“Pay scale information is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any selected candidate or employee, which is always dependent on actual experience, education, qualifications, and other factors.  A full review of our comprehensive pay and benefits will be discussed at the offer stage with the selected candidate.”

This position is not eligible for Sponsorship.

Summary

The Director, Data Center Operation is responsible for strategic leadership, operational excellence, security, reliability, and continuous improvement of the organization's enterprise infrastructure platform. This role oversees on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, network engineering, telecommunications, cloud-connected infrastructure, and enterprise release management processes.

The Director leads multidisciplinary teams responsible for data center operations, network architecture and engineering, infrastructure automation, release governance, and service delivery. This position ensures highly available, secure, scalable, and resilient technology services that support business-critical operations while aligning infrastructure strategy with organizational objectives, regulatory requirements, and digital transformation initiatives.

The role serves as a key technology leader responsible for infrastructure modernization, operational stability, disaster recovery readiness, network resiliency, change management, release execution, vendor management, and budget oversight. The Director partners closely with application development, cybersecurity, cloud engineering, product teams, PMO, and business stakeholders to ensure successful delivery of technology initiatives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

• Infrastructure Strategy & Leadership

• Develop and execute infrastructure, network, and release management strategies aligned with business priorities.

• Lead modernization initiatives across on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, networking, virtualization, automation, and cloud integration.

• Establish infrastructure standards, governance models, operating procedures, and technology roadmaps.

• Drive continuous improvement in service availability, operational efficiency, reliability, and customer satisfaction.

• Build, mentor, and lead high-performing infrastructure and operations teams.

• Data Center Operations

• Provide strategic oversight of all enterprise data center operations, including owned, colocation, and disaster recovery facilities.

• Ensure availability, performance, security, capacity, environmental controls, and lifecycle management of data center infrastructure.

• Lead capacity planning, hardware refresh programs, infrastructure optimization, and data center consolidation initiatives.

• Oversee server, storage, backup, virtualization, and infrastructure support teams.

• Maintain disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities through regular testing and preparedness exercises.

• Ensure compliance with regulatory, security, and operational standards.

• Network Engineering & Architecture

• Lead architecture, engineering, implementation, and lifecycle management of enterprise LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, wireless, data center networking, internet connectivity, and cloud networking.

• Provide leadership for network security technologies including firewalls, VPNs, IDS/IPS, DDoS protection, NAC, and segmentation strategies.

• Establish network reliability, redundancy, resiliency, and performance standards.

• Drive adoption of automation, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and self-healing technologies.

• Partner with Information Security to ensure infrastructure and network security compliance.

• Manage telecommunications, carrier relationships, network contracts, and service providers.

• Release Management & Change Governance

• Establish enterprise release management strategy, governance, standards, and operating procedures.

• Lead processes governing deployment of infrastructure, application, cloud, and network changes into production environments.

• Chair or oversee Change Advisory Board (CAB) activities and release approval processes.

• Ensure release scheduling, dependency management, rollback planning, risk mitigation, and production readiness assessments.

• Coordinate successful execution of enterprise releases across multiple technology teams.

• Implement release automation and DevOps practices to improve deployment speed, quality, and reliability.

• Develop KPIs related to release success rates, failed changes, release velocity, and deployment quality.

• Operational Excellence

• Establish and monitor KPIs, SLAs, SLOs, and operational performance metrics.

• Lead incident, problem, and major outage management processes.

• Drive root cause analysis and remediation efforts for critical infrastructure incidents.

• Ensure 24x7 operational support models and escalation procedures are effective.

• Promote automation and operational efficiency initiatives to reduce manual effort and operational risk.

• Vendor & Financial Management

• Develop and manage infrastructure, networking, telecommunications, and operations budgets.

• Negotiate contracts, renewals, licensing agreements, and managed services engagements.

• Evaluate technology investments and business cases.

• Manage vendor performance against contractual obligations and service-level commitments.

• Identify cost optimization opportunities across infrastructure and operations environments.

• Security, Risk & Compliance

• Partner with cybersecurity teams to implement secure infrastructure and network architecture.

• Ensure compliance with healthcare, privacy, security, and regulatory requirements.

• Manage risk assessments, vulnerability remediation programs, and audit support activities.

• Lead disaster recovery, resilience, and business continuity planning efforts.

Supervisory Responsibilities        

Manages assigned staff in the segment area. Responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the unit. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees; addressing complaints and resolving problems. Supports and enforces all company policies and procedures in a fair and consistent manner, taking corrective action whenever necessary.

Client Responsibilities

This is an internal and external client facing position that requires excellent customer service skills and interpersonal communication skills (listening/verbal/written). One must be able to; manage difficult or emotional client situations; Respond promptly to client needs; Solicit client feedback to improve service; Respond to requests for service and assistance from clients; Meet commitments to clients.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience

BA/BS Degree or equivalent; plus 10 years’ related experience; 10 years of SME in respective area(s); (or equivalent combination of education and experience); and 8 years supervisory experience; Supervisory experience may be substituted with 10 years of MedImpact experience plus an appropriate external leadership training program and internal mentorship with a seasoned leader at the Director level or above that must be  completed within 12 months in new position.    

Computer Skills

• Network Architecture (LAN/WAN/SD-WAN) • ITIL Frameworks

• Cloud Platforms (Azure preferred) • Infrastructure Automation

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

• ITIL 4 Foundation or higher preferred.

• Microsoft Azure, AWS, or equivalent cloud platform certification preferred.

• CCNP, CCIE, or equivalent enterprise networking certification preferred.

• CISSP, CISM, or other information security certification preferred.

• PMP, Agile, SAFe, or DevOps-related certifications preferred.

• Additional certifications in disaster recovery, business continuity, or infrastructure operations are a plus.

Other Skills and Abilities

• Enterprise Data Centers

• Colocation Facilities

• Release Management and Change Control Processes

• DeveOps and CI/CD Platforms

• ITIL Framworks

• Cisco, Palo Alto, F5, Fortinet, or similar platforms

• Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

• Infrastructure Automation

• VMware and Virtualization Technologies

• Monitoring and Observability Platforms

• Storage and Backup Technologies

• Cybersecurity Principles and Controls

• Demonstrated experience leading complex on-premises and hybrid infrastructure environments.

• Experience with data center management, network architecture, release governance, and IT service management.

• Experience in healthcare, regulated industries, or highly available enterprise environments preferred.

Reasoning Ability

• Ability to apply principles of logical or scientific thinking to a wide range of intellectual and practical problems. 

Mathematical Skills

• Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions to practical situations.

Language Skills    

• Ability to effectively present information to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors.

Competencies To perform the job successfully, an individual should demonstrate the following competencies:

Business Acumen

Directing Others

Organizational Agility

Conflict Management

Drive for Results

Political Savvy

Customer Focus

Innovation Management

Strategic Agility

Decision Quality

Managerial Courage

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear. The employee is regularly required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Ability to maintain clear near visual acuity at approximately 20 inches or less (i.e., “close vision”) to accurately read fine print, view computer screens, and handle small objects. Requires adequate color vision and depth perception to support safety and precision in detail-oriented tasks.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

This position may regularly be exposed to or encounter moving mechanical parts, high, precarious places, fumes, or airborne particles, toxic or caustic chemicals, outdoor weather conditions, risk of electrical shock or vibration. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate (examples: business office with computers and printers, light traffic).

Work Location

This position must work on-site at the San Diego Headquarters for purposes of providing adequate support to internal clients; being available for face-to-face interactions and coordination of work