Director, Cloud Engineering

Role Summary

The Director, IT Product Management - Cloud Platform, will lead a portfolio of cloud products critical to Exelixis's success and ambition to launch innovative medicines for patients. Operating within a product-centric model, the Director IT Product Management will be responsible for defining product roadmaps, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leading agile product teams to deliver innovative and impactful solutions that accelerate drug discovery, development, and commercialization.

Responsibilities

• Define and operate our AWS landing zone, include automation, security and monitoring requirements
• Define and operate terraform-based automation platform for deployment and management infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code
• Define and manage a set of AWS infrastructure standards for the enterprise to ensure consistency and security across all our AWS cloud environments
• Drive improvements that help us to scale through optimization and automation
• Act as the technical product owner for key cloud platform services, including cloud infrastructure and automation
• Work with other IT teams to map their technical requirements in AWS services
• Work with other teams on cost management, including chargeback and detail usage reporting

Product Strategy

• Define and champion the strategy and roadmap for a portfolio of cloud products.
• Collaborate closely with IT and business stakeholders to understand their business needs, challenges, and make recommendations to influence strategic opportunities for actionable product roadmaps.
• Conduct market research, competitive analysis, and technology trends assessment to identify new opportunities to maintain competitive technology utilization.
• Prioritize product initiatives based on business value, technical feasibility, regulatory compliance, and resource availability and provide recommendations short and long term strategic investments.
• Lead architecture and design patterns to build solutions correctly and in a secured manner.

Product Development and Delivery

• Oversee the development process from ideation to launch and post-launch optimization and ensure efficient and effective product development processes and may recommend implementation improvements (e.g., Agile Scrum, Kanban).
• Own and drive the definition of clear user stories, acceptance criteria, and product specifications, ensuring alignment with overall product vision and business objectives.
• Partner with engineering, architecture, and quality assurance teams to ensure timely delivery of secure, scalable and high-quality products.
• Develop partnerships with external vendors and service providers to align internal product roadmaps, delivery timelines and operational excellence standards.
• Lead a user-centric design approach, leveraging user research, usability testing, and feedback loops to continuously improve the user experience and effectiveness of cloud solutions.
• Manage and sustain a robust data management & AI practice to protect sensitive information and ensure its accuracy and reliability.
• Lead cross-functional teams, including Business Analysts, Product Lead(s) and data platform specialists, by cultivating a culture of ownership, innovation, and continuous improvement across the data lifecycle.

Stakeholder Management & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Build strong, collaborative relationships with key stakeholders across the organization to ensure alignment on product vision, priorities, and outcomes.
• Lead communication and decision-making across product teams, business units, and IT functional groups.
• Represent the team in leadership forums, strategic planning sessions, and cross-departmental initiatives.
• Act as a primary liaison between IT and various business functions, translating complex technical concepts into business outcomes and benefits.

Operational Excellence, Quality & Compliance

• Ensure operational stability, performance, and security by working closely with other IT teams.
• Assist in the establishment of governance frameworks for vendor partnerships and third-party software solutions, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, compliance mandates, and business continuity objectives.
• Help define and enforce processes to ensure all feature releases comply with relevant regulatory requirements (e.g., GxP, HIPAA, GDPR) and internal quality and security standards.
• Ensure that all product releases meet rigorous quality standards and compliance requirements.
• Implement and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success, adoption, and business impact of digital solutions, driving continuous improvement based on data.

Team Leadership & Development

• Make recommendations for talent strategy to the team by attracting, developing, and retaining top talent within the team, fostering a high-performance and engaged work environment.
• Provide leadership and mentorship, fostering a culture of accountability, innovation and continuous growth through coaching, feedback and career development framework.
• Promote a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and adaptability to evolving technologies and business needs.

Budget Management

• Contribute to budget planning
• Manage budget allocation and financial planning across all product lines in their functional areas of support.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Manage through direct team of managers and high-level individual contributors.
• Coach and train managers and high level individual contributor to ensure retention of highly performing teams.
• Recruit staff to meet the unit’s immediate objectives and contribute to succession planning to meet longer term objectives.

Education

• Master’s degree in a relevant field and 11 years of related experience; or
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and 13 years of related experience; or
• Equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Technical certification may be required

Experience

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in IT, with at least 6 years in a leadership role focused on cloud infrastructure and / or platforms.
• Proven experience in leading product development teams in an agile/product-centric operating model is essential.
• Strong understanding of the drug discovery or clinical development, or commercialization lifecycle within a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company.
• Demonstrated success in defining and delivering complex cloud products that drive significant business value.
• Proven ability to architect and operate large and complex AWS environments
• Deep, hands-on expertise in AWS services
• Proficiency with GitHub, including GitHub actions
• Proficiency with continuous integration / continuous deployment tools and processes
• Experience with regulatory frameworks and compliance in a GxP environment.
• Proficiency with Ansible or Chef a plus

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Comprehensive level knowledge of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Advanced understanding of product management methodologies (e.g., Agile, Scrum, Kanban) and product lifecycle management.
• Intermediate level knowledge of modern development and deployment practices of continuous integration and continuous deployment.
• Intermediate level knowledge with infrastructure as code (IaC) tools, especially Terraform.
• Intermediate level knowledge with cloud and infrastructure automation.

Additional Requirements

• Travel: Minimal travel