VP of Engineering, Reliability & Quality

NetApp•San Jose, CA

5d•$323,000 - $418,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The VP of Engineering, Reliability & Quality will lead NetApp’s Escalations, Release Engineering, and System Test organizations, comprising roughly 300 engineers. The role also defines and drives an organization-wide quality motion—standards, gates, metrics, and processes that influence how engineering teams build and ship products across ONTAP and adjacent products. The position has direct authority over release gates and escalation resolution, while relying on credibility and influence to raise quality standards across teams outside its reporting line. The leader owns the executive customer-escalation process end to end, release engineering activities including build, packaging, qualification, and release gating, and system testing across integration, performance and scale, longevity, and customer-specific scenarios. They will evolve quality standards and metrics, develop systemic root-cause prevention programs, and oversee CI/CD quality gates and central test infrastructure and tooling. The role includes building and retaining a high-performing, multi-layered leadership team, partnering with Support, Product Management, and engineering peers across the customer lifecycle, and contributing quality and risk perspectives to executive technical strategy, release planning, and roadmap decisions. The role reports to the SVP of Platform Engineering. It is based in San Jose, California, which is strongly preferred; remote candidates may be considered, with meaningful time in San Jose expected. The stated target salary range is $323,000–$418,000, with final compensation dependent on factors including location, qualifications, experience, and education. A comprehensive benefits package is offered, with specific offerings subject to regional variations and local laws and policies.

Requirements

15+ years of engineering leadership in infrastructure or systems software.
8+ years leading multiple layers of engineering management.
Track record owning quality, reliability, escalations, or release engineering at scale for a complex, multi-product platform.
Experience leading large-scale, executive-visibility customer escalations to resolution, including cross-organizational coordination with Support and field teams.
Track record driving adoption of standards or metrics across engineering teams outside the reporting line, through influence as well as authority.
Excellent executive communication skills, including clearly representing quality and risk tradeoffs to senior leadership during release decisions.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Deep familiarity with release engineering practices, including build and release pipelines, qualification gates, and CI/CD for complex systems software.
Experience building or scaling system test organizations covering integration, performance and scale, longevity, or customer-specific testing.
Experience restructuring or right-sizing engineering teams based on evidence rather than assumption.
A leadership style grounded in developing others rather than positional authority.
Ability and willingness to spend meaningful time in San Jose; remote candidates may be considered.

Responsibilities

Lead the executive escalation process end to end, including triage, driving resolution of high-severity customer-impacting issues, and communicating status in partnership with engineering teams, Support, and field organizations.
Own release engineering, including build, packaging, qualification, and release gating, and use release gates to enforce quality standards across engineering.
Lead system testing, including integration, performance and scale, longevity, and customer-specific testing that validates products beyond developer-owned unit and functional testing.
Define and evolve the organization-wide quality motion, including standards, metrics, and processes that hold engineering leadership accountable.
Develop root-cause analysis and systemic prevention programs so recurring failure patterns inform engineering practices rather than receiving only one-off fixes.
Oversee CI/CD quality gates and the central test infrastructure and tooling used by System Test to validate releases across engineering organizations.
Build, develop, and retain a high-performing, multi-layered engineering leadership team across Escalations, Release Engineering, and System Test, with attention to sustainable team health.
Partner with Support, Product Management, and peer engineering leaders to maintain coherent quality standards across the customer lifecycle, from pre-release qualification through post-release escalation.
Contribute to executive technical strategy and release planning by providing quality and risk perspectives on major releases and roadmap decisions.
Spend meaningful time in San Jose, California, where the senior leadership team is based.