Vice President, Infrastructure Engineering

Delta Dental•Oakland, CA

5h•$211,393 - $338,249•Hybrid

About The Position

The Vice President, Infrastructure & Engineering provides executive leadership for the strategy, design, delivery, operation, and continuous improvement of enterprise infrastructure and technology operations. The role leads infrastructure engineering, platform engineering, cloud operations, digital workplace services, service management and design, production and support operations, and technology operations with an end-to-end systems perspective. This leader establishes multi-year priorities, service-level objectives, operating standards, and investment roadmaps that advance reliability, security, operational resilience, automation, scalability, cost effectiveness, and the employee and developer experience while aligning infrastructure decisions to enterprise business risk and value. This role will require you to be onsite at least 3 days per week.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Business, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
16+ years of progressively responsible technology experience, including 10+ years of supervisory or senior leadership experience.
Demonstrated experience leading complex enterprise infrastructure, engineering, cloud, platform, or technology operations functions.
Executive-level knowledge of enterprise infrastructure and technology operations strategy, architecture, engineering, service delivery, and modernization, with the systems thinking to understand dependencies across networks, cloud, security, platforms, applications, and workplace services.
Demonstrated reliability and operational-excellence discipline, including SLOs and SLAs, observability, incident and problem management, blameless postmortems, service improvement, and calm, transparent leadership during high-severity events.
Expertise in operational resilience, disaster recovery, business continuity, capacity and scalability planning, change and release management, risk-based controls, and balancing stability with the pace of delivery.
Knowledge of cloud platforms, platform engineering, DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, container technologies, automation and orchestration, self-service capabilities, and approaches that reduce manual toil and improve consistency.
Strong financial acumen and cost discipline, including portfolio and budget planning, cloud and infrastructure cost governance, licensing and capacity optimization, vendor and contract management, material escalation, and build-versus-buy analysis.
Ability to embed security and applicable compliance considerations into infrastructure strategy, architecture, engineering, change, and operational practices in partnership with risk and control stakeholders.
Ability to communicate a compelling technology vision, frame infrastructure investment in terms of business risk and value, set enterprise priorities, influence decisions without direct authority, and align stakeholders across technology and business functions.
Ability to build leadership capability, mentor technical talent, sustain resilient on-call teams, create accountability and psychological safety, and foster an inclusive, collaborative culture of learning and continuous improvement.
Discipline in operational documentation and knowledge management, including usable runbooks, architecture diagrams, change records, service ownership information, and practices that reduce dependency on individual knowledge.
Sound judgment in ambiguous, high-impact situations and the ability to evaluate trade-offs among reliability, security, speed, cost, scalability, compliance considerations, customer needs, and business outcomes.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in a related field is preferred.
Relevant cloud, infrastructure, service management, security, continuity, or program leadership certifications are preferred and nice to have.

Responsibilities

Establish and execute the enterprise infrastructure and engineering strategy, operating model, roadmaps, standards, capacity plans, and investment priorities in alignment with business growth, risk tolerance, and technology objectives.
Provide executive leadership across infrastructure engineering, platform engineering, cloud operations, digital workplace services, service management and design, production and support operations, and technology operations, applying end-to-end systems thinking across infrastructure, network, security, application, and cloud dependencies.
Own operational excellence for critical services by establishing meaningful SLOs, SLAs, service-performance measures, observability, and incident and problem management practices; lead calmly through high-severity events with clear stakeholder communication, timely escalation, and accountable follow-through.
Lead the design, delivery, operation, and continuous improvement of secure, resilient, and scalable enterprise infrastructure, infrastructure applications, next-generation platforms, and production support capabilities; embed security and applicable control requirements into architecture, engineering, and operating decisions.
Drive infrastructure modernization through cloud and container platforms, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, automation and orchestration, self-service and self-healing capabilities, tooling consolidation, and reduction of manual operational toil to improve consistency, speed, and developer experience.
Oversee enterprise disaster recovery and technology continuity capabilities, including critical-service prioritization, recovery objectives, architecture, documentation, and recurring tests and exercises that identify gaps and drive measurable improvement.
Establish governance for capacity, asset and lifecycle management, service performance, change and release management, vendor risk, operational controls, runbooks, architecture documentation, change records, and knowledge management; balance the pace of change with reliability and stability.
Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Application Delivery, Cyber Risk Management, Data and Analytics, Product, Procurement, Finance, and business leaders to align cross-stack decisions, standards, investments, build-versus-buy choices, delivery priorities, and risk acceptance where authority is shared.
Lead financial and resource stewardship for the function, including portfolio prioritization, budget planning, cloud and infrastructure cost governance, capacity and licensing optimization, vendor strategy, contract performance, and material vendor escalations, without compromising required reliability or security.
Build a high-performing and resilient leadership organization through workforce and succession planning, talent development, sustainable on-call practices, performance accountability, psychological safety, and a blameless postmortem culture that converts failures into shared learning and durable corrective action.
Communicate infrastructure strategy, priorities, risks, service performance, incident impacts, trade-offs, and investment needs to executive stakeholders and governance forums, framing recommendations in terms of business continuity, customer and employee outcomes, risk reduction, and enterprise value while monitoring relevant market and technology trends.

Benefits

Competitive base and incentive pay
401(k) with robust matching and non-matching contributions
Rich medical & pharmacy benefits
100% employer-paid dental and vision benefits
Holistic wellbeing program with deep financial incentives
Generous paid time off plus 12 paid holidays and your birthday off
Culture of growth and learning: career development; tuition reimbursement; recognition program
Family support: adoption assistance, fertility treatment, child, elder & pet care assistance
Social responsibility and volunteer opportunities
Employee discount program