Director – Devops & SRE

Director, DevOps & SRE

The Hearst Newspapers Product Development team builds exceptional product experiences that balance editorial, business, and end- user considerations in service of our mission. Our team includes engineers, QA, product managers, UX researchers, designers, and product operations specialists. We are organized into cross-functional pods supporting end users, internal users, and revenue goals.  We work collaboratively and diligently.  We are creative and disciplined.  We are respectful, fun, and supportive of one another.

The DevOps & SRE team exists to accelerate our engineering organization’s delivery speed, enhance platform reliability, and ensure secure and scalable operations.

As a Director, DevOps & SRE, you will lead our strategy and execution in infrastructure reliability, automation, and engineering operational efficiency. You’ll collaborate across engineering and product teams to enable seamless deployments, robust platform performance, and scalable systems to support our growing product portfolio. 

Key Responsibilities

• Cloud Modernization: Drive strategic initiatives to modernize cloud infrastructure, leveraging Infrastructure as Code (IaC), containerization, and cloud-native technologies to optimize performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
• Operational Excellence: Automate deployment pipelines, streamline software releases, and implement CI/CD best practices to achieve continuous delivery and reduce operational friction.
• Talent Development: Manage, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of DevOps and SRE professionals, fostering career growth and maintaining high standards for performance and accountability.
• Team Culture and Collaboration: Foster a positive and inclusive team environment by addressing logistical, operational, and morale-related needs, promoting collaboration and engagement.
• Capacity Planning & Performance: Proactively assess and scale infrastructure to reliably support current workloads and anticipate future growth, ensuring optimal performance and resource efficiency.
• Security, Compliance & Risk Management: Implement robust security practices and ensure compliance across infrastructure, manage risks, and maintain alignment with regulatory and industry standards.
• Data-Driven Observability: Implement and manage comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions to enable rapid incident response, proactive problem identification, and continuous improvement based on key performance indicators.
• Incident Response Coordination: Defining, managing, and participating in rapid response procedures to effectively handle security incidents, outages, and vulnerabilities, ensuring minimal downtime and disruption to users.
• Budget and Vendor Management: Manage cloud and infrastructure budgets, negotiate with vendors, and evaluate third-party tools and services to ensure cost-effectiveness and alignment with technical goal

About You

• Experienced Cloud Architect: You have proven experience architecting solutions in public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) using Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform, implementing cloud-native architectures, and managing scalable performant systems.
• Outcome-Driven: You prioritize results and are adept at using data to measure success.
• Accountable: You commit and follow through, taking responsibility and recognizing areas for improvement, for both you and your team.
• Strategic Problem-Solver: You excel at diagnosing challenges and implementing scalable, performant solutions.
• Collaborative Leader: You communicate effectively, facilitate team discussions, and inspire trust across functions.
• Proactive and Resourceful: You anticipate issues, propose solutions, and continuously improve processes.
• Trusted Partner: You are trusted by your colleagues and manager to follow through on your commitments and always leave things in a better place than you found them (whether that be relationships, documentation, operations, etc).

Skills & Tools

Core Competencies:

• Architecting modern cloud solutions
• Attention to scalability, observability, and maintainability
• Provisioning and managing infrastructure with Terraform or similar IaC framework
• Strong communication and cross-team collaboration
• Leading and mentoring teams
• Automating failover in business critical systems
• Disaster recovery and high availability
• Leading infrastructure migration efforts
• Scripting and automation using languages such as Python, Bash, or similar
• Computer networking

Technical Tools: Note that it’s not a requirement that you have this expertise, however you should have examples of tools you picked up and learned quickly.

• Docker, Kubernetes/ECS, or similar containerization/orchestration tools
• Terraform or similar IaC tool
• AWS or similar cloud platform
• FireHydrant or similar incidence response platform
• Fastly/Cloudfront or similar CDN
• Nginx/API Gateway or similar proxy
• New Relic or similar observability and monitoring platform
• Github for version control, collaboration, CI/CD automation, and workflow integrations
• GitHub Actions/CodePipeline or similar CI/CD service
• Jira for agile development, issue tracking, and workflow management
• Confluence for documentation and team collaboration
• Slack automation

In accordance with applicable law, Hearst is required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for this role if hired in New York.  The reasonable estimate, if hired in New York, is $175,000 - $200,000 + bonus. Please note this information is specific to those hired in New York.  If this role is open to candidates outside of New York, the salary range would be aligned to that specific location.  A final decision on the successful candidate’s starting salary will be based on a number of permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills and experience, training, certifications, and education.

About Hearst Newspapers

With more than 3,000 employees across the nation, Hearst Newspapers publishes 24 dailies and 52 weeklies, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, Albany Times Union, and CT Insider. It is our singular mission to be the most trusted, most respected and most accurate source of news and information in the Hearst Newspapers communities that we serve. We place our readers' interests above all others, and dedicate ourselves to the principles of truthfulness, fairness and independence. We understand that the free flow of accurate information is vital to our system of government and the foundations of our economy.

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