Sr. Director, Technology Operations & Retail Technology

Planet Fitness • Boston, MA

8d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Sr. Director, Technology Operations & Retail Technology is a senior leadership role responsible for the strategic direction, operational excellence, and delivery of two critical technology domains: Technology Operations / Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and Retail Technology. This leader ensures the reliability, performance, and innovation of enterprise systems while driving technology capabilities across fitness club locations. The role requires a hands-on, results-oriented executive who thrives in a fast-paced, franchise-oriented environment and can translate complex technology strategy into practical, field-level outcomes.
This role follows a hybrid schedule and requires regular, in-person work at our Hampton, NH office or future Boston, MA office. Our hybrid model is M/T/W in office and TH/F are optional work-from-home. Candidates must reside within commuting distance of our office. Fully remote work is not available for this role.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field; advanced degree a plus
• 10+ years of progressive technology leadership experience, with at 3 years managing multi-functional teams at the Director level or above preferred
• 5+ years of demonstrated accountability and experience managing technology budget planning in a publicly traded company
• 5+ years of experience with vendor management and contract management at a publicly traded company demonstrating experience in contracts exceeding $2MM
• Demonstrated experience leading Technology Operations, SRE, or retail infrastructure teams in a high-availability environment
• Proven track record managing retail, field, or distributed technology programs — preferably in a franchise, hospitality, or multi-location retail environment
• Strong working knowledge of SRE principles, ITIL frameworks, incident and change management, and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Excellent executive communication skills with the ability to present complex technical topics to non-technical stakeholders and franchise partners
• Ability to lead through influence across matrixed teams and franchise structures
• Extremely detail-oriented, efficient, and organized with an exceptional ability to establish priorities and objectives
• Exceptional presentation and communication skills along with the ability to communicate effectively across all levels of the organization, including executives
• Able to establish and maintain effective, collaborative work relationships with diverse individuals, internally and externally
• Creative, progressive, thought leadership with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization
• Excellent leadership skills including the ability to build teams, motivate, guide, and mentor
• Possess a results-driven entrepreneurial mindset, demonstrating initiative and creativity
• Demonstrated strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, and organizational leadership skills
• Exhibits comfort, ease, and flexibility working in an extremely fast-paced ever-changing, deadline-driven environment
• Cooperative team player with an upbeat, positive, “can-do” attitude!
• Ability to work off-hours and provide on-call support as needed

Nice To Haves

• Experience in a fitness, wellness, or consumer facing retail industry, a plus
• Familiarity with PCI DSS compliance requirements in a retail or point-of-sale environment, preferred
• ITIL, SRE, or cloud certifications (e.g., AWS Solutions Architect, Google Cloud Professional)
• Experience managing technology through organizational scaling or M&A integration events

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop two high-performing teams across Technology Operations/SRE and Retail Technology disciplines.
• Define and execute a multi-year technology roadmap aligned to organizational growth, operational scalability, and franchisee experience goals.
• Serve as a key technology advisor to the VP of Technology and Executive Leadership Team on operational risk, infrastructure strategy, and retail technology initiatives.
• Build a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence across both teams.
• Establish and enforce SLAs, SLOs, and error budgets across critical platforms and services.
• Drive incident management maturity including blameless post-mortems, root cause analysis, and systemic remediation.
• Oversee infrastructure modernization efforts including cloud adoption, automation, and platform reliability improvements.
• Maintain rigorous change management discipline to minimize production risk while enabling delivery velocity.
• Partner with Security and Compliance teams to ensure infrastructure meets regulatory and policy requirements.
• Oversee the lifecycle management of all in-club technology including POS, access control, networking, and digital experience systems.
• Develop and maintain standardized technology deployment playbooks for new club openings, remodels, and franchisee onboarding.
• Partner with club operations leadership and franchisees to understand field-level needs and translate them into scalable technology solutions.
• Manage vendor relationships and contracts for retail technology platforms and field support services.
• Ensure technology environments in all club locations meet security, compliance, and operational standards.
• Own department budgets for both teams, including capital planning, vendor spend, and headcount.
• Communicate technology performance, risk, and investment priorities clearly to executive and franchise stakeholders.
• Collaborate with product, development, and security teams to ensure seamless delivery of technology initiatives.
• Represent technology operations in enterprise risk, audit, and compliance forums as needed.

Benefits

• Planet Fitness cares about you and your well-being. We offer a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees which includes the core medical, dental, vision, life and disability as well as supplemental accident, hospital and critical illness coverage options.
• In addition, we are proud to offer eligible employees a generous time off program (including volunteer time), childcare reimbursement, paid parental leave, pet care reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, free Black Card membership, learning and development programs and a whole host of engagement activities.
• We offer a 401(k) Plan with safe harbor employer matching and an employee stock purchase plan.
• This role is also eligible to participate in an annual corporate bonus incentive program based on company financial and personal performance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees