About this role
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.
Role Overview
Lead enterprise Observability, AIOps, and platform tooling strategy, engineering, delivery, and adoption across New York Life. Own an integrated monitoring, event orchestration, ITOM/ITSM, automation, and cloud portfolio with clear roadmaps and outcomes. Build an AI-enabled engineering organization through practical AI skills development, reusable operational skills, and production agents for telemetry analysis, investigation, and recovery assistance. Redesign observability workflows to improve signal quality, reliability, and recovery while measurably reducing manual effort, handoffs, and rework.
In this role you will:
- Set the vision and strategy for how telemetry, service and dependency context, automation, AIOps, AI Agents and platform capabilities improve availability, resiliency, risk posture, developer productivity, and data-driven operations across the firm.
- Govern the enterprise ecosystem of monitoring, logging, tracing, event management, ITSM, automation, and cloud platform tools - rationalizing where appropriate, modernizing legacy capabilities, and integrating PagerDuty, New Relic, ServiceNow, and other telemetry sources in alignment with architecture and security standards.
- Lead cross-functional engineering teams and vendor partners to deliver enterprise-grade services, while influencing senior Technology and Business leaders on investment, prioritization, adoption, accountability, and operating model.
What You'll Do
Strategy, Vision & Governance
- Own the Observability and AIOps strategy, operating model, and prioritized roadmap across instrumentation, event intelligence, investigation, and recovery. Assign owners, milestones, dependencies, and adoption measures.
- services; drive PagerDuty, New Relic, and ServiceNow as an integrated operational ecosystem.
- Establish enterprise standards, policies, and guardrails for telemetry, event quality, cloud platform services, automation, and IT operations tooling; chair or co-chair relevant architecture and governance forums.
- Own the portfolio roadmap and investment case, including TCO, rationalization decisions, and vendor selection in partnership with Procurement, Finance, and Enterprise Architecture; maintain named owners, production dates, dependencies, risks, RFEs, and measurable outcomes.
Enterprise Product Ownership
- Act as executive product owner for Observability, AIOps, and Cloud Platform services, including enterprise event aggregation and orchestration, landing zones, Kubernetes platforms, shared services, and self-service portals.
- Define and publish product visions, roadmaps, OKRs, and transparent scorecards tied to coverage, event quality, noise reduction, operational adoption, MTTR, automation maturity, recurring-incident elimination, developer experience, resiliency, and risk reduction.
- Ensure products are consumable as-a-service with clear SLAs, documentation, onboarding models, support and ownership models, and chargeback/showback where appropriate; hold vendors accountable for delivery and service outcomes.
Architecture, Design & Patterns
- Sponsor reference architectures for observability and AIOps, including OpenTelemetry-first instrumentation, data ingestion and retention tiers, golden tags, distributed tracing and context propagation, event pipelines, correlation, service mapping, and dependency intelligence.
- Define and oversee implementation of cloud and platform patterns and guardrails across AWS/Azure/GCP and Kubernetes, including networking, IAM, policy-as-code, GitOps, multi-region DR, platform security baselines, and observability for applications, APIs, data, security, network, containers, and AI services.
- Expand and deepen integrations with platforms including Cisco ThousandEyes, Zscaler, Nexthink, Databricks, MuleSoft, LeanIX, AWS, GCP, and ServiceNow CMDB/CSDM so events include trusted service, dependency, change, ownership, and business-impact context rather than basic alert forwarding.
Service Enablement & Scale
- Drive adoption of paved roads for application and platform teams - dashboards, SLO templates, alert policies, tracing libraries, agents/sidecars, telemetry standards, reusable platform blueprints, and service onboarding patterns.
- Scale AIOps and SRE capabilities using PagerDuty Event Orchestration, SRE Agent, runbooks, correlation, service dependency intelligence, ServiceNow ITSM/ITOM, on-call management, CI/CD, and incident/PIR workflows to accelerate detection, diagnosis, prioritization, recovery, and permanent remediation of recurring incidents.
- Industrialize operational automation by connecting PagerDuty workflows and Automation Actions to Rundeck, Ansible, APIs, and other orchestration capabilities, progressing safely from recommendation to human-approved action and controlled automated remediation with appropriate controls and evidence.
Reliability, Performance & Risk
- Set enterprise reliability objectives (SLOs, SLIs, error budgets) and influence senior product and business owners to meet them; use trusted telemetry and operational context to improve detection, diagnosis, recovery, and recurring-incident elimination.
- Sponsor chaos engineering, DR exercises, and capacity/performance programs across cloud and Kubernetes platforms, and establish measurable resiliency and recovery outcomes.
- Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance to embed zero-trust principles, logging and monitoring controls, controlled automation, and audit evidence collection for regulatory frameworks (e.g., SOX, NYDFS).
Financials, Vendor & Lifecycle Management
- Own the financial performance of the Observability, AIOps, and Enterprise Tools portfolio, including FinOps for telemetry and platforms, license optimization, cardinality and retention controls, and value realization against measurable outcomes.
- Drive enterprise tool rationalization, contract negotiations, renewals, and vendor performance management; use transparent scorecards for coverage, event quality, noise, adoption, MTTR, automation maturity, roadmap execution, and recurring-incident elimination.
- Oversee lifecycle management for agents, collectors, platform versions, integrations, automation content, and orchestration dependencies to reduce operational risk and maintain supportability.
Leadership, Organization & Change Management
- Lead multiple agile squads and matrixed teams spanning engineers, SREs, platform owners, and operations; attract, develop, and retain senior engineering talent while strengthening engineering ownership and operational accountability.
- Provide clear communication and storytelling to executive audiences (CIO/CTO, risk committees, senior business leaders), translating complex architecture and operational issues into clear priorities, decisions, tradeoffs, risks, and measurable outcomes.
- Champion continuous improvement, run design and architecture reviews, and scale best practices across Infrastructure, App/SRE, Security, Product, Network, Cloud, and Data teams.
Qualifications
- 12-15+ years of experience in Infrastructure, SRE, Platform Engineering, Production Engineering, or IT Operations, with 5+ years in senior leadership roles owning enterprise-scale platforms and tools.
- Demonstrated ownership of Enterprise Observability, SRE, and/or AIOps at scale in hybrid or multi-cloud environments, including leadership of complex cross-enterprise engineering initiatives and services supporting large, regulated enterprises.
- Deep technical expertise in modern observability spanning metrics, events, logs, traces, telemetry pipelines, event correlation, service mapping, service/dependency intelligence, and incident response; strong experience with PagerDuty and/or New Relic.
- Proven track record delivering end-to-end observability across infrastructure, applications, networks, security, cloud, data, storage, backup, APIs, containers, and AI services, including distributed tracing, SLOs/SLIs, alert strategy, data pipelines, and retention tiering.
- Strong automation & IaC experience: Rundeck, Ansible, Terraform/Terragrunt, GitOps (Argo CD/Flux), APIs, scripting, and CI/CD integration, with experience progressing safely from recommendation to human-approved and controlled automated remediation.
- Solid understanding of ITIL and SRE principles (incident/change/problem, PIRs, error budgets) and deep experience integrating observability with ServiceNow ITSM/ITOM/CMDB to establish actionable service, dependency, change, ownership, and business-impact context.
- Experience designing and integrating APIs, webhooks, streaming/event architectures , operational data models, CMDB/CSDM, event orchestration, and automation workflows across heterogeneous enterprise platforms.
- Background working in regulated financial or highly regulated environments , partnering effectively with Security, Risk, Compliance, and Audit.
- Demonstrated executive communication and influencing skills - comfortable presenting strategy, tradeoffs, architecture, risk posture, delivery status, and measurable reliability outcomes to senior technology and business leaders.
- Strong vendor and portfolio management experience: leading RFPs, negotiating contracts, managing large technology budgets, and holding strategic vendors accountable to roadmaps and outcomes.
- Preferred: direct experience with PagerDuty Event Orchestration, SRE Agent, Automation Actions, enterprise telemetry integrations (e.g., ThousandEyes, Zscaler, Nexthink), and observability for AI/ML or Agentic AI environments.
What Success Looks like :
Adoption & Standardization
- ≥90% of Tier-1/Tier-2 services onboarded to standard telemetry, tracing, event-enrichment, and alerting patterns with trusted service and ownership context.
- ≥85% of new cloud and Kubernetes workloads launched via approved paved roads and platform blueprints, with defined observability and operational-readiness standards.
Reliability & Incident Outcomes
- MTTR for priority incidents reduced by ≥30% through improved event quality, correlation, service/dependency context, orchestration, and automation.
- SLO attainment for top critical services improved by ≥10%, with clear error-budget policies and measurable reduction in recurring incidents.
Signal Quality & Automation Excellence
- ≥50% reduction in noisy/non-actionable alerts, with a higher ratio of enriched, correlated, business-relevant events and reduced alert fatigue.
- PIR insights systematically captured into runbooks, knowledge, platform features, and automation; high-value remediations progress from recommendation to human-approved action and controlled automation.
Cost & Tooling Efficiency
- Telemetry and platform spend optimized with ≥20–30% savings through cardinality controls, retention tiers, license optimization, and portfolio rationalization.
- Overlapping tools consolidated around a simplified, integrated operational ecosystem with clear vendor accountability, support models, and lifecycle ownership.
Compliance, DR & Risk
- DR objectives (RTO/RPO) validated and monitored for critical platforms; evidence available for key resiliency, logging, event-management, and automation controls.
- Audit-ready, automated evidence for observability and monitoring controls across regulatory frameworks, including traceability for controlled and human-in-the-loop automation.
Tooling You May Lead
- Observability & Telemetry: New Relic, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana, Splunk/ELK, synthetic & RUM, distributed tracing, and telemetry integrations including Cisco ThousandEyes, Zscaler, Nexthink, Databricks, and MuleSoft.
- AIOps, Ops & ITSM: PagerDuty Event Orchestration, SRE Agent, Automation Actions, ServiceNow ITSM/ITOM/CMDB/CSDM, on-call and incident orchestration, service/dependency context, and problem-management workflows.
- Cloud & Platform: AWS/Azure/GCP landing zones, Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE), service mesh, API gateways, secret managers, artifact registries, platform portals, and observability for AI/ML or Agentic AI services.
- Automation: Rundeck, Ansible, Terraform/Terragrunt, GitHub/GitLab/ADO pipelines, Argo CD/Flux, APIs, Python/PowerShell, and related orchestration capabilities.
Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent experience; advanced degree (MBA or technical Master's) preferred.
Job Level: LEVELMG3
Pay Transparency
Salary Range: $166,500-$238,000
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: 95384