Position Overview
WatchGuard is seeking an experienced Vice President of Cloud Operations to lead our global cloud and infrastructure operations organization. This executive will be accountable for the reliability, scalability, security, operational efficiency, and cost effectiveness of the platforms supporting our business and SaaS products.
The ideal candidate has led cloud and hybrid environments at global scale within a SaaS or cloud-based software company. This leader will partner closely with Product, R&D, Finance, Security, and business leadership to scale our platforms, improve customer experience, and strengthen cloud unit economics.
Key Responsibilities
Cloud & Global Operations
• Lead global Cloud Operations, infrastructure, platform operations, and related capabilities across cloud and hybrid environments.
• Ensure platforms are highly available, resilient, secure, scalable, and cost effective.
• Establish strong practices for service levels, observability, incident management, capacity planning, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
• Drive automation and engineering-led operations to reduce manual work and operational risk.
SaaS, Product & R&D Partnership
• Serve as the senior Cloud Operations partner to Product and R&D leaders, aligning infrastructure strategy with product roadmaps and business priorities.
• Influence architecture and product decisions so scalability, reliability, security, and cost efficiency are designed into products.
• Define operational and economic metrics for cloud-based products and services.
FinOps & COGS Optimization
• Own and mature the FinOps strategy and operating model, creating accountability for cloud consumption and product economics.
• Develop product-level infrastructure cost, COGS, and unit-cost visibility.
• Partner with Product, R&D, and Finance to set cost targets and execute optimization roadmaps.
• Improve gross margins through architecture, capacity, cloud commitments, storage, compute, networking, licensing, and process optimization without compromising customer experience.
Global Leadership, M&A & Transformation
• Lead and develop a globally distributed organization with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and effective collaboration across regions and time zones.
• Attract, develop, and retain strong cloud, platform, infrastructure, and FinOps talent.
• Lead Cloud Operations activities for mergers and acquisitions, including assessment, integration planning, platform consolidation, and cost optimization.
• Drive modernization, standardization, and simplification while reducing technical debt and operational complexity.
Strategy & Executive Leadership
• Develop and execute a multi-year Cloud Operations strategy aligned with WatchGuard's product and business strategy.
• Manage cloud and infrastructure budgets with strong forecasting, capacity planning, and investment discipline.
• Provide executive visibility into reliability, operational risk, cloud consumption, COGS, capacity, and investment needs.
• Partner with the CIO and technology leadership team on broader transformation priorities.
Qualifications:
Required
• Significant leadership experience in Cloud Operations, Cloud Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or
Infrastructure Operations, including global teams.
• Prior leadership experience in a SaaS or cloud-based software company is critical.
• Deep experience operating large-scale public cloud environments, preferably AWS and/or Microsoft Azure, along with
hybrid infrastructure.
• Strong experience with FinOps, cloud financial management, COGS optimization, and product-level cloud economics.
• Proven ability to partner with senior Product and R&D/Engineering leaders and influence architecture decisions.
• Experience managing infrastructure budgets and delivering measurable cost and efficiency outcomes.
• Experience supporting technology integration through M&A.
• Strong knowledge of cloud architecture, SRE, DevOps, observability, automation, reliability engineering, disaster
recovery, and operational security.
• Strong business acumen, executive communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
Preferred
• Experience supporting cybersecurity or other mission-critical SaaS products.
• Experience implementing product cost allocation, unit economics, forecasting, and cloud cost targets.
• Experience transforming traditional infrastructure organizations toward cloud-native, SRE, platform engineering, and
automation-driven models.
• Experience integrating geographically distributed teams and platforms following acquisitions.
Leadership Profile
• Technology executive and business operator who connects platform decisions to customer experience, growth, and
gross margin.
• Credible partner to architects and engineers who can also communicate technology economics and risk to executives.
• Collaborative leader with a strong bias toward accountability, automation, simplification, standardization, and
continuous improvement.
• Experienced change leader who can guide the organization through growth, transformation, and acquisitions.
What Success Looks Like
• Reliable scaling of WatchGuard's SaaS platforms as the business grows.
• Clear product-level visibility and accountability for cloud COGS and unit costs.
• Improved cloud efficiency and SaaS gross-margin economics.
• Stronger partnership among Cloud Operations, Product, R&D, Finance, and Security.
• A high-performing global organization with increased automation and reduced operational complexity.
Location: The preferred location is Miami, can also be in the Seattle office (both onsite)
Salary, plus bonus and comprehensive benefits.
