Sr. Director, Engineering (Shared Services)

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Quality Engineering & Automation: Spearhead the strategy for a modern Quality Engineering organization. Transition the team toward a heavy focus on automated testing and continuous integration to ensure appropriate levels of robustness without sacrificing speed.
• Modernize Data Engineering & Infrastructure: Lead the Data Engineering function to build and maintain scalable data pipelines, warehousing, and governance frameworks. Ensure data is accessible, reliable, and actionable to support business intelligence and cross-functional decision-making.
• Operationalize AI in Quality: Guide the development and application of AI/ML tools directly into quality operations. Transform testing by leveraging AI for generation and anomaly detection, ensuring Backblaze is leading – not following – the AI curve in its internal processes.
• Drive Internal AI Transformation: Spearhead the evolution of internal workflows by integrating AI tools into the Project Management Office and general engineering practices to increase efficiency and reduce toil.
• Elevate the PMO: Oversee the Project Management Office to drive predictability and alignment across complex engineering initiatives. Ensure the PMO acts as an enabler of velocity rather than a bottleneck.
• Scale Organizational Capability: Recruit, develop, and mentor a diverse and high-performing technical leadership team within Shared Services that can drive large, complex new initiatives.
• Collaborate Across the Business: Partner with peers in Product, Cloud Operations, and other functional areas to align quality standards, data availability, and project delivery with customer and commercial outcomes.

Qualification & Requirements

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate for the Sr. Director, Engineering – Shared Services is a transformative technology leader with deep experience in modernizing engineering workflows. They are a hands-on, servant leader who blends technical depth in automation and data architecture with the business acumen required to run an efficient PMO. This leader is capable of architecting AI-forward systems specifically for internal tooling, data infrastructure, and quality assurance while preserving customer trust. They have a proven track record of leading distributed teams and driving the evolution of legacy processes into modern, automated pipelines. They are energized by the opportunity to build high-performing, inclusive cultures that balance innovation with the reliability required of a mission-critical storage platform.

Leadership Skills

• Engineering & Operations Leadership (10+ years): Significant leadership experience in scale-up or mid-to-large tech environments, with specific focus on Quality Engineering, Data Engineering, Release Management, or Shared Services.
• Data Strategy & Infrastructure: Experience leading data engineering teams, with a strong grasp of modern data stacks, ETL/ELT pipelines, and data governance needed to support AI and analytics.
• Automated Testing Strategy: Proven expertise in shifting quality organizations from manual to automated frameworks. Deep technical understanding of CI/CD pipelines and modern testing infrastructure.
• AI/ML Strategy and Delivery: Experience building and scaling AI/ML initiatives within internal operations to deliver measurable value.
• Program Management Leadership: Experience overseeing a Project Management Office (PMO) or Technical Program Management (TPM) function, ensuring projects are delivered with clarity and predictability.
• Global and Distributed Team Leadership: Successfully built and led high-performing, distributed teams across geographies with emotional intelligence and cultural fluency.
• Stakeholder Communication: Ability to communicate complex data regarding quality and project health clearly to executive peers and partners. Builds alignment through clarity.
• Change Management: Experience leading teams through technical modernization and cultural transformation, specifically regarding the adoption of new AI tools and agile methodologies.

Personal Characteristics and Value

• Mission-Driven, Customer-Focused: Aligned with Backblaze’s purpose. Prioritizes customer trust by ensuring that quality and reliability are never compromised for speed.
• Servant Leadership: Leads with humility and empathy. Invests in talent and builds inclusive, psychologically safe environments for QE, Data, and PMO staff.
• High Integrity, High Accountability: Consistent and transparent regarding project risks and quality metrics. Embraces feedback and leads by example.
• Strategic and Practical: Connects the long-term vision of AI transformation to near-term execution in testing, data availability, and project tracking.
• Curious and Learning-Oriented: Stays current on emerging technologies, particularly in AI, infrastructure, and leadership practices to keep the shared services team on the cutting edge.
• Technically Hands-On: Engaged with the work. Capable of diving into test automation strategies, data architecture discussions, or AI tool selection to support the team.

Benefits

No information available.