Director, Systems Engineering
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Before you apply
SalaryNo pay range posted
LocationWorcester
Work moderemote · United States
Typefull-time
SeniorityDirector
DepartmentInfrastructure Services and Architecture
Company size1,001–5,000 people
PostedSep 25, 2026 · 1mo ago
Verified live1d ago
At a glanceSummarised by Seekless from the posting.
Lead the team responsible for the university's servers, storage, cloud computing, and virtualization
Direct the design, implementation, and management of physical and virtual server infrastructure, enterprise storage and backup platforms, and AWS and Azure cloud environments
Participate actively in solution design, technical review, and implementation planning alongside the engineering team
Ensure efficient use of resources through effective virtualization, capacity planning, and lifecycle management
Lead the evaluation, selection, and adoption of new platform technologies
Oversee the team that performs day-to-day operation and administration of the university's systems environment
Serve as the senior escalation point during major incidents, directing response, restoring service, and driving root cause analysis
Manage the DevOps resource supporting the infrastructure organization
Identify and prioritize automation opportunities with the greatest return on team efficiency
Own the systems and middleware layer beneath the university's enterprise and departmental applications, including database platforms, web services, and load balancing
Partner with application owners and the Office of Information Security to remediate vulnerabilities and apply security controls
Skills
servers
storage
cloud computing
virtualization
DevOps
AWS
Azure
database platforms
web services
load balancing
JOB TITLE
About the role
Director, Systems Engineering
LOCATION
Worcester
DEPARTMENT NAME
Infrastructure Services and Architecture
DIVISION NAME
Worcester Polytechnic Institute - WPI
JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY
Reporting to the Assistant Chief Technology Officer, Infrastructure Services and Architecture, the Director of Systems Engineering will lead the team responsible for the university’s servers, storage, cloud computing, and virtualization, along with infrastructure DevOps, application system and security support, and the technology behind Campus Safety Services (card access, video surveillance, emergency radios, and emergency phones).
WPI’s information technology environment is highly distributed and diverse. This senior leadership role combines strategic vision and planning with direct, hands-on technical involvement alongside the engineers who report to the role. The Director is responsible for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the systems that support the university’s educational and operational objectives, and for the reliability of the systems that support campus safety.
This position is hybrid, with 4 days on campus in Worcester and 1 day from home.
JOB DESCRIPTION
Strategic Leadership and Team Development
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Develop and implement a comprehensive systems strategy aligned with the university’s goals and objectives.
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Collaborate with the Assistant CTO and other senior leaders to prioritize systems initiatives and align them with institutional priorities.
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Develop staff, set clear performance expectations, and manage workload and operational tasks across the systems team.
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Work with other groups within IT and other business units to develop solutions for unique system requirements, including technical and regulatory requirements.
Systems, Storage, Virtualization, and Cloud Engineering
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Working directly with the Systems Engineers who report to this role, direct the design, implementation, and management of the university’s physical and virtual server infrastructure, enterprise storage and backup platforms, and AWS and Azure cloud environments.
•
Participate actively in solution design, technical review, and implementation planning alongside the engineering team.
•
Ensure efficient use of resources through effective virtualization, capacity planning, and lifecycle management.
•
Lead the evaluation, selection, and adoption of new platform technologies.
•
Ensure new implementations are documented, supportable, and aligned with institutional standards and architecture.
Systems Operations and Administration
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Oversee the team that performs the day-to-day operation and administration of the university’s systems environment, ensuring stability, availability, and performance.
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Ensure all key services, systems, and components are under appropriate monitoring and alerting.
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Ensure operating system patching, firmware maintenance, and lifecycle activities are performed on a defined and predictable cadence.
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Ensure documentation, asset inventory, and configuration records are up to date and accurate.
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Serve as the senior escalation point during major incidents, directing the response, restoring service, and driving root cause analysis and preventive action to completion.
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Ensure systems incidents and service requests are resolved within the applicable SLA, maintaining open communication with other ITS teams, including the Service Desk.
DevOps, Automation, and Process Improvement
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Manage the DevOps resource supporting the infrastructure organization, directing the work against strategic DevOps and automation requirements from the Assistant CTO.
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Identify repeated work and recurring requests across all areas reporting to this role.
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Define, document, and standardize the processes behind that work so it can be measured and performed consistently by both full-time employees and the managed service provider.
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Identify and prioritize the automation opportunities with the greatest return on team efficiency, and direct their design, build, and adoption.
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Measure the effect of automation and process improvement on toil, cycle time, and error rates, and adjust priorities based on results.
Application System and Security Support
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Own the systems and middleware layer beneath the university’s enterprise and departmental applications, including database platforms, web services, and load balancing.
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Ensure these platforms are appropriately sized, patched, monitored, hardened, and recoverable.
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Partner with application owners and the Office of Information Security to remediate vulnerabilities and apply security controls at the system and middleware layer.
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Coordinate maintenance windows and upgrade planning with application stakeholders to minimize disruption to academic and administrative operations.