Director Cloud Operations & Support

Empire; Canada; Hybrid; CAD 159,000 - 248,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Tuition reimbursement

Comprehensive benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Four weeks vacation

Pension plan

Wellness programs

Job summary

Empire Life in Canada seeks a Director Cloud Operations & Support to lead reliability engineering and cloud-first initiatives. You’ll shape the strategic roadmap, align IT with business goals, and drive service excellence.

You’ll implement SRE practices, establish SLOs, automate toil, modernize batch processes, and mentor teams while partnering with Audit and Compliance to maintain risk controls.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in IT, with 5+ years in a senior operational leadership role.
• Proven track record establishing SLOs and driving toil reduction in high-availability cloud environments.
• Certifications in SRE/DevOps practices are considered an asset; AWS SysOps or Google Cloud DevOps Engineer are relevant.

Responsibilities

• Define strategic direction and long-term roadmaps for monitoring and operational excellence across the technology ecosystem.
• Champion SRE by creating and managing SLOs and error budgets to drive reliability.
• Ensure real-time, end-to-end visibility across front-end to back-end systems.
• Coordinate with Audit and Compliance to document health, stability, and controls.
• Modernize legacy batch processes into cloud-native architectures and optimize incident management with blameless post-mortems.
• Lead the proactive shift from reactive to proactive operations and mentor teams in SRE and agile practices.

Skills

Cloud architecture

SRE practices

Strategic leadership

SLOs / error budgets

Automation

AWS / GCP certs

Cloud security

Job description

The total target compensation (TTC) range, including salary and target bonus, is $159.300 - $247,800 . As the maximum TTC range exceeds $200,000, it is exempt from Ontario’s requirement to post a compensation range no greater than $50,000. This TTC range is applicable to permanent roles only. The actual base salary offered within this range will be determined by the successful candidate’s skills and experience, as well as internal equity.

Empire Life is looking to hire a The Director Cloud Operations & Support to join our IT team! We are actively seeking candidates to fill a current, open position

The Director Cloud Operations & Support is responsible for improving operational resiliency across the enterprise while leading the team through major technological shifts, including AI integration and the shift to cloud-first operations. The strategy is cornerstoned by the mandate to provide excellent internal service and reliability. The Director will establish a holistic system monitoring across all technologies, driving a proactive cultural shift, and embedding modern Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles. Success requires a pragmatic balance between SRE automation and established processes like ITIL to ensure both high-velocity reliability and operational rigor. The Director will report to the Vice-President of IT Back Office.

Why pursue this opportunity

Our mission - Provide expertise and intelligent solutions to help Canadians navigate life with confidence.

Join a transforming business - we are a medium-sized Canadian company in a stable industry which is rapidly transforming.

Impactful work - get the opportunity to work on meaningful projects that have a positive impact on our customers, our company, and society as a whole.

Hone your skills - this is an opportunity that allows for you to grow your technical, and functional skills.

What you’ll be working on

Leadership & Reliability Engineering

Define Strategic Direction: Establish the overarching vision, long-term strategic roadmap, monitoring, and operational excellence across the entire technology ecosystem.

Implement Key Frameworks: Champion the adoption of SRE practices by creating and managing frameworks for Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Error Budgets to drive accountability and continuous improvement in service reliability.

Holistic System Coverage: Ensure the monitoring operating model provides comprehensive, real-time insight and coverage across all systems, from front-end applications to back-end infrastructure.

Stakeholder Management & Audit Interface: Serve as the primary interface with internal Audit and Compliance teams to ensure the health, stability, and control of all operational systems and processes are clearly understood and accurately documented.

Operational Transformation & Transition

Batch Process Modernization: Guide the crucial optimization of legacy overnight batch processes as they are migrated and modernized into efficient, cloud-native architectures.

Incident Management: Evolve and govern the standardized, high-velocity incident management process, focusing on rapid response, clear communication, and conducting blameless post-mortems to ensure system resilience and prevent recurrence.

Toil Reduction & Automation: Systematically identify, measure, and prioritize toil across engineering and operations teams, driving automation efforts to eliminate manual, repetitive work and free up engineering capacity for innovation and strategic projects.

Disaster Recovery (DR) Alignment: Actively assist with and inform the Disaster Recovery (DR) strategy based on reliability data and performance trends derived from the observability framework.

Shift to Proactive Operations: Lead the transformation of the helpdesk function to a proactive, agile operations team, focusing on incident prevention, rapid resolution, and continuous learning.

Team Development & Mentorship: Drive a necessary culture shift from reactive, batch-centric management to a proactive, cloud-first, full-stack observability mindset. This includes mentoring managers and technical teams on SRE practices and agile operations.

Continuity & Knowledge Transfer: Develop robust continuity plans and documentation processes to ensure resilience and consistency of operational knowledge across team members, mitigating single points of failure.

Governance & Tooling: Define and govern the implementation of new tools, processes, and automation necessary to support scalable, real-time performance and reliability insight.

What we’re looking for you to have

10+ years in IT, with 5+ in a senior operational leadership role. Proven track record in establishing SLOs (Service Level Objectives), driving toil reduction, and running high-availability cloud environments. Focus is on leveraging engineering practices to achieve operational excellence.

Cloud operational/security certs (e.g., AWS Certified SysOps Administrator or Google Cloud Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer).

Certifications in SRE/DevOps methodology are considered an asset

If you are applying for a position which is open to applicants across Canada, unless otherwise indicated in the position, language proficiency in English is required for communicating with customers, advisors, or employees across Canada.

Our hiring process includes AI screening for keywords and minimum qualifications. Recruiters review all results.

Beyond the salary

For permanent full-time positions, Empire Life offers a comprehensive total rewards package that includes:

Competitive salaries with annual pay increases

Annual bonus program, which recognizes both strong company performance and individual contributions, for non sales positions

Access to learning & development programs, and education/tuition reimbursement (role dependent), to support your professional growth and career advancement.

A comprehensive employer-funded benefits package starting from day one of employment, that includes life insurance, health and dental and a generous health account

Flexible work arrangements and an annual allotment of personal health days.

Four weeks annual vacation from hire date

A defined contribution pension plan with generous employer matching

Top up programs for parental leave and compassionate leave

Employer-sponsored wellness and recognition programs

Empire life is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity, are committed to creating an inclusive environment, and welcome everyone to participate in our application process. We encourage those of all backgrounds and experiences to apply, even if you don't believe you meet each unique qualification outlined. A pplicants will receive equal consideration without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or age.

Empire Life is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to building an inclusive and barrier-free workplace. We welcome applications from people with disabilities and are committed to providing accommodations at any stage of the recruitment process. If you require a specific adjustment to help you present your best self, please let us know—we are happy to work with you. If you need this job posting in an alternative format or have any accessibility questions, please contact [e-mail] .