Vice President, Cloud Operations

WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.•Miami, FL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

WatchGuard is seeking an experienced Vice President of Cloud Operations to lead its global cloud and infrastructure operations organization. The role is accountable for reliability, scalability, security, operational efficiency, and cost effectiveness across platforms supporting the business and SaaS products. The successful candidate will have led global-scale cloud and hybrid environments in a SaaS or cloud-based software company and will partner with Product, R&D, Finance, Security, and business leadership to scale platforms, improve customer experience, and strengthen cloud unit economics. The Vice President will lead global cloud, infrastructure, and platform operations; establish operational practices; and drive automation and engineering-led operations. The role will align infrastructure strategy with product roadmaps, influence product architecture, and define operational and economic metrics. It will own the FinOps strategy and model, improve product-level cost visibility and gross margins, and lead cloud operations activities for mergers and acquisitions. The position also develops and executes a multi-year strategy, manages budgets and investment planning, and provides executive visibility into reliability, operational risk, cloud consumption, costs, capacity, and investment needs. The preferred location is the Miami office; the Seattle office is also an option. Both locations are onsite. WatchGuard describes itself as a global network security and intelligence company, headquartered in Seattle, with employees working remotely and in offices worldwide. The company emphasizes customer focus and its values of Accountability, Community, Belonging, Action, Innovation, and Customer-Centric. WatchGuard is an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.

Requirements

Significant leadership experience in Cloud Operations, Cloud Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or Infrastructure Operations, including global teams.
Prior leadership experience in a SaaS or cloud-based software company.
Deep experience operating large-scale public cloud environments, preferably AWS and/or Microsoft Azure, as well as hybrid infrastructure.
Strong experience with FinOps, cloud financial management, COGS optimization, and product-level cloud economics.
Proven ability to partner with senior Product and R&D/Engineering leaders and influence architecture decisions.
Experience managing infrastructure budgets and delivering measurable cost and efficiency outcomes.
Experience supporting technology integration through M&A.
Strong knowledge of cloud architecture, SRE, DevOps, observability, automation, reliability engineering, disaster recovery, and operational security.
Strong business acumen, executive communication, and stakeholder-management skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting cybersecurity or other mission-critical SaaS products.
Experience implementing product cost allocation, unit economics, forecasting, and cloud cost targets.
Experience transforming traditional infrastructure organizations toward cloud-native, SRE, platform engineering, and automation-driven models.
Experience integrating geographically distributed teams and platforms following acquisitions.

Responsibilities

Lead global Cloud Operations, infrastructure, platform operations, and related capabilities across cloud and hybrid environments.
Ensure platforms are highly available, resilient, secure, scalable, and cost effective.
Establish practices for service levels, observability, incident management, capacity planning, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
Drive automation and engineering-led operations to reduce manual work and operational risk.
Partner with Product and R&D leaders to align infrastructure strategy with product roadmaps and business priorities.
Influence architecture and product decisions so scalability, reliability, security, and cost efficiency are designed into products.
Define operational and economic metrics for cloud-based products and services.
Own and mature the FinOps strategy and operating model, establishing accountability for cloud consumption and product economics.
Develop product-level infrastructure cost, COGS, and unit-cost visibility.
Partner with Product, R&D, and Finance to set cost targets and execute optimization roadmaps.
Improve gross margins through architecture, capacity, cloud commitments, storage, compute, networking, licensing, and process optimization without compromising customer experience.
Lead and develop a globally distributed organization with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and effective collaboration across regions and time zones.
Attract, develop, and retain cloud, platform, infrastructure, and FinOps talent.
Lead Cloud Operations activities for mergers and acquisitions, including assessment, integration planning, platform consolidation, and cost optimization.
Drive modernization, standardization, and simplification while reducing technical debt and operational complexity.
Develop and execute a multi-year Cloud Operations strategy aligned with WatchGuard’s product and business strategy.
Manage cloud and infrastructure budgets through forecasting, capacity planning, and investment discipline.
Provide executive visibility into reliability, operational risk, cloud consumption, COGS, capacity, and investment needs.
Partner with the CIO and technology leadership team on broader transformation priorities.