Corporate Vice President - Application Infrastructure & Database Platform Services Leader

Location Designation:  Hybrid - 3 days per quarter

Technology, Data, AI and Ventures:

Within the Tech, Data, AI, Ventures (TDAV) organization, our work is guided by a shared vision: deploying the power of technology, data, AI and ventures to accelerate sustainable competitive advantage for New York Life's businesses. We build solutions that power how we serve policy owners, agents, advisors and employees while delivering measurable business outcomes.

Across technology, data, AI, cyber, product, digital experience, architecture and infrastructure, TDAV combines the scale and investment of an industry leader, access to leading-edge technologies and the opportunity to help shape how a world-class financial services company competes in the AI era - all backed by the stability and purpose of a mutual company built to last.

Job Title: Application Infrastructure & Database Platform Services Leader
Location: New York, NY (Hybrid - 3 days per quarter)
Team: Technology - Infrastructure & Platform Services (Application Infrastructure & Database Platform Services)
Reports to: Head of Infrastructure & Platform Services
Employment Type: Full-time

Grade Level: MG3

Role Summary

Lead the strategy, engineering, platform ownership, service operations, and reliability execution for enterprise application infrastructure and database platform services. The portfolio includes middleware, content management, communication compliance platforms, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, AWS database services, and core database administration capabilities. This role is accountable for delivering secure, resilient, scalable, and automated services that support critical business workloads across private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid environments.

You will lead integrated engineering, operations, and site reliability functions to modernize platforms, improve service reliability, strengthen recoverability, and reduce operational toil. Success depends on strong partnership with infrastructure, cloud, application, cybersecurity, architecture, data, and risk teams, backed by senior leadership support to drive standards, service discipline, platform modernization, and measurable operational outcomes.

What You'll Do

Strategy, Governance & Operating Model

Own the enterprise strategy and roadmap for application infrastructure and database platform services across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments.

Define and enforce standards, policies, and controls for middleware, content management, communication compliance, database engineering and administration, patching, backup and recovery, resiliency, observability, and lifecycle management.

Establish an operating model that integrates platform engineering, database administration, production operations, service management, and SRE practices across the portfolio.

Chair or co-chair governance forums covering service health, modernization priorities, operational risk, major incidents, chronic platform issues, and cross-team dependencies with Infrastructure, Cloud, Security, Data, and Application leaders.

Enterprise Platform & Service Ownership

Serve as the senior product and service owner for enterprise application infrastructure and database platforms, including middleware, content management, communication compliance, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, AWS managed database services, and other approved platform technologies.

Define platform roadmaps, integration priorities, and technical standards spanning provisioning, monitoring, backup and recovery, automation frameworks, certificate and secrets management, and cloud enablement.

Ensure platforms are reliable, scalable, secure, and easy for engineering teams to consume through standard patterns, reusable services, self-service capabilities, dashboards, and operational runbooks.

Platform Engineering, Automation & Cloud Enablement

Lead platform engineering efforts to build standardized, automated, policy-driven services for application runtime, integration, content, database provisioning, patching, configuration management, performance optimization, and lifecycle operations.

Drive infrastructure-as-code, configuration-as-code, automation, and self-service capabilities for public and private cloud platform services where appropriate.

Partner with cloud and architecture teams to define target patterns across hybrid hosting models, including resiliency, data protection, connectivity, security, and compliance requirements.

Guide platform modernization initiatives, including migration, consolidation, version currency, decommissioning, rationalization, and adoption of approved cloud-native and managed services.

Operations, Resiliency & Service Management

Direct day-to-day platform operations to ensure service stability, incident response, problem management, capacity planning, maintenance execution, production readiness, and operational continuity.

Oversee high availability, clustering, failover, backup and restore, replication, disaster recovery, and business continuity readiness across application infrastructure and database environments.

Define and track service-level measures for availability, recoverability, performance, change success, vulnerability remediation, and operational responsiveness.

Lead root cause analysis and corrective action planning for major incidents, recurring service issues, control gaps, and systemic platform weaknesses.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Alignment

Establish and mature SRE practices across application infrastructure and database services, including service level indicators, service level objectives, error budgets, operational readiness criteria, and toil reduction.

Partner with SRE, application, cloud, and platform teams to improve reliability through automation, resiliency engineering, proactive detection, production hardening, and measurable service ownership.

Embed reliability engineering principles into platform design, deployment, change, and support processes across public and private cloud environments.

Security, Risk & Control Integration

Ensure platforms meet enterprise expectations for security, access control, encryption, certificate and secrets management, vulnerability remediation, logging, audit evidence, and regulatory compliance.

Partner with cybersecurity, risk, and audit teams to strengthen control maturity and ensure platform operations align with internal policies and external obligations.

Support secure configuration baselines, privileged access controls, segregation of duties, and timely remediation of platform-level vulnerabilities, findings, and technology risks.

Metrics, Reporting & Executive Communication

Define and manage key performance indicators and executive measures for platform availability, incident trends, recovery readiness, automation adoption, vulnerability posture, backlog health, and modernization progress.

Produce regular reporting and dashboards for Technology leadership, Risk, Security, Audit, and business stakeholders as needed.

Translate platform issues, technical debt, operational dependencies, and reliability risk into clear business impact, prioritization choices, funding needs, and action plans for senior stakeholders.

Leadership, People & Culture

Lead and develop multidisciplinary teams of middleware and platform engineers, database engineers and administrators, operations leads, and SRE practitioners supporting mission-critical services.

Create a culture of ownership, engineering discipline, operational excellence, automation, customer focus, and continuous improvement.

Provide coaching, performance management, career development, workforce planning, and succession development while building strong technical depth and leadership capacity across the organization.

Authority and Scope

This role requires visible senior leadership support to operate effectively across organizational boundaries. The role holder is empowered to:

Set enterprise standards and service expectations for application infrastructure and database platform engineering, operations, resiliency, security, and cloud enablement.

Require remediation plans, modernization commitments, accountable owners, and target dates from supporting technology teams when platform risks or service gaps are identified.

Escalate unresolved blockers, missed commitments, recurring service issues, and unmanaged operational risk through formal governance channels.

Coordinate end-to-end platform activity spanning middleware, content management, communication compliance, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, AWS database services, backup and recovery, observability, automation, and related operational dependencies.

Success Measures & Key Outcomes (First 6-12 Months)

Platform stability & resiliency - Improved availability, stronger recovery readiness, and fewer recurring incidents across application infrastructure and database services.

Operational effectiveness - Clear ownership, stronger service discipline, and measurable improvement in incident, change, maintenance, patching, and vulnerability-remediation outcomes.

Automation maturity - Increased automation of provisioning, patching, monitoring, recovery validation, and routine administrative activities that reduce manual effort and operational risk.

Platform modernization - Demonstrable progress against application infrastructure and hybrid cloud database roadmaps, including rationalization, version currency, decommissioning, and adoption of approved managed services.

Observability & transparency - Dashboards and service metrics routinely used by leadership to assess health, risk, performance, capacity, and delivery progress.

Talent & operating model - Well-defined engineering, operations, DBA, and SRE accountabilities with strong team engagement, effective succession planning, and leadership confidence.

Qualifications

12-15+ years of experience in infrastructure, platform engineering, database services, IT operations, or SRE, with 5+ years in senior leadership roles owning enterprise platform services.

Deep understanding of enterprise application infrastructure, middleware, content platforms, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, AWS database services, and related operational dependencies in large-scale production environments.

Strong experience leading engineering, database administration, operations, and reliability teams across private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid infrastructure models.

Hands-on familiarity with high availability, disaster recovery, backup and recovery, clustering, replication, performance and capacity management, patching, and lifecycle management for mission-critical platforms.

Proven experience building and running service-oriented platform organizations with clear product ownership, operational metrics, automation goals, financial discipline, and executive reporting.

Strong knowledge of observability, monitoring, alerting, telemetry, dependency mapping, and service health management for complex distributed platforms.

Experience with automation, scripting, infrastructure as code, configuration as code, and operational tooling supporting provisioning, policy enforcement, and platform support.

Strong understanding of platform and database security, privileged access, encryption, certificate and secrets management, vulnerability remediation, audit, and compliance requirements in regulated environments.

Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders, align cross-functional teams, manage vendors, and drive decisions across Technology, Security, Risk, Data, and Business partners.

Excellent communication, storytelling, negotiation, and presentation skills with the ability to convey technical issues, service trade-offs, and platform risk in clear business terms.

Nice to Have

Experience in financial services, insurance, or another highly regulated industry.

Experience leading platform consolidation, cloud migration, managed-service adoption, or large-scale technology modernization programs.

Familiarity with private cloud platforms, container platforms, API and integration services, managed database technologies, and modern DevOps or platform engineering operating models.

Relevant certifications in AWS, Oracle, Microsoft, ITIL, SRE, cybersecurity, or related technology disciplines.

Working Model

Hybrid role based in New York, NY with regular in-person collaboration for governance forums, planning sessions, incident reviews, and leadership events. Occasional off-hours engagement may be required during critical incidents, major upgrades, disaster recovery exercises, or high-priority service events. You will operate at the intersection of application infrastructure, database engineering, platform operations, cloud transformation, and service reliability to enable secure, modern, and resilient services for the business.

Job Level: LEVELMG3

Pay Transparency

Salary Range: $160,000-$228,500

Overtime eligible: Exempt

Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes

Sales bonus eligible: No

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual’s experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.

Company Overview

At New York Life, our 180-year legacy of purpose and integrity fuels our future. As we evolve into a more technology-, data-, and AI-enabled organization, we remain grounded in the values that drive lasting impact.

Our diverse business portfolio creates opportunities to make a difference across industries and communities—inviting bold thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and purpose-driven innovation. Here, you’ll find the rare balance of long-standing stability and forward momentum, supported by an inclusive team that honors tradition while embracing progress.

As a Fortune 100 mutual company, we offer a place to grow your skills, contribute to meaningful work, and deliver solutions that matter. Your ideas drive what’s next, and your growth powers it.

Our Benefits

We provide a full package of benefits for employees – and have unique offerings for a modern workforce, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from our employees, we continue to refine and add benefits to our offering, so that you can flourish both inside and outside of work. Click here to discover more about our comprehensive benefit options or visit our NYL Benefits Site .

Our Commitment to Inclusion

At New York Life, fostering an inclusive workplace is fundamental to who we are and how we serve our communities. We have a longstanding commitment to creating an environment where individuals can contribute their best and succeed together. This foundation is rooted in our core values of humanity and integrity, ensuring that every employee feels valued and supported. By embracing a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we achieve greater success and fulfill our promise of providing financial security and peace of mind to families across all communities.  Click here to learn more about New York Life’s leadership in this space.​

Recognized as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, New York Life is committed to improving local communities through a culture of employee giving and volunteerism, supported by the  Foundation . We're proud that due to our mutuality, we operate in the best interests of our policy owners. To learn more about career opportunities at New York Life, please visit the Careers page of www.NewYorkLife.com .

Job Requisition ID: 95385