Senior Director, IT - Data Centers and Cloud Services

Company Description

At Western Digital, our vision is to power global innovation and push the boundaries of technology to make what you thought was once impossible, possible.

At our core, Western Digital is a company of problem solvers. People achieve extraordinary things given the right technology. For decades, we’ve been doing just that. Our technology helped people put a man on the moon.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest growth organizations in the world. From energizing the most competitive gaming platforms, to enabling systems to make cities safer and cars smarter and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and public cloud, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

Binge-watch any shows, use social media or shop online lately? You’ll find Western Digital supporting the storage infrastructure behind many of these platforms. And, that flash memory card that captures and preserves your most precious moments? That’s us, too.

We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, storage devices and platforms for business and consumers alike. Our data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western Digital®, G-Technology™, SanDisk® and WD® brands.

Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. It’s You & Western Digital. Together, we’re the next BIG thing in data.

Job Description

Lead WD’s enterprise compute strategy and operations across on-premises, colocation, and cloud environments. Own the architecture, delivery, and optimization of servers, virtualization platforms, data storage platforms, and all IaaS cloud services supporting WD's global operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Define and execute compute infrastructure roadmap aligned to business needs, Drive cloud adoption for IaaS and related workloads while optimizing hybrid infrastructure costs
• Technical Ownership: Oversee physical/virtual server estates, VMware/Hyper-V environments, data storage platforms (object, block, file systems), and cloud compute (AWS EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine, etc.)
• Cloud Governance: Establish standards for IaaS/PaaS consumption, FinOps practices, security controls, and architectural patterns across AWS, Azure, and GCP plus next-tier providers
• Automation & AI Operations: Drive infrastructure automation through Infrastructure-as-Code and orchestration, implement Agentic AI for predictive maintenance, automated remediation, and intelligent workload optimization
• Observability & Resilience: Build comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and telemetry systems enabling service self-healing, automated incident response, and sub-30-minute MTTR for critical outages
• Operational Excellence: Ensure always-on availability for mission-critical systems, Lead capacity planning, disaster recovery, and performance optimization
• Business Partnership: Serve as trusted technology advisor to business unit leaders, Translate technical capabilities into business value, Align infrastructure investments to revenue and operational objectives
• Colocation & Facilities Management: Oversee relationships with colocation providers, Optimize rack space, power, and connectivity, Manage contract negotiations and SLA compliance
• Team Development: Build and mentor a high-performing team of infrastructure engineers, cloud architects, storage administrators, and expert operations analysts
• Vendor Management: Negotiate enterprise agreements with hyperscalers, colocation providers, and hardware vendors
• Modernization: Drive containerization, hyperconverged infrastructure implementation and adoption, and AI/ML infrastructure initiatives

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years in large scale enterprise infrastructure + 5+ years leading global teams at Director+ level
• Deep expertise in server architectures, virtualization platforms, and Linux/Windows administration
• Proven track record designing and migrating workloads to AWS/Azure/GCP at scale
• Strong understanding of data storage platforms, backup/recovery, and high-availability architectures
• Demonstrated success building business partnerships with executives and functional leaders with the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Experience with infrastructure automation tools and implementing Agentic AI for IT operations
• Proficiency managing colocation facilities including power/cooling requirements, network handoffs, and multi-site coordination
• Operational knowledge of zero-trust principles including mi