VP of Engineering, Reliability & Quality

NetApp, Inc.

7d•$323,000 - $418,000

About The Position

The VP of Engineering, Reliability & Quality owns Escalations, Release Engineering, and System Test, with direct leadership of an organization of roughly 300 engineers. The role also defines and drives NetApp’s organization-wide quality motion—including standards, gates, metrics, and processes—across engineering teams beyond the reporting line. It combines authority over release gates and escalation resolution with influence to raise quality standards across the organization. The position is based in San Jose, California, which is strongly preferred. Remote candidates may be considered, but the leader is expected to spend meaningful time in San Jose because the senior leadership team is based there. The role reports to the SVP of Platform Engineering and contributes to executive technical strategy and release planning.

Requirements

15+ years of engineering leadership in infrastructure or systems software.
8+ years leading multiple layers of engineering management.
A track record of 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.
A track record of driving adoption of standards or metrics across engineering teams outside the reporting line.
Excellent executive communication skills, including the ability to clearly represent 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.
A leadership style grounded in developing others rather than positional authority.

Responsibilities

Own the executive escalation process end to end: triage high-severity customer-impacting issues, drive resolution, and communicate status in partnership with engineering teams, Support, and field organizations.
Lead release engineering, including build, packaging, qualification, and release gating, using release gates to enforce quality standards across engineering.
Lead system testing, including integration, performance and scale, longevity, and customer-specific testing.
Define and evolve NetApp’s organization-wide quality motion, including standards, metrics, and processes that hold engineering leadership accountable.
Drive root-cause analysis and systemic prevention programs so recurring failure patterns inform engineering practices.
Own 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 closely with Support, Product Management, and peer engineering leaders to maintain coherent quality standards across the customer-facing lifecycle.
Provide quality and risk perspectives on major releases and roadmap decisions, and participate in executive technical strategy and release planning.