecture and design standards across cloud, data center, WAN, and edge; ensure designs meet resilience, security, and compliance objectives.
Sponsor transformational programs (e.g., SDN/intent-based networking, zero-trust segmentation) and enforce design reviews, configuration baselines, and lifecycle policies across regions.
Establish enterprise validation strategy for new architectures, hardware/firmware, and software at scale; require pre-production proofs, pilot rollouts, and rollback plans.
Align network roadmap with product and platform strategies; balance innovation with reliability, cost, and regulatory constraints.
Set group strategy for network automation frameworks, pipelines, and “policy as code”; standardize reusable modules, guardrails, and CI/CD for network changes.
Prioritize automation investments that reduce toil, increase change velocity, and improve MTTR; track benefits through measurable KPIs and error budget adherence.
Ensure secure-by-design automation practices, including access controls, audit trails, and compliance checkpoints; drive adoption across all regions and teams in group.
Own group wide test strategy and acceptance criteria for configurations, images, and changes; mandate automated regression, canary/blue-green rollouts, and production-safety checks.
Institutionalize quality gates and change readiness reviews; ensure RCAs and corrective actions are systematically integrated into test plans and playbooks.
Run governance forums to assess test coverage, defect escape, and reliability risk; direct group-wide Corrective and Preventive Actions priorities and timelines.
Define network health strategy, SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets across services and regions; enforce consistent telemetry, alerting, and runbook standards.
Lead executive-level incident management for high-severity events; require consistent RCA quality, cross-org learnings, and durable remediation at scale.
Drive resiliency investments (e.g., redundancy, fault isolation, DR exercises); validate business continuity and recovery outcomes against policy and regulatory needs.
Align network strategy with Cloud/Infra, SRE, Security, Product, and Finance; chair architecture and change boards to manage dependencies and risks.
Build leadership capacity through coaching, succession planning, and inclusive practices; set clear expectations for managers and technical leaders across group.
Own strategic vendor relationships and contract negotiations; drive joint roadmaps, performance SLAs, and remediation plans for systemic issues.
Govern capacity planning and forecasting models to meet growth, launches, and expansion; tie plans to budget cycles and supply constraints.
Set performance targets (latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput) and optimization strategies; eliminate hotspots via routing policy, peering, placement, and traffic engineering.
Balance cost, performance, and resiliency trade-offs; implement continuous cost optimization and value tracking for network investments.
Provides strategic oversight on the management and execution of large-scale projects or initiatives, monitoring timelines, deliverables, and budgets when applicable to ensure success. Sets strategies for appropriately delegating work, setting priorities, and aligning projects with business needs. Drives the strategic planning process across teams, providing guidance on resources or timelines in anticipation of changes.
Sets a strategic direction for collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment of expectations and strategic objectives. Drives a culture of teamwork, empowering teams to build and maintain partnerships with business leaders, stakeholders, and/or customers to contribute to organizational success. Promotes a culture of transparency and inclusivity where all voices are valued and respected.
Develops and implements strategies for specialized, advanced problem-solving efforts across the organization, serving as an escalation point for highly complex operational and/or technical issues. Oversees teams leveraging innovative techniques to address significant ambiguous issues, identify root causes, and prevent recurrence, reviewing solutions as needed.
Champions continuous learning to maintain cutting-edge skills and influence organizational best practices. Inspires teams to build and maintain expertise in relevant areas by proactively monitoring emerging trends, technologies, and industry standards to help position the organization as an industry leader. Contributes to the organization’s strategy for learning and development, influencing leadership to foster learning opportunities for the team.
Drives a culture of continuous improvement that sets a standard for efficient and effective processes, protocols, and workflows across the organization. Oversees work to implement large-scale approaches and methods for continued improvement, ensuring changes align with organizational goals. Sets the strategic direction, prioritizes, and approves the roadmap of improvement initiatives to maximize return on investments.
Drives and ensures consistent application of performance management strategies, systems, processes, and guidelines across the organization. Creates an organizational culture of career development that encourages proactively identifying and pursuing career development opportunities, and guiding leaders to support their team's growth. Drives consistency in the application of talent development procedures and socializes performance expectations across the organization. Partners with HR and executive leadership to envision and execute a talent management strategy, balancing budget and talent resources.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance, including expert medical opinion
Short term disability and long term disability
Life insurance and AD&D
Supplemental life insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child)
Health care and dependent care Flexible Spending Accounts
Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits
401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company match
Flexible Vacation
11 paid holidays
72 hours of paid sick leave upon date of hire. Refreshes each calendar year. Unused balance will carry over each year up to a maximum cap of 112 hours.
Paid parental leave
Adoption assistance
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Financial planning and group legal
Voluntary benefits including auto, homeowner and pet insurance