ESN Associate Program Leader (APL) - Platform and Infrastructure - ACTIVE SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED

LLNL$227K — $288K *
Aerospace & Defense
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Active DOE Q-level clearance or equivalent Top-Secret clearance required at hire.
  • Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience.
  • Expertise in leading large technical organizations in enterprise IT infrastructure under minimal guidance.
  • Proficient in modern VDI architectures and hybrid cloud integration.
  • Strong background in enterprise IT vendor management and strategic partnerships.

Responsibilities

  • Lead modernization strategies by collaborating with ESN leadership and architecture.
  • Oversee ESN Platform and Infrastructure, focusing on interoperability with stakeholders.
  • Direct infrastructure operations through team empowerment and delegation.
  • Drive transformational changes for operational excellence and resource alignment.
  • Serve as the strategic visionary for the evolution of infrastructure services.
  • Manage strategic planning for budgets and workforce development.
  • Guide vendor relationships and contract negotiations ensuring effective performance.

Benefits

  • Hybrid work schedule with flexibility to work from home one day per week.
  • Opportunities for professional development and career advancement.
  • Engagement in innovative projects focusing on cutting-edge technology.
  • Collaborative work environment promoting teamwork and strategic partnerships.
Full Job Description
We have an opening for an **Enterprise Secure Network (ESN) Associate Program Leader (APL) - Platform and Infrastructure**. You will provide strategic and operational leadership to advance ESN and ESN Hub modernization for the infrastructure organization that enables reliable, secure, scalable, and modern enterprise services across ESN. The Associate Program Leader will lead a broad portfolio of technical workstreams and serve as a trusted partner in shaping the future of the ESN infrastructure. This position is in the Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS) Division, within the Computing Directorate, in support of ESN. This position offers a hybrid schedule, blending in-person and virtual presence. You will have the flexibility to work from home up to one day per week. **You will** - Lead strategic direction for ESN modernization by partnering with ESN leadership and architecture teams to define and champion long-term cloud, server, and network strategies that enable program growth and mission success. - Provide leadership oversight of the ESN Platform and Infrastructure portfolio by building strategic relationships with program and enterprise leadership as well as NNSA stakeholders to drive interoperability across ESN and adjacent programs. - Direct infrastructure operations through delegation and team empowerment, ensuring maximum uptime and efficiency while developing leadership capabilities across program and technical teams. - Drive organizational transformation for infrastructure modernization and operational excellence by establishing strategic priorities, aligning cross-functional resources, optimizing team structures, and ensuring accountability for execution across multiple technical teams. - Serve as the strategic visionary for ESN infrastructure evolution, collaborating with executive leadership and stakeholders to shape the delivery of resilient, secure, and efficient services. - Oversee strategic planning for budgets, workforce development, and supply chain strategies that support infrastructure operations and lifecycle management. - Lead vendor and stakeholder relationships by leveraging procurement expertise to guide contract negotiations, establish performance frameworks including SLAs, and ensure effective service provider management. - Champion governance frameworks and ensure organizational alignment with IT policies and cybersecurity protocols. - Perform other duties as assigned. **Qualifications** - This position requires an active Department of Energy (DOE) Q-level clearance or active Top-Secret clearance issued by another U.S. government agency at the time of hire. - Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of technical training and experience. - Expert experience leading large, diverse technical organizations in the delivery of mission critical enterprise IT infrastructure with minimal direction in a complex enterprise environment. - Expert experience mentoring technical teams on modern VDI architectures, such as Citrix, VMware Horizon, or AVD, hybrid cloud integration patterns, and enterprise-scale network designs that support large user environments, including SD-WAN, QoS policies, protocol optimization, and multi-datacenter load balancing. - Subject-matter expertise in enterprise IT vendor management and strategic vendor partnerships, including Microsoft EA/AWS EDP negotiations, licensing optimization across subscription, consumption-based, and perpetual models, RFP/RFQ processes for infrastructure and software platforms, SLA-driven contract negotiations, FinOps and cloud cost governance, and evaluation of emerging technology providers such as Microsoft, AWS, VMware, Cisco, and Oracle. - Expert strategic leadership experience translating vision into enterprise modernization programs, including cloud migrations, datacenter consolidation, application rationalization, mission-critical infrastructure upgrades, DevSecOps transformation, and BCDR architecture for tier-1 applications. - Expert experience building technology roadmaps, securing executive sponsorship, and delivering large-scale initiatives with measurable business or mission impact while maintaining operational continuity is preferred. - Expert communication and collaborative leadership, building trust across infrastructure, application, security, and operations teams while engaging executive stakeholders and C-suite executives (CIO, CISO, CFO) through transparent communication and technical credibility. - Expert experience leading enterprise infrastructure transformation, including data center modernization, such as hyperconverged infrastructure, VMware vSAN, and Nutanix, network evolution, hybrid cloud architecture using technologies such as VMware Cloud Foundation, Azure Stack HCI, and AWS Outposts, and storage upgrades including flash arrays and NVMe. **Qualifications We Desire** - Experienced infrastructure leader with deep technical credibility, strong people leadership, and a clear vision for evolving ESN to meet future mission requirements. - Effective in both day-to-day operational leadership and long-term strategy for platform and - infrastructure services. **Pay Range:** $227,430 - $288,396 Annually This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting; pay will not be below any applicable local minimum wage. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs. **Additional Information** #LI-Hybrid **Position Information** This is a Career Indefinite position, open to Lab employees and external candidates.

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