Director of Cloud Networking and Infrastructure

M3 (www.m3as.com) is a leading provider of hospitality-specific software solutions, delivering cloud-based tools for hotel accounting, financial reporting, labor management, payroll, and business intelligence. Built by hoteliers for hoteliers, M3 empowers hotel owners, operators, and management companies to streamline back-office operations, reduce costs, gain real-time insights, and drive portfolio performance across thousands of properties in North America and beyond.

Description Summary:

The Director of Cloud Networking and Infrastructure leads the design, architecture, operation, and ongoing optimization of M3's cloud network and infrastructure environment, with primary accountability for the Azure platform that hosts the company's core SaaS products. This role owns network architecture and performance end-to-end - including hybrid connectivity between Azure and private cloud or colocation environments, virtual desktop and application delivery infrastructure (e.g., Citrix/VDA), latency and throughput troubleshooting, capacity planning, and infrastructure resilience. The individual must be capable of leading a technical team in a hands-on manner, diagnosing complex cross-environment network and infrastructure issues under pressure, and driving the long-term cloud infrastructure roadmap in support of M3's hospitality SaaS products.

Essential Duties:

The duties listed below are the essential functions of this position, and they may change as the needs of the company demand. All associates are expected to do what is necessary to get the work done and to cooperate fully with their supervisor's requests for additional or altered duties.

• Supervises all roles assigned to this department, personally or through subordinate supervisors, including recruiting, training and development, performance management, motivation, corrective action, or termination in conjunction with HR if necessary.
• Owns the architecture, design, and ongoing health of M3's cloud network environment, with primary responsibility for the Azure infrastructure supporting Accounting Core, Core Select, Insight, Integrations, Labor Management, and Data & Analytics. Ensures network design decisions align with availability, performance, security, and cost objectives.
• Leads hybrid network architecture and connectivity between Azure and any private cloud, colocation, or on-premises environments, including VPN/ExpressRoute design, routing, DNS, load balancing, and cross-boundary latency management.
• Owns the infrastructure underlying virtual desktop and application delivery platforms (e.g., Citrix/VDA), including session performance, client/VDA version compatibility, profile management (e.g., FSLogix), and capacity sizing. Leads root cause investigation and remediation for delivery performance incidents.
• Responsible for network and infrastructure security in partnership with the security operations team - segmentation, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention, traffic monitoring, and vulnerability remediation across the network layer. Ensures infrastructure changes are evaluated for security and compliance impact (e.g., SOC 1, ISO).
• Leads infrastructure disaster recovery and business continuity planning, including network and infrastructure failover/failback design, testing cadence, and ensuring the company's Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) can be met for network-dependent services.
• Drives infrastructure capacity planning and performance engineering - proactively monitoring utilization, throughput, and bottlenecks across compute, storage, and network tiers, and translating findings into scaling plans and budget recommendations.
• Researches, plans, architects, and executes infrastructure and network upgrades and migrations. Sets short- and long-term strategic goals for the cloud network environment and ensures all planned and in-place infrastructure aligns with company goals and directives. Provides architectural guidance to developers, systems engineers, and support personnel on network-dependent design decisions.
• Designs, implements, and monitors end-to-end network and infrastructure topologies. Reviews existing network designs and recommends improvements, consolidations, or modernization opportunities.
• Negotiates and administers network, connectivity, and infrastructure vendor and consultant contracts (e.g., Azure, ISP/circuit providers, Citrix) in alignment with departmental budgets and planned projects.
• Consults with department heads and end users on infrastructure and network needs. Develops and executes test plans to evaluate network and infrastructure performance, reporting findings and improvement recommendations to leadership.
• Develops and maintains standards for infrastructure-as-code, network configuration baselines, runbooks, and reference architectures needed for reliability, scalability, business continuity, and disaster recovery.
• Drives continual training and improvement on cloud networking and infrastructure topics relevant to M3's technology stack. Builds and retains a team of highly capable infrastructure and network engineers able to troubleshoot and resolve issues with minimal direction.
• Maintains a high level of network and infrastructure availability, working to identify and remove bottlenecks and inefficiencies that affect engineering, support, and end-user experience across the platform.
• Authors and maintains Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Standard Work Instructions (SWI) for network and infrastructure operations. Participates in Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and ensures timely, accurate After Action Reports (AAR) and stakeholder notifications.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education/Training/Experience:

The Director must have deep experience with cloud network architecture (particularly Microsoft Azure), hybrid connectivity, and infrastructure performance engineering, as well as strong experience organizing, conceptualizing, and executing complex technical projects and security-related network concepts. This position must have the ability to self-evaluate and adapt quickly to fast-changing technical demands in support of internal and external clients. The Director of Cloud Networking and Infrastructure should possess the following skills and expertise:

• A minimum of 10+ years of experience in a directly related network/infrastructure position required.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent technical and management experience. Preference for a major in IT, MIS, Computer Science, Network Engineering, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Must have strong written and verbal skills in English and the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Microsoft Azure networking constructs - Virtual Networks (VNets), subnets, Network Security Groups, Azure Firewall, ExpressRoute/VPN Gateway, load balancers, Azure DNS, and Azure cost/performance monitoring tools.
• Strong knowledge of hybrid and multi-environment network design, including connectivity between cloud and private/colocation environments, routing protocols, and cross-boundary latency diagnostics.
• Experience with virtual desktop/application delivery infrastructure (e.g., Citrix, VDA, FSLogix) and the network and infrastructure factors that drive session performance.
• Knowledge of modern network security frameworks and concepts, including segmentation, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention, and incident response as it relates to network and infrastructure layers.
• Extensive knowledge of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing, switching, load balancing) and shell/scripting for infrastructure automation.
• Extensive knowledge of both Windows and Linux server environments as they relate to network services and infrastructure.
• Knowledge of scalable virtualization, storage, and infrastructure-as-code technologies.
• Basic PowerShell, Python, or similar scripting knowledge for network automation and diagnostics.
• Experience with network monitoring and observability tooling (e.g., flow logs, network performance monitors, APM/infrastructure monitoring platforms).
• Proven experience developing strategic network and infrastructure architecture plans.
• Solid understanding of information processing fundamentals and infrastructure best practices.
• Above-average analytical, conceptual, and troubleshooting abilities, particularly for complex, multi-layered performance issues.
• Experience researching networking and infrastructure technology, trends, standards, and products.
• Solid track record prioritizing and executing tasks in fast-paced, high-stress, incident-driven situations.
• Experience providing guidance and leadership to network/infrastructure engineers with a varying range of backgrounds and experience.
• Experience identifying, analyzing, and resolving network and infrastructure problems across multiple technical platforms and environments.
• Familiarity and expertise with a variety of networking and infrastructure tools and platforms.
• Certifications such as Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, CCNP/CCIE, Citrix CCP-V/CCE-V, or equivalent cloud networking