Practice Director, Cloud Services

About Toptal

Toptal is a global network of top talent in business, design, and technology that enables companies to scale their teams, on-demand. With $200+ million in annual revenue and team members based around the globe, Toptal is the world’s largest fully remote workforce.

We take the best elements of virtual teams and combine them with a support structure that encourages innovation, social interaction, and fun. We see no borders, move at a fast pace, and are never afraid to break the mold.

Job Summary:

Toptal is an innovative organization that is disrupting the global professional services and talent market. In response to our clients’ overwhelming demand for exceptional talent in new areas, we are expanding the breadth and depth of our Technology Services offerings, including Hybrid Cloud and DevOps, to fuel the next phase of growth. As a Practice Director for Toptal’s Cloud Services practice, you will lead and develop the team of solution architects who design, sell, and deliver hybrid cloud and DevOps solutions for our clients.

You will set the technical vision and standards for the team, shape the solutions it takes to market, and be empowered to work across organizational lines to build a world-class architecture practice. This leader will be a proven expert in hybrid cloud infrastructure and modern DevOps practices, and a proven people leader who has built and managed teams of solution architects or senior technical consultants. The right candidate will understand target buyers, their priorities, and the trends impacting them. Their knowledge will inform which solutions the team builds out, how we scope and package what we do, and how we create a competitive value proposition now and in the future to meet changing market needs.

This is a remote position. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English.

Responsibilities:

The following information is intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or required skills.

You will be responsible for leading Toptal’s Cloud Services Team. This includes:

• Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and grow a team of solution architects. Set clear goals, give regular feedback, and build a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous learning.
• Hiring Talent: Recruit, onboard, and retain top solution architects, and ensure the team has the right skills in the right capacities (e.g., hybrid cloud, Kubernetes, Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD, SRE, security) to meet market demand.
• Architecture Standards: Define reference architectures, design patterns, and best practices for hybrid cloud and DevOps solutions, and review the team’s solution designs for quality, security, scalability, and cost-efficiency.
• Pre-Sales Leadership: Partner with Sales to assess client needs, define solution approaches, and shape proposals and technical presentations. Ensure architects are matched to the right opportunities, and lead key client conversations yourself.
• Solution Development: Work with practice and delivery leadership to turn repeatable solutions into scalable offerings, such as hybrid cloud architecture and migration, landing zones, container platforms, Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD and DevSecOps, SRE and observability, and FinOps.
• Delivery: Partner with Delivery to ensure designs are implemented successfully. Guide engineering teams through complex technical decisions, and step in directly on critical engagements.
• Capacity and Performance: Plan team capacity, manage workload and utilization across opportunities and engagements, and track key team metrics such as pipeline support, win rate, and client satisfaction.
• Partnerships: Build relationships with key technology and cloud partners (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, VMware/Broadcom, Red Hat, HashiCorp) and keep the team’s certifications and partner alignment current.
• Thought Leadership: Stay current on hybrid cloud, platform engineering, and DevOps trends; contribute to marketing content that builds the team’s reputation with clients and in the market.
• Hands-On Contribution: Remain hands-on by owning architecture for strategic accounts and building proofs of concept, modeling the standard you expect from the team.

This role is highly collaborative and will work extremely closely with our Marketing, Sales, Delivery, and Talent Operations teams to fulfill the above responsibilities.

In the first week, expect to:

• Onboard and integrate into Toptal; meet your colleagues and the Solution Architects on your team.
• Learn about Toptal’s history, culture, and vision, with a focus on the state of our industry, Toptal’s operating model, and the core messages important to Toptal.
• Shadow critical teams throughout the organization to learn Toptal’s core operations and capabilities.

In the first month, expect to:

• Begin developing relationships with key leaders and stakeholders across the organization.
• Dive deeper into the operations of key teams (e.g., Sales, Talent Operations) across the company.
• Conduct a comprehensive review of current demand in your practice area, talent that already exists in the network, active engagements, and any work we may already be doing or have done.
• Assess the skills, strengths, and development needs of your Solution Architects.
• Articulate a hypothesis about how to grow the team’s impact (priorities, structure, and standards) and design experiments and execution approaches to get there.

In the first three months, expect to:

• Be a well-integrated member of the organization with positive relationships in Sales (Enterprise/SMB), Marketing, and Talent Operations.
• Be in front of clients on a regular basis to hear from them firsthand.
• Define the team’s operating model, architecture standards, and pre-sales engagement process.
• Build your team and begin positively impacting revenue growth.

In the first six months, expect to:

• Have moved from purely planning to execution.
• See an impact from your involvement in early initiatives, including repeatable solutions in market and a growing pipeline supported by your team.
• Establish key partner relationships and a clear hiring and talent plan for the team.

In the first year, expect to:

• Feel like you made the best decision of your career.
• Increase the growth rate of Toptal materially.
• Have a high-performing, fully staffed Solution Architect team recognized for Hybrid Cloud and DevOps expertise.

Qualifications and Job Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree is required; an MBA is preferred.
• 15+ years of experience in cloud, infrastructure, or DevOps engineering and architecture, with at least 5+ years leading teams of solution architects or senior engineers within cloud or technology services.
• 3+ years managing a business or team, preferably with P&L or budget responsibility, and a proven track record of overseeing financial performance, identifying areas for improvement, and driving profitability and growth.
• Proven experience leading and developing teams of solution architects or senior technical consultants.
• Proven ability to build and scale hybrid cloud and DevOps service offerings in a consulting, managed services, technology services, or enterprise environment.
• Deep expertise in hybrid and multi-cloud architecture across AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including connectivity, identity, governance, and workload placement across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments.
• Strong experience with data center and virtualization platforms (e.g., VMware, Nutanix, Hyper-V) and hybrid cloud technologies (e.g., Azure Arc, AWS Outposts, Google Distributed Cloud).
• Deep knowledge of cloud-native technologies, including containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker), serverless computing, and microservices architecture.
• Strong experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management tools such as Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, or Pulumi.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, and automation frameworks (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, Argo CD).
• Expertise in DevOps and platform engineering practices, including DevSecOps, site reliability engineering (SRE), observability, and the use of delivery metrics (e.g., DORA) to drive improvement.
• Experience with cloud migration and application modernization strategies, disaster recovery, and business continuity in hybrid environments.
• Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks and practices (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001, SOC 2, CIS), including identity and access management, encryption, and policy-as-code.
• Knowledge of FinOps and cloud cost optimization, and of emerging trends such as AI-enabled infrastructure and operations, and edge computing.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP Architect; CKA/CKAD; Terraform Associate) are a plus.
• Ability to develop strong relationships with enterprise clients and executives to drive hybrid cloud and DevOps consulting engagements.
• Proven ability to lead collaboratively and operate in a high-growth environment.
• Skilled in articulating a strategy with a strong, agile execution plan.
• Comfortable with rolling up your sleeves to do the work, demonstrating traction, and building a team over time.
• Demonstrated success in making data-driven decisions and defining key metrics to measure progress.
• Ability to walk in the shoes of your audience in order to understand their challenges, develop and execute an approach to solve them, and articulate the solution in a clear and compelling way.
• Strong ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable business strategies for non-technical stakeholders.
• Refined relationship development and leadership skills with a track record of building credibility across all levels of an organization. You can develop positive relationships across the business to partner on key initiatives and gain consensus on processes and strategies.
• Confidence in your analytical abilities, with proven success in delivering results in ambiguous and sophisticated project efforts.
• Skilled in the art of communicating (written and verbal) with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, rapidly growing company and handle a wide variety of challenges, deadlines, and a diverse array of contacts.
• You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.