Principal Cloud Platform Operations Director

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Principal Cloud Platform Operations Director

Herring Bank | Information Technology

About the Role

Herring Bank is seeking a hands-on Principal Cloud Platform Operations Lead to oversee the bank's cloud platform, DevOps, database, Linux, application operations, and deployment automation functions.

This is a senior-level player/coach role requiring both technical leadership and hands-on operational expertise. The ideal candidate will lead engineers, establish technical direction, review deployment strategies, approve production changes, and actively participate in troubleshooting and operational governance.

This position will play a key role in modernizing infrastructure and application operations while maintaining the operational discipline required within a regulated financial institution.

Texas-based candidates are preferred. Hybrid or remote work may be considered for exceptional candidates; however, regular travel to Amarillo and other Herring Bank locations is required. An in-person interview will be required prior to any offer being extended.

What You'll Do

Cloud Platform & DevOps Leadership

• Lead operational direction for cloud-hosted platforms and deployment automation
• Build and govern CI/CD pipelines for application and infrastructure deployments
• Establish Infrastructure-as-Code standards and deployment practices
• Support modernization efforts toward containerized and automated production environments
• Define deployment workflows, rollback procedures, monitoring standards, and operational support practices

Platform Modernization & Operations

• Lead modernization of Linux-based and application-hosting environments
• Support and improve containerized deployment practices
• Establish operational standards for runtime support, patching, monitoring, backups, and lifecycle management
• Balance modernization initiatives with production stability and business continuity

Release Engineering & Change Governance

• Oversee production deployment pipelines for cloud, application, and mobile workloads
• Review infrastructure code, deployment changes, and automation prior to production release
• Ensure releases are properly tested, documented, approved, and supportable
• Review and approve change management requests while ensuring compliance with operational controls and audit requirements

Database, Linux & Application Support

• Provide leadership over database operations and Linux platform administration
• Ensure production systems are monitored, secured, patched, and maintained according to operational standards
• Improve application operations through enhanced monitoring, documentation, and deployment consistency
• Support legacy environments while driving practical modernization initiatives

Monitoring, Reliability & Incident Response

• Improve observability, alerting, dashboards, and service health monitoring
• Participate directly in major incident response and root cause analysis
• Translate operational lessons learned into improved automation, procedures, and reliability standards
• Help define operational metrics surrounding deployment quality, vulnerability remediation, and platform stability

What You'll Bring

• Strong technical leadership with the ability to remain hands-on in engineering and operational functions
• Deep understanding of cloud infrastructure, DevOps, CI/CD, Linux administration, and application operations
• Experience operating in regulated or high-control environments with strong governance expectations
• Ability to communicate effectively with engineers, executives, auditors, vendors, and business stakeholders
• Strong troubleshooting, operational governance, and production support experience
• Ability to mentor technical teams while driving modernization and operational excellence

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in cloud operations, DevOps, platform engineering, Linux administration, infrastructure engineering, or related technical roles
• 5+ years of experience leading technical teams or serving as a senior technical lead
• Strong hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure and production cloud operations
• Experience building and supporting CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform or similar platforms
• Strong Linux administration experience
• Experience with container technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Podman, or similar platforms
• Experience supporting relational database platforms and production application environments
• Experience reviewing production deployments, infrastructure code, and operational changes
• Understanding of change management, operational controls, audit expectations, and risk management
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within banking, financial services, healthcare, insurance, or other regulated industries
• Experience with AWS or similar enterprise cloud platforms
• Experience with mobile application deployment pipelines
• Experience with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or similar tooling
• Experience with Kubernetes, ECS, EKS, OpenShift, or similar orchestration platforms
• Experience with secrets management, artifact repositories, image scanning, and software supply chain controls
• Experience modernizing legacy Linux-hosted applications
• Relevant cloud, Linux, DevOps, or infrastructure certifications are a plus

Location & Travel

• Texas-based candidates preferred
• Hybrid/remote may be considered for exceptional candidates
• Regular travel to Amarillo and other Herring Bank locations required

Flexible work from home options available.