Senior IT Manager Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering

Who are we?

Trader Joe's is your favorite neighborhood grocery store! With almost 670 stores nationwide (and growing), we are the place to be. Looking for something delicious and a friendly conversation? At Trader Joe's, you can find both. We love being your first and favorite place to shop.

What do we do?

Like shopping at Trader Joe's? Then, maybe you'll love working with us. We are looking for an experienced Senior IT Manager who is searching to do what they'll love! Do you have experience in Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering? Do you love food? If so, read on! We may have the role of a lifetime for you!

Trader Joe's is unlike any place you've ever worked. Trust us on that. The qualified candidate has at least 10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise infrastructure, networking, cloud, or platform technologies experience and is a raving fan of the Trader Joe's concept. A Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field is strongly preferred. This role is based in our office-in Monrovia, CA, and we have an in-office expectation of 5 days a week.

The Senior Manager, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering provides leadership across three critical technology functions: Core Infrastructure and Network, Cloud Engineering, and Platform Engineering. This leader is accountable for technology strategy, engineering execution, modernization, resilience, and the lifecycle health of foundational services supporting stores, offices, datacenters, and cloud environments.

Working across IT, this leader will establish clear engineering standards, accountable service ownership, reusable platform capabilities, and measurable delivery practices. The role will improve reliability, simplify support, reduce risk and technical complexity, and enable technology teams to serve stores and Crew more effectively.

The successful candidate will balance strategic direction with disciplined execution, build strong engineering teams, clarify accountability across engineering and operations, and deliver measurable improvements in service reliability, delivery efficiency, security, scalability, and financial stewardship.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Core Infrastructure and Network

• Provide strategic and technical leadership for enterprise core infrastructure and network engineering, ensuring the reliability, scalability, security, supportability, and long-term sustainability of foundational technology services.
• Establish and execute engineering roadmaps for datacenter infrastructure, compute, virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, enterprise networking, and connectivity across stores, offices, datacenters, and cloud environments.
• Direct modernization initiatives with clear priorities for lifecycle management, technical debt reduction, capacity planning, resiliency, recovery, and risk mitigation.
• Establish engineering standards and patterns that promote consistent, secure, supportable, and cost-effective infrastructure solutions.
• Ensure infrastructure and network strategies improve the reliability and performance of technology used by stores and Crew, with particular attention to minimizing disruption to store operations.

Cloud Engineering

• Lead the strategic direction and continued maturation of enterprise Cloud Engineering capabilities, ensuring cloud investments support business priorities, architectural standards, security requirements, and operational needs.
• Establish and oversee cloud engineering roadmaps, including Azure infrastructure modernization, hybrid integration, platform scalability, resiliency, recovery, and engineering automation.
• Drive consistent cloud architecture, engineering standards, governance, and delivery practices that enable secure, reliable, repeatable, and supportable cloud solutions.
• Provide leadership for cloud migration and modernization initiatives, ensuring sound planning, cross-functional alignment, operational readiness, and successful transition into ongoing support.
• Champion cloud financial accountability through capacity planning, utilization management, right-sizing, forecasting, cost transparency, and ongoing optimization.

Platform Engineering

• Establish the strategy and maturity roadmap for Platform Engineering, advancing a consistent and integrated approach to how technology services are engineered, delivered, operated, and improved across IT.
• Align Cloud, Infrastructure, Network, Development, DevOps, Cybersecurity, Architecture, and Operations around common engineering standards, reusable capabilities, and repeatable service delivery practices.
• Champion a deliberate maturity progression of Standardize, Simplify, Automate, Self-Service, Measure, and Kaizen, ensuring foundational ownership, processes, and standards are established before expanding automation.
• Drive standardized platform services and delivery frameworks that reduce complexity, improve consistency, accelerate delivery, and strengthen security and operational guardrails.
• Advance automation and self-service while maintaining clear service ownership, governance, support models, and accountability.
• Integrate FinOps principles into platform strategy to strengthen financial visibility, resource utilization, cost ownership, forecasting, and optimization.

Service Ownership, Reliability, and Operational Readiness

• Establish accountable ownership for foundational infrastructure and platform services, including service roadmaps, lifecycle plans, reliability objectives, cost visibility, risk management, and customer feedback.
• Define clear ownership across Engineering, Operations, Cybersecurity, Architecture, and service providers, including expectations for design, transition to operations, production support, monitoring, patching, lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.
• Establish engineering-to-operations acceptance criteria, including documentation, observability, support models, recovery requirements, capacity plans, and service readiness.
• Establish and validate resilience, recovery, and continuity standards for critical services through architecture reviews, documented recovery requirements, and regular testing.
• Use incidents, recurring support demand, operational feedback, and service performance data to identify systemic causes and drive engineering improvements.

Leadership and Cross-Functional Accountability

• Lead, develop, and mentor multidisciplinary engineering teams, establishing clear priorities, accountability, and a culture of collaboration, technical excellence, service ownership, and Kaizen.
• Translate enterprise technology strategy and business priorities into actionable engineering roadmaps, resource plans, investment priorities, and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture and Cybersecurity to translate enterprise principles and security requirements into actionable engineering patterns, guardrails, and reusable platform capabilities.
• Partner with IT Operations, Development, store technology and support teams, business stakeholders, and external partners to align priorities and convert operational lessons into sustainable engineering improvements.
• Assess and evolve organizational capabilities, roles, skills, career paths, succession plans, sourcing strategy, and leadership bench strength to support current operations and future growth.
• Oversee engineering budgets, resource allocation, technology investments, vendor relationships, and external partners to ensure responsible use of resources and delivery of business value.
• Communicate strategy, progress, risks, investment needs, tradeoffs, and outcomes to IT leadership in clear business terms.

Measurement and Continuous Improvement

• Establish a balanced set of engineering measures covering availability, resiliency, security, delivery lead time, automation, lifecycle health, technical debt, cost efficiency, operational readiness, and internal customer experience.
• Measure end-to-end service delivery, including workflow efficiency, handoffs, bottlenecks, service levels, rework, and engineering productivity.
• Prioritize improvement opportunities based on their impact on store operations, Crew experience, business continuity, risk, and long-term supportability.
• Create a transparent operating cadence for reviewing service health, roadmap progress, risks, investments, and improvement commitments.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise infrastructure, networking, cloud, or platform technologies, including significant experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams and developing technical talent.
• Proven success building or materially improving an enterprise engineering function, operating model, or service portfolio while delivering measurable business and technology outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to establish technology strategies, engineering roadmaps, modernization priorities, governance, and measurable execution plans.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise datacenter infrastructure, virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, networking, cloud platforms, hybrid architectures, observability, and service lifecycle management.
• Experience leading Microsoft Azure engineering, cloud modernization, Infrastructure as Code, automation, and secure cloud adoption.
• Strong understanding of Platform Engineering principles, including standardization, reusable services, automation, self-service, developer and engineer experience, and cross-functional delivery improvement.
• Working knowledge of FinOps principles, including cost accountability, utilization, forecasting, allocation, and optimization.
• Experience clarifying accountability and decision rights across Engineering, Operations, Architecture, Cybersecurity, and service providers.
• Demonstrated experience managing technology budgets, strategic partners, engineering resources, and complex cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong leadership, communication, coaching, and decision-making skills, with the ability to explain technical investments in terms of store reliability, Crew experience, risk, and business value.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience. Relevant technical, cloud, FinOps, or leadership certifications are a plus.

What Success Looks Like

• Clear service ownership and decision rights across Infrastructure, Network, Cloud, Platform Engineering, Operations, Architecture, Cybersecurity, and external partners.
• Measurable improvement in reliability, resilience, lifecycle health, delivery efficiency, cost transparency, and operational readiness.
• Roadmaps and investment priorities that connect technical work to store operations, Crew experience, risk reduction, and long-term supportability.
• A practical Platform Engineering model that reduces complexity and enables reuse, automation, and self-service without weakening governance or accountability.
• A strong engineering organization with capable leaders, clear roles, healthy succession plans, and a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.

WHY A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL SHOULD PURSUE THIS JOB

This role offers the opportunity to shape how foundational technology is engineered, delivered, and supported across Trader Joe's. The successful leader will help build a more reliable, resilient, secure, and efficient technology foundation while making it easier for IT teams to support stores and Crew. The position combines meaningful strategic influence with hands-on organizational leadership and the opportunity to create lasting capability.

We want to hear from you!

We get a lot of resumes; so to help us get to know you better, please submit your resume and cover letter. When creating your cover letter, please answer these questions:

• What is your favorite Trader Joe's product and why?
• What makes you uniquely qualified for this position?

Trader Joe's is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to hiring a diverse Crew.