Director, Technical Operations

Director, Technical Operations Apply now Dogs, cats, budgies and everything in between - pets deserve the world. They make us want to be better humans. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to build the most engaged and passionate community of pets and pet parents across the world. And we’re looking for talented team mates who can help us do it. Founded in Sydney, our team of 500+ pet obsessives span Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. We’ve scaled to become one of Australia's top five eComm companies and the no.1 online pet store. But we’re just getting started. Like a whippet who’s spotted their mate across the dog park, our growth is only going to accelerate, as we continue to disrupt the way that pet parents shop. Excitingly, the pet industry is booming (as in $15 billion kind of booming) and online pet retail is set to grow exponentially in the next five years. So this is a unique career opportunity to be part of our epic growth story. The opportunity This is the role that keeps Pet Circle's engine room running. As Director, Technical Operations, you'll own the infrastructure, security, and operational backbone of our technology platform - not manage it from a distance, but truly own it. You'll build our security and disaster recovery capability from the ground up, drive cloud cost efficiency on Google Cloud Platform, lead our Platform Engineering team, and set the standard for how technology operates at scale. This is a newly created role, which means real scope to shape it. If you're energised by complexity, comfortable moving between cloud architecture and warehouse networking in the same week, and you believe that great infrastructure is what makes great product possible - this one's for you. What you’ll be doing Own Pet Circle's Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, reliability, performance, cost efficiency, and evolution, with infrastructure-as-code at the foundation. Lead and develop the platform engineering team, and keep CI/CD pipelines fast and well-maintained so engineering squads can ship with confidence. Build our security posture from scratch: routine assessments, vulnerability remediation, identity and access management (JumpCloud), and endpoint security (CrowdStrike). Develop and test disaster recovery plans with defined, proven RPOs and RTOs. Not just documented ones. Oversee IT support across Pet Circle's offices, four Australian warehouses, and remote teams in NZ and the Philippines. 24x7 for warehouse operations. Manage a small team of IT Support Officers; set the standards and direction and let them run the day-to-day. Own GCP spend efficiency. Monitor, optimise, and build cost-awareness into architectural decisions. Act as the gatekeeper for software licensing across the business: audit what we have, rationalise duplicate and unused tools, and establish a clear approval process for new software requests. The ideal toolbox 8+ years in infrastructure, DevOps, or platform engineering, with at least 2 years managing technical teams directly Deep, hands-on Google Cloud Platform experience You're already using AI tools in your day-to-day work. Not as a novelty, but as a genuine accelerator Experience designing and testing disaster recovery plans, including defining and validating RPOs and RTOs Hands-on experience with CI/CD tooling, Terraform or Pulumi, and containerisation (Kubernetes, Docker) Experience managing cloud costs at scale and software licensing governance across an organisation Strong communicator, comfortable presenting to Finance as you are debugging a GCP networking issue Proven track record building or significantly improving an organisation's security posture. Practices and culture, not just tools JumpCloud and CrowdStrike experience are a plus e-commerce, retail, or logistics background is desirable Role location We believe that building connections and collaborating as Pet Circlers is super important. So this role is based in Sydney with a hybrid arrangement of 4 days per week in our pet friendly sites in Sydney CBD and Eastern Creek (your pet might love coming to the office even more than you). This is subject to change in line with business requirements. Juicy perks Heaps of development opportunities - stretch projects, secondments and unlimited learning courses via Go1 Flexible working environment Up to 50% employee discount Product sample giveaways Pawrental leave and wellbeing leave Team charity volunteer days Classpass subsidy Why Join? We reckon our mission to help the world Pet Better is an important one, but also an incredibly fun and rewarding one. Becoming a Pet Circler means you’re committed to help shape an entire industry - it’s pretty exciting stuff. Here’s what we stand for: We're better together We operate with humble hearts and hungry minds Pets matter' so pets and pet parents always have a seat at our table We're instinctively curious. Always. Belong at Pet Circle Our unique perspectives and expertise is our superpower - we value diversity in all forms. So, no matter your background, please apply if this role makes you excited to bring your full self to work each day. Department Technology Locations Sydney Office Remote status Hybrid Employment type Full-time About Pet Circle Our story, like many good ones, starts with a human and their dog. Our founder, Mike noticed his Dad struggling to lug heavy bags of dog food home from the pet store. And so, in 2011, Pet Circle was born in Sydney with a simple mission: to make caring for pets as easy as possible. And we've come a long way. Today, we're the #1 player in the Aussie online pet industry and one of Australia's top 5 eCommerce businesses.