Strategic CloudOps Project Lead

Backblaze External Website; United States; On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Backblaze is seeking a Strategic Operations Lead embedded in CloudOps to drive large-scale infrastructure and tooling initiatives. You will own cross-functional programs from planning through delivery, ensuring scope, timelines, and outcomes align with business objectives.

In this role you develop detailed project plans, manage dependencies, report progress to leadership, and implement governance, documentation, and KPI tracking across multiple workstreams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in project/program management, ideally within operations, infrastructure, data center environments, or a related field.
• Strong organizational and communication skills.
• Familiarity with project management methodologies and practices; PMP or similar certification preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate cross-functional projects and strategic operational initiatives from planning through completion.
• Develop and maintain project plans, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, risks, issues, and action items.
• Track project execution at the task level, ensuring every task has a clear owner and current status to support granular reporting and early risk detection.
• Facilitate project meetings, document decisions, assign follow-up actions, and drive items through completion.
• Maintain project documentation, status updates, decision logs, and supporting operational procedures.
• Partner with stakeholders to define scope, priorities, timelines, ownership, and success criteria.
• Establish clear project governance, meeting cadence, roles and responsibilities, and decision-making processes.
• Coordinate cross-functional planning sessions, project reviews, and stakeholder updates.
• Identify project risks, issues, and dependencies; proactively elevate blockers and delays to leadership and support timely resolution.
• Communicate project status, schedule changes, decisions, and key impacts to stakeholders.
• Track commitments, decisions, and follow-up items through completion to maintain project momentum.
• Align projects and operational initiatives with established SOPs, documentation standards, and agreed requirements.
• Promote consistent project governance, documentation, and execution practices.
• Develop repeatable processes that improve planning, execution, and accountability.
• Produce project dashboards, status reports, and executive-ready updates.
• Track project health, milestones, risks, dependencies, resource needs, and key KPIs.
• Prepare recurring portfolio and initiative reports for leadership and stakeholders.
• Projects delivered on schedule, within scope, and against defined objectives
• Risks, dependencies, decisions, and actions proactively managed and resolved
• Accurate, timely, and actionable project reporting
• Well-maintained project plans, documentation, and standardized processes that support stakeholder alignment and confidence

Skills

Project management

Cross-functional coordination

Strategic planning

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Power BI

Smartsheet

Microsoft Project

Job description

Backblaze is seeking a Strategic Operations Lead embedded in CloudOps to drive large-scale infrastructure and tooling initiatives. You will own cross-functional programs from planning through delivery, ensuring scope, timelines, and outcomes align with business objectives.

In this role you develop detailed project plans, manage dependencies, report progress to leadership, and implement governance, documentation, and KPI tracking across multiple workstreams.