Director of Platform Infrastructure (VP of Infrastructure / Head of Site Reliability Engineering)-Hybrid

The OpportunityThis newly created, strategic leadership role was recently approved by the CEO to modernize and restructure the global backend operations organization. Reporting directly to the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), you will take the helm of an infrastructure environment that is currently two-thirds built, offering a massive opportunity to shape future organizational design. As the company actively shifts leadership roles to the United States, your impact will be pivotal in building and scaling the Site Reliability Engineering, Platform Engineering, and Backend Software Engineering teams that power a world-renowned product.About the CompanyThis cutting-edge technology product company specializes in advanced remote access and secure software solutions, serving hundreds of thousands of customers globally. Headquartered in Germany with a rapidly expanding global footprint across the United States, Hong Kong, Lisbon, and other international offices, the organization delivers high-performance, mission-critical infrastructure to modern enterprises. With an agile work environment that promotes both professionalism and collegiality, the company is dedicated to building seamless, secure digital connections while maintaining a strong DevOps culture.The LocationThis position is strongly preferred to be based in the Tampa Bay, Florida area, operating on a hybrid schedule. The local office offers a collaborative environment, though the role is structurally designed to interface globally with teams heavily centralized in Stuttgart, Germany, as well as in Hong Kong. To keep international teams aligned, this role requires a passport and involves global travel, including significant initial onboarding time at the global headquarters in Germany and approximately four to five ongoing trips annually.What You Will DoLead and mentor a global team of approximately 20 members across Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Platform Engineering, and backend Software Engineering.Define and execute a comprehensive infrastructure roadmap aligned with product growth and strict reliability goals.Champion SLOs, SLAs, and incident response processes across engineering teams while optimizing on-call processes and reducing toil through automation.Oversee hybrid cloud and self-hosted architecture across diverse hosting and infrastructure providers to ensure high availability and fault tolerance of application services.Own modern observability stacks and drive the adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and configuration management.Promote cross-functional collaboration between software development, information security, compliance, product, business systems, and technical support teams to ensure platform integrity and audit-readiness.Who You AreYou have 10+ years of total experience in software engineering, infrastructure, or SRE roles, with at least 5+ years in a technical leadership capacity.You possess a proven track record of leading infrastructure or SRE teams supporting production SaaS environments and mission-critical systems with high uptime requirements.You are deeply knowledgeable in distributed systems, scalability, hybrid cloud infrastructure, and self-hosted environments.You have hands-on expertise with modern observability stacks such as Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog, alongside proficiency in Terraform and CI/CD pipelines.You hold a Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or possess equivalent technical experience.You possess a valid passport or are able to obtain one quickly to accommodate required international travel, totaling roughly 6 weeks per year.90-Day Success RoadmapFirst 30 Days: Spend significant time during initial onboarding at the global headquarters in Stuttgart, immersing yourself in the existing technical ecosystem and building strong relationships with your initial 3 4 direct reports.60 Days In: Evaluate the current infrastructure roadmap, assess the hybrid cloud and self-hosted architecture, and establish cross-functional alignment with security, compliance, and backend development teams.90 Days In: Take full operational ownership of the Platform Infrastructure and SRE departments, begin shaping future organizational design by preparing for new hires in the U.S., and execute key automation strategies to optimize on-call processes.The ideal candidate is a visionary technical leader with a very strong "can-do" attitude and exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal. You are someone who thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic international environment, effectively engaging with stakeholders at all levels while maintaining a meticulous attention to detail. With a strong ability to listen attentively and apply logic and reason, you are perfectly suited to lead a cross-functional, highly collaborative global engineering team while fostering an engaging DevOps culture.Flexibility & Work-Life IntegrationWork Structure: Hybrid schedule requiring 1 to 2 days per week in the Tampa office, with the remaining days worked remotely.Schedule: Flexible operational hours balanced to accommodate dynamic, international environments and collaborate effectively across multiple global time zones.Environment: An agile and collegial global workspace that involves roughly 6 weeks of international travel per year to maintain close ties with cross-functional teams across Stuttgart, Hong Kong, and Lisbon.Why Join the Team?Joining this team means stepping into a massive opportunity to shape the future organizational design and technology choices of a world-class platform. You will have the unique ability to build out a new U.S. leadership layer while collaborating with highly talented peers globally. The company fosters an exceptionally supportive atmosphere where innovation is celebrated, administrative toil is systematically automated away, and long-term career growth is structurally encouraged as the business expands its international footprint.________________________________________About Naviga Recruiting & Executive SearchNaviga Recruiting & Executive Search is a leading provider of Contingent Workforce Solutions, Executive Search, Leadership and Individual Contributor hiring, empowering businesses to achieve their strategic objectives through expert talent acquisition. Our specialties include sales, marketing, finance/accounting and operations hiring. With a commitment to excellence and a deep understanding of market trends, Naviga Recruiting & Executive Search helps organizations build high-performing teams and navigate complex workforce challenges. Naviga Recruiting & Executive Search specializes in U.S. Hiring for Global Businesses.