Senior Director, Cloud and AI Platforms

About the role

The Senior Director, Cloud and AI Platforms leads the strategy, architecture, and enablement of the enterprise cloud and AI platform ecosystem. This role partners across product, security, data, and application teams to deliver secure, reliable, scalable cloud capabilities and AI platform capabilities that accelerate delivery and improve business outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Set and communicate the vision, operating model, and multi-year roadmap for Multi cloud & AI Platforms aligned to enterprise strategy.
• Lead cloud architecture team delivering the foundation for core cloud services (landing zones, identity, networking, compute, storage, Kubernetes, service mesh) with architectures designed to meet SLOs and reliability practices.
• Own the developer enablement strategy, including CI/CD patterns, infrastructure-as-code, golden paths, templates, and self-service automation.
• Establish scalable observability and DR architecture: monitoring, logging, tracing, and disaster recovery tools & design.
• Define and evolve the enterprise AI platform architecture, including AI landing zones, model serving patterns, RAG architectures, vector search integration, prompt management, evaluation, and guardrails.
• Define GenAIOps standards including reproducibility, automated testing, model/prompt evaluation, and release governance.
• Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance to embed security-by-design, policy-as-code, data protection, and responsible AI controls (privacy, fairness, explainability, auditability).
• Drive cloud financial management (FinOps): cost visibility, unit economics, budgeting, chargeback/showback, optimization, and vendor management.
• Define platform standards and reference architectures, influence application modernization and AI adoption across business units.
• Manage and develop leaders: hiring, performance management, coaching, succession planning, and creating a high-trust, high-accountability culture.
• Measure and improve platform outcomes using KPIs (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, MTTR, SLO attainment, cost per workload, AI time-to-value).
• Represent the platform organization in executive forums; provide clear updates on progress, risks, and tradeoffs.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in cloud architecture, platform engineering, infrastructure modernization, or containerization, with a strong foundation in related technologies.
• Includes at least 5+ years leading managers and multi-team organizations.
• Proven experience building and operating enterprise cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, and/or GCP) at scale, including networking, security, and governance.
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes and container platforms; infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Bicep/ARM, CloudFormation), and modern CI/CD practices.
• Hands-on understanding of AI/ML and generative AI platform needs (model lifecycle, serving, evaluation, vector databases, RAG architectures, AI cost management).
• Experience implementing security-by-design and compliance controls in regulated environments (e.g., SOC2, ISO 27001, PCI, HIPAA—as applicable).
• Strong executive communication skills with ability to translate technical tradeoffs into business impact.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience establishing an internal developer platform (IDP) and product management mindset for platform teams.
• Experience with enterprise IAM patterns, zero trust architectures, secrets management, and policy-as-code (e.g., OPA/Gatekeeper).
• Experience with data platforms and governance (lakehouse/warehouse, data catalog, lineage) and their integration with AI/ML workflows.
• Familiarity with major AI platforms and tooling (e.g., Azure AI, SageMaker, Vertex AI, Databricks, Snowflake, OpenAI) and evaluation/guardrail frameworks.
• Master’s degree (MS/PhD) in a relevant field or MBA with strong technical background.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic thinking with bias for execution; can set direction while delivering measurable outcomes.
• Customer-centric platform leadership treats internal engineering teams as customers and designs for usability and adoption.
• Operational excellence: builds repeatable processes, clear accountability, and resilient systems.
• Talent builder: hires and develops leaders; fosters inclusive, high-performing teams.
• Clear, concise communication; comfortable presenting to executives and technical audiences.

What we offer

• 401(k) plan with a generous company match and an automatic retirement contribution for your future financial security from day one of your employment.
• Comprehensive medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage.
• Three weeks of paid vacation, along with paid company holidays.
• Paid sick leave, employee assistance, and wellness incentive programs to support your well-being.
• Life insurance and disability coverage to protect you and your family.
• Voluntary benefits, including options for legal, pet, home, and auto insurance.
• Opportunities for birth/adoption and parental leave benefits, as well as adoption assistance.
• Tuition reimbursement program.
• Spot performance bonus opportunities to show our appreciation.

Pay

The salary range for this role is $198,000 to $298,000. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may change in the future. Pay within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

Schedule

This role requires the candidate to be in the office in Farmington, CT three times a week.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage.
• Three weeks of paid vacation, along with paid company holidays.
• Paid sick leave, employee assistance, and wellness incentive programs to support your well-being.
• Life insurance and disability coverage to protect you and your family.
• Voluntary benefits, including options for legal, pet, home, and auto insurance.
• Opportunities for birth/adoption and parental leave benefits, as well as adoption assistance.
• Tuition reimbursement program.
• Spot performance bonus opportunities to show our appreciation.