Associate Director, Platform Engineering & Operations

Denali Therapeutics; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 159,000 - 207,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k

Healthcare coverage

ESPP

Job summary

Denali Therapeutics is seeking a proven Platform Engineering leader to set the operational agenda, scale the IT Infrastructure function, and drive reliability across a multi-site footprint including South San Francisco. You will own governance, risk management, and incident response, partnering with Architecture, IT Risk, and business stakeholders.

In this role you will lead a multidisciplinary team of employees, consultants, and contractors, establish operating cadences, and ensure SOX, GxP,

Qualifications

• 10+ years IT experience with platform engineering, infrastructure, IT service management, or IT operations.
• 3+ years direct team leadership, building management structures and accountability.
• Experience setting and driving operational agenda and contributing to enterprise strategy.
• Proven ability to maintain standards through attrition and competing priorities.
• Experience operationalizing vulnerability management, patching, and sustained disciplines as SLA-driven programs.
• Experience operating Platform Engineering within an architectural governance framework.
• Direct experience in regulated life sciences environments (GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, SOX ITGC).
• Hands-on ITIL-aligned service management (incident, change, problem, SLA).
• Experience with enterprise network, multi-cloud, observability tooling, and AI infra.

Responsibilities

• Lead IT Infrastructure as a function, owning the operational agenda and standards.
• Build and maintain management structures, cadences, escalation paths, and accountability mechanisms.
• Anticipate risks, capacity constraints, attrition, and capability gaps to prevent service impact.
• Guide Platform Engineering decisions within architectural governance and ARB forums.
• Represent Platform Engineering to peers and contribute to enterprise platform strategy including AI infrastructure.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Communication

Risk management

Regulatory/compliance

Cross-functional collaboration

Project management

Tools

Workato

Databricks

Reltio

ITIL

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

We invite you to consider an opportunity with Denali to help achieve our goal of delivering meaningful therapeutics to patients.

This role calls for a leader who sets the operational agenda, anticipates risks and opportunities, and brings them forward with a considered point of view. The successful candidate builds the management structures, operating cadences, and accountability mechanisms their team needs to execute reliably, and sustains operational standards through periods of change, attrition, or competing priorities. They exercise independent operational judgment, take ownership of outcomes, and lead through clarity of expectations, professional managerial standards, and accountability. They contribute an operational perspective to emerging strategies, including AI infrastructure. They manage a multidisciplinary team of employees, consultants, and contractors, with the function expected to scale alongside Denali’s South San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Zurich operational footprint.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead IT Infrastructure as a function, owning the operational agenda, operating rhythms, and standards by which the team executes
• Build and maintain the management structures, operating cadences, escalation paths, and accountability mechanisms required for reliable delivery
• Anticipate operational risks, capacity constraints, attrition, and capability gaps, and act in advance of service impact
• Operate Platform Engineering decisions within architectural standards and governance forums set by Architecture, including the Architecture Review Board (ARB) for decisions of architectural significance; bring operational experience into architectural decisions and execute engineering work within architectural intent
• Represent Platform Engineering & Operations to peer functions at the appropriate working level; contribute operational perspective and recommendations to enterprise platform strategy, including AI infrastructure, FinOps, and modernization

Service Management & Resilience

• Execute the unified Change Advisory Board (CAB) process integrating IT, SOX, and GxP change control, with leadership oversight on judgment calls of strategic or compliance significance; continuously mature change control as a strategic mechanism for risk-managed delivery
• Prepare and deliver Platforms-area content, analysis, and follow-through for the Quarterly Service Review (QSR) led by the Senior Director
• Execute DR and BCP across platforms, including runbooks, failover testing, recovery validation, and RTO/RPO compliance; maintain DR/BCP as a continuously verified operational capability
• Support the platform layer underpinning OT and manufacturing IT systems in partnership with the Manufacturing IT lead and Technical Operations
• Partner with business and operational stakeholders during platform incidents or degradation events to evaluate operational impact, coordinate temporary workarounds, support continuity procedures, and prioritize restoration activities aligned to business risk and criticality

Platform Services & Enterprise AI Infrastructure

• Lead delivery and operation of Denali’s enterprise observability and integration platforms (e.g., Workato) as shared services, in partnership with Product as the primary business-facing consumer
• Evolve the team toward a platform engineering model with end-to-end lifecycle ownership, including Platform Engineer and Platform Reliability Engineer roles, governed by architectural standards
• Lead the operational ramp of newly deployed enterprise platforms (e.g., SAP, MES, clinical data platforms) from project handoff into sustained operations
• Lead operational delivery of the shared platform layer that supports enterprise AI, including runtime, controls, model access, monitoring, and operational governance
• Deliver and operate validated infrastructure for AI workloads that touch regulated workflows, including security and integration architecture for safely connecting external AI partners
• Implement and operate AI governance touchpoints in partnership with IT Risk, Quality, Legal, and Cybersecurity, including intake controls, access provisioning, audit trails, human-in-the-loop enforcement for regulated outputs, detection of unauthorized AI usage, and AI/ML observability for output quality and drift
• Apply AI within Platform Engineering & Operations (AIOps, predictive incident detection, FinOps anomaly detection, automated remediation, AI-assisted change risk scoring)

Security, Compliance & Vulnerability Management

• Operationalize vulnerability management and patching as sustained, measurable, SLA-driven programs in partnership with Cybersecurity, including continuous discovery, prioritization, remediation, and closure verification
• Execute platform operations in alignment with SOX ITGCs and GxP requirements, ensuring audit-ready evidence; partner with IT Risk on in-scope systems including SAP support

Vendor & People Leadership

• Lead operational management of Managed Service Providers, including SLA enforcement, performance management, and day-to-day vendor relationships
• Proactively manage the consultant and contractor workforce, anticipating capacity gaps and ensuring continuity of capability ahead of disruptions
• Lead, develop, and grow the team; set clear expectations, performance standards, and accountability; build team operating cadences, on-call rotations, and capacity planning

Required Qualifications

• 9+ years of progressive IT experience, including significant time in platform engineering, infrastructure, IT service management, or IT operations
• 3+ years of direct team leadership experience, including building management structures, operating cadences, and accountability mechanisms required for reliable team delivery
• Demonstrated experience setting and driving the operational agenda for a function and contributing operational perspective to enterprise or cross-functional strategy decisions, with specific examples of identifying what needed attention and what was brought to the table
• Demonstrated experience holding operational standards through attrition, competing priorities, or pressure to deprioritize, with specific examples
• Demonstrated experience operationalizing vulnerability management, patching, or comparable sustained operational disciplines as measurable, SLA-driven programs
• Demonstrated experience operating Platform Engineering within an architectural governance framework, including productive engagement with Architecture functions
• Direct experience operating in a regulated life sciences environment with working knowledge of GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, and SOX ITGC requirements
• Hands‑on experience operating ITIL-aligned service management (incident, change, problem, service level)
• Experience operating enterprise network, virtualization, multi‑cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure), backup and restore, observability tooling, and enterprise AI infrastructure or comparable shared platform services
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to brief senior leaders concisely with considered recommendations

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a commercial-stage biotech or pharmaceutical company with a multi-site operational footprint, including operating AI infrastructure in validated environments for regulated workflows
• Experience supporting the platform layer for OT/manufacturing IT, operationalizing newly deployed enterprise platforms (e.g., SAP, MES, clinical data) into sustained operations, and leading platform engineering teams with end-to‑end lifecycle ownership
• Hands‑on familiarity with ITSM, Workato, Databricks, Reltio, and modern observability and AIOps tooling; ITIL v4, AWS/GCP/Azure, and/or FinOps foundations

Salary Range: $159,000.00 to $207,000.00 . Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. Denali offers a competitive total rewards package, which includes a 401k, healthcare coverage, ESPP and a broad range of other benefits. Learn more at https://www.denalitherapeutics.com/careers

This compensation and benefits information is based on Denali’s good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.

Denali is committed to its core company value of unity by creating a diverse and inclusive environment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, basis of disability, or any other federal, state, or local protected class.