Senior Director, Core Infrastructure Engineering, VCN Dataplane

Lead the engineering organization responsible for OCI’s Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) Dataplane, shaping the architecture, performance, reliability, and evolution of foundational cloud networking infrastructure.

Virtual Networking is foundational to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), providing the networking and storage datapath capabilities that customer workloads and OCI services depend on. We are seeking a Senior Director to lead a geographically distributed organization responsible for VCN Dataplane software. You will own engineering strategy, architecture, delivery, and production operations, working with leaders across OCI to translate customer needs and business priorities into a clear technical roadmap. This role combines deep systems expertise with organizational leadership. You will guide architectural decisions, scale a team of engineering managers and senior technical leaders, and maintain a high standard for performance, security, and availability. You will balance new capabilities with the engineering discipline required to operate critical infrastructure at cloud scale.

Define and execute the engineering strategy and roadmap for VCN Dataplane in partnership with Product Management and engineering leaders across OCI. Lead multiple engineering teams through design, development, testing, deployment, and production operations. Guide architectural decisions across network virtualization, packet processing, and distributed systems, balancing performance, reliability, security, resource efficiency, and maintainability. Own service health and operational outcomes, including availability, incident response, safe fleet deployments, and corrective actions that prevent recurring failures. Partner across Networking, Compute, Storage, hardware, and infrastructure teams to resolve dependencies and deliver integrated capabilities. Build and develop a strong leadership team; recruit and retain engineering managers and senior engineers, establish clear ownership, and develop succession plans. Set priorities and allocate resources across strategic initiatives, customer commitments, and operational improvements. Make tradeoffs explicit and hold teams accountable for delivery. Communicate technical direction, execution progress, and risks to senior leadership, and influence decisions that span organizational boundaries. Establish measurable goals for engineering execution, service quality, and organizational development. Qualifications BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. At least 10 years of engineering people-management experience, including leadership of multiple teams and management of engineering managers. A demonstrated record of delivering and operating large-scale, business-critical cloud infrastructure or distributed systems. Strong technical grounding in systems software, C/C++, operating systems, concurrency, and distributed systems, with the ability to evaluate complex architecture and performance tradeoffs. Experience with networking infrastructure, such as network virtualization, packet processing, or high-performance networking. Experience leading production operations, including incident management, deployment safety, reliability improvements, and capacity planning. A strong record of recruiting and developing engineering managers and senior technical talent. Demonstrated ability to set strategy, prioritize investments, and deliver complex initiatives across organizational boundaries. Clear communication and sound judgment, including the ability to explain technical and business tradeoffs to executive audiences. Preferred Qualifications Software Defined Networking, Networking Protocols and network virtualization. Experience with SmartNICs, DPUs, hardware-assisted virtualization, or networking and storage offload. Experience with kernel networking, userspace packet processing, or other performance-sensitive dataplane software. Experience managing geographically distributed teams and operating infrastructure across multiple cloud regions.

Minimum Job Qualifications Education and/or Experience: 12 years of experience in software development OR Bachelor's of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 8 years of experience in software development OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 8 years of experience in software development OR Master's of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 6 years of experience in software development OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 6 years of experience in software development OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 4 years of experience in software development. Job Skills: Same skills as prior level. Cloud - Cloud Platforms Experience: 5 years of professional experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud). Testing and Automation Experience: 10 years of experience working in testing and automation at the system level. Distributed Systems Experience: 2 years of experience working with delivering and operating large-scale distributed systems. Preferred Job Qualifications Education and/or Experience: 13 years of experience in software development OR Bachelor's of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 9 years of experience in software development OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 9 years of experience in software development OR Master's of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 7 years of experience in software development OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 7 years of experience in software development OR Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, Business Administration, or related field AND 5 years of experience in software development. People Leadership / Management Experience: 7 years of experience in a technical lead role with direct reports.