VP - Cloud Infrastructure - 6 Month Contract

Established in 2021, Independence Pet Holdings (IPH) is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America.

We believe pet insurance is more than a financial product and build solutions to simplify the pet parenting journey and help improve the well-being of pets.

As a leading authority in the pet category, we operate with a full stack of resources, capital, and services to support pet parents.

Our multi-brand and omni-channel approach include our own insurance carrier, insurance brands and partner brands.

Job Summary

As the VP of Cloud Infrastructure, you will oversee all aspects of our cloud system implementations, monitoring, strategic planning, cost management, and budgeting.

This individual will be responsible for managing the company’s infrastructure and ensuring all system requirements are met.

This leader will drive the delivery of a scalable, automated, and secure cloud environment, helping us to innovate and enhance our various platforms.

Main Responsibilities :

Strategic Leadership :

Cloud Vision : Define a long-term vision for the organization’s cloud adoption and transformation.

Business Alignment : Align cloud initiatives with overall business goals and objectives.

Cloud Governance and Architecture :

Governance Framework : Establish policies, guidelines, and best practices for cloud usage.

Architecture Oversight : Ensure cloud architecture aligns with security, scalability, and compliance requirements.

Multi-Cloud Strategy : Evaluate and implement multi-cloud or hybrid cloud approaches.

Vendor Management and Negotiation :

Vendor Relationships : Manage relationships with cloud service providers (predominantly Azure).

Cost Optimization : Continuously optimize costs while maintaining service quality.

Risk Management and Compliance :

Security and Privacy : Ensure cloud services adhere to security standards and data privacy regulations.

Risk Assessment : Identify and mitigate risks related to cloud adoption.

Compliance Audits : Conduct regular audits to maintain compliance.

Financial Oversight :

Budgeting and Forecasting : Develop and manage cloud budgets.

Cost Control : Monitor spending, optimize resource utilization, and track ROI.

Business Case Development : Create business cases for new cloud investments.

Innovation and Emerging Technologies :

Cloud Trends : Stay informed about industry trends, emerging technologies, and cloud innovations.

Pilot Projects : Champion pilot projects to explore new cloud capabilities.

Change Management and Adoption :

Change Leadership : Drive organizational change related to cloud adoption.

Training and Education : Promote cloud literacy across the organization.

User Adoption : Encourage teams to embrace cloud services effectively.

Stakeholder Engagement :

Business Units : Collaborate with business units to understand their needs and align cloud solutions.

External Partners : Engage with external partners, vendors, and industry peers.

Creating and Leading an Outsourced Delivery Function :

Coordination and Oversight : Coordinate activities, resolve escalations, and ensure alignment with organizational goals.

Quality Assurance : Monitor service quality and adherence to SLAs.

Knowledge & Skills :

• Strong technical background with Agile, JavaScript, and machine learning as well as knowledge with Cloud Hosting Services such as Azure or Amazon Web Services.
• Additional skills in Java, .NET, big data, project management, and artificial intelligence.
• Expertise in iOS, Android, React, and other mobile frameworks / accelerators
• Proven ability to design, optimize and integrate business processes across disparate systems and mobile technologies
• Agile Development Methodology & Application Development best practices
• Experience with building data platforms and leverage data to enhance systems, customer interaction, engagement, etc.
• Demonstrated deployments of enterprise or consumer-facing mobile software systems using industry standard environments including iOS, Android
• Experience with Objective-C, Java, HTML5 / JS / CSS3
• Experience with .Net, C#, SQL Server
• Excellent analysis skills and the ability to develop processes and methodologies
• Strong time management skills with the ability to plan, prioritize, monitor, and respond to inquiries quickly
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
• Strong external vendor and internal stakeholder communication skills
• Ability to organize project collateral and track task status

Education and Experience :

• Bachelor s Degree or equivalent in Computer Science or related disciplines is required. Masters or higher in IT-related field strongly preferred.
• At least 5 years in roles including architecture or technical leadership.
• 10+ years’ experience in an IT field, with 5+ years’ experience specialized in mobile.
• A passion for hands-on coding.
• Demonstrated ability to produce, manipulate, implement or enhance Enterprise Architecture concepts, roadmaps, principles and effective strategies.
• Demonstrated knowledge and skills in Application Architecture and Data Architecture
• Strong knowledge of the mobile market including emerging technologies, EMM solutions, network architecture and other mobile technology.
• At least 5 years of experience with mobile technology landscape including : iOS (Cocoa, Swift, Objective C, C++, iPhone SDK), Android (Android Framework, Java), and Mobile Web (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, RWD, mobile-first frontend frameworks)
• Experience in the following technology areas is a plus : SMP / SUP, Kony, AIRWatch, Appcelerator, Xamarin, React JS, EMM, MDM, MAM, MIM.
• Well versed in agile methodologies
• Strong experience in Mobile Web a Plus (Responsive and Adaptive methodologies, Mobile Web tradeoffs, Mobile Web estimation and Single Page Application architecture and technology toolchains)

Our Technology Environment :

• Mix of Windows PCs / laptops and Macs
• Variety of mobile and tablet devices
• Agile project management tools (Jira)
• Testing (webdriverio)
• App Health & Monitoring (New Relic)
• Designs & Mockups (Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, InVision, Zeplin.io)
• Cloud-based business applications and file storage (Salesforce CRM, Dropbox, etc.)
• Dashboards and User Analytics (Google)
• Microsoft Suite / Office365 (Excel, Word, etc.)
• Communication & Project Management Tools (Teams, Trello, etc.)
1 day ago