Innovation starts from the heart. At Edwards Lifesciences, we’re dedicated to developing ground-breaking technologies with a genuine impact on patients’ lives. At the core of this commitment is our investment in cutting-edge information technology. This supports our innovation and collaboration on a global scale, enabling our diverse teams to optimize both efficiency and success. As part of our IT team, your expertise and commitment will help facilitate our patient-focused mission by developing and enhancing technological solutions.

We're looking for a strategic and technically hands-on architect to lead our Cloud and On-Premises Infrastructure operations across a global enterprise environment. In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for designing, delivering, and evolving a modern infrastructure platform, driving the transformation from traditional data center operations to a cloud-native environment on AWS, while managing hybrid workloads. This role includes full accountability for cloud platforms (primarily AWS), on-premise compute/storage, and key operational domains such as Cloud Governance, Security, Observability, Resilience, and FinOps.

You'll drive architectural standards, service delivery excellence, automation, and operational maturity across infrastructure services. The successful candidate will bring deep technical expertise in AWS, a strong execution mindset, and experience building resilient, cost-effective, and secure platforms.

The successful candidate will have deep hands-on AWS experience, and the vision and practical expertise to guide an organization beginning its journey into Kubernetes and containerized workloads. You’ll own several critical infrastructure domains including Cloud Governance, Security, Cloud Networking, Observability, Resilience & Disaster Recovery, and FinOps.

How you’ll make an impact:

Strategic Infrastructure Leadership

• Lead the transformation from a traditional data center model to a scalable, automated, and secure cloud-native infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on AWS services.

• Define and execute the infrastructure strategy, aligning cloud and on-premise capabilities to meet evolving business needs.

• Serve as a change agent, introducing modern infrastructure practices and enabling a proactive, automation-first culture.

• Plan and direct multiple strategic project portfolios activities including prioritizing and selecting appropriate projects. Lead in identifying risk, developing complex mitigation strategies for IT Cloud Services, alternative solutions, critical path, resolving issues, etc. in collaboration with project managers

• Set IT strategy around efforts for Enterprise Cloud Workloads to reengineer and optimize business processes and systems by assessing business needs and developing, proposing, and implementing technology solution options

• Develop ROI based business cases by partnering with business stakeholders, developing, and implementing strategies for large cross-functional, multi-threaded programs within IT Cloud Services and IT Software Development which have several projects within the program. Develop and continuously provide annual updates to strategic plans and multi-year roadmaps in support of AOP. Advocate solution analysis, business requirements, cost benefit analysis, risk assessment and business impact analysis

People & Partner Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing global infrastructure team; mentor talent to support evolving technology needs (lead global teams consisting of 5-10 direct reports)

• Manage subordinate team members and direct IT Cloud Services activities with overall responsibility of planning, staffing, budgeting, managing expense priorities, and recommending and implementing changes to methods through several department managers

• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, documentation, and cross-team collaboration.

• Manage external vendor relationships and ensure service levels, budget alignment, and delivery outcomes.

Cloud Platform Ownership

• Own the end-to-end architecture, deployment, and operations of infrastructure services on AWS. Serve as the technical authority for AWS services, ensuring resilient, secure, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions.

• Oversee infrastructure operations with a focus on performance, observability, automation, and continuous improvement.

• Implement automation, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), proactive monitoring, and self-healing systems across environments.

• Ensure high availability, performance, and cost optimization of cloud and hybrid environments.

• Collaborate with DevOps, security, and application teams to deliver seamless infrastructure capabilities.

• Optimize costs and service delivery through effective vendor management and operational discipline.

Foundational Containerization & Kubernetes Adoption

• Guide the introduction and early adoption of Kubernetes and container platforms, helping teams develop skills, standards, and practices for long-term success.

• Build the roadmap and support structure for secure and scalable deployment of containerized workloads as adoption grows.

Domain Leadership

• Cloud Governance & Security: Define and implement policies for IAM, data protection, compliance, and secure configurations.

• Cloud Networking: Manage hybrid connectivity, VPCs, routing strategies, and integration between cloud and on-premise environments.

• Observability: Implement robust monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting systems for proactive incident management and performance tuning. Experience with application observability with New Relic preferred.

• Resilience & Disaster Recovery: Design and maintain business continuity plans with strong recovery point/time objectives (RPO/RTO).

• FinOps: Lead cost transparency, forecasting, and optimization efforts in partnership with Finance.

Architecture

• Develop, institute, and maintain the design and metadata repository for integrating all aspects of established architectural models.

• Translate business requirements into system qualities that lead to repeatable and executable design strategies and patterns for enterprise-level projects / initiatives or programs in collaboration with project teams

• Develop, institute, and maintain the IT design methodology, development process methodology, technology standards, and best practices.

•  Provide oversight to ensure compliance with architectural standards and practices through all aspects of planning, execution, and operation.

• Survey external emerging developments, and evangelize new technologies, standards and methodologies.

• Provide expert guidance on enterprise-level projects / initiatives or programs to business and IT executives by maintaining an in-depth knowledge of the company's strategic business plans and by identifying opportunities to leverage IT to realize those plans.

• Design enterprise and reference architectural models of current and proposed systems across the enterprise for use internally and in conjunction with external technology partners.

• Provide training, coaching and knowledge transfer to team members on new and emerging technologies

•  Lead the evaluation of new technology targeted for possible integration into the existing IT environment. Lead the formal RFI/RFP process of enterprise systems.

What you’ll need (Required):

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, plus 14+ years in IT, with at least 5 years in a senior infrastructure leadership role.

• Proven AWS expertise—certification or hands-on experience designing and operating AWS infrastructure; strong knowledge of AWS services, automation, and security.

• Proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation), CI/CD, and automation scripting.

• Strong background in SRE, with focus on observability, resilience, and FinOps.

What else we look for (Preferred):

• Master’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field

• Demonstrated Infrastructure People Leadership Experience

• Azure experience

• Familiarity with Kubernetes and containers, with a proven ability to introduce and mature these capabilities within an enterprise.

• Leadership experience across core infrastructure domains including Cloud Governance, Networking, Security, Observability, Resilience, and FinOps.

• Experience managing hybrid environments with both cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

• Expertise in operational frameworks such as ITIL, and experience in 24x7 mission-critical environments, supporting global business operations.

• Strong vendor management and budget oversight experience.

• Working knowledge of containerization and Kubernetes fundamentals; able to guide a team from first adoption to production readiness.

• Strong understanding of IT service management, ITIL frameworks, and infrastructure compliance standards.

• Strategic thinker with ability to execute and lead through complexity.

• Excellent communication, leadership, and stakeholder management skills in a global environment.

• Ability to drive a culture of operational excellence, data-driven decision-making, and innovation.

Aligning our overall business objectives with performance, we offer competitive salaries, performance-based incentives, and a wide variety of benefits programs to address the diverse individual needs of our employees and their families.

For California, the base pay range for this position is $204,000 to $289,000 (highly experienced). The pay for the successful candidate will depend on various factors (e.g., qualifications, education, prior experience). Applications will be accepted while this position is posted on our Careers website.