{"id":3887228,"url":"https://alion.io/job/toptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based","title":"Practice Director, Cloud Services - US-Based","company":{"id":5450,"name":"Toptal","domain":"toptal.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/toptal","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":true,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":8,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":47,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":15,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Ansible","optional":false},{"name":"ArgoCD","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure DevOps","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"CloudFormation","optional":false},{"name":"Configuration Management","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"FinOps","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"GitHub Actions","optional":false},{"name":"GitLab CI","optional":false},{"name":"GitOps","optional":false},{"name":"Hyper-V","optional":false},{"name":"ISO 27001","optional":false},{"name":"Jenkins","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"OpenShift","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Pulumi","optional":false},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":false},{"name":"SRE","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"VMWare","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-06T17:14:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-13T08:56:06Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":6,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":6},"description":"About Toptal\nToptal 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.\nWe 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.\nJob Summary:\nToptal 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.\nYou 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.\nThis is a remote position. We do not offer visa sponsorship or assistance. Applicants must be authorized to work in the US at the time of hire. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English.\nResponsibilities:\nThe 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.\nYou will be responsible for leading Toptal’s Cloud Services Team. This includes:\nTeam 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.\nHiring 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.\nArchitecture 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.\nPre-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.\nSolution 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.\nDelivery: Partner with Delivery to ensure designs are implemented successfully. Guide engineering teams through complex technical decisions, and step in directly on critical engagements.\nCapacity 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.\nPartnerships: 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.\nThought 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.\nHands-On Contribution: Remain hands-on by owning architecture for strategic accounts and building proofs of concept, modeling the standard you expect from the team.\nThis role is highly collaborative and will work extremely closely with our Marketing, Sales, Delivery, and Talent Operations teams to fulfill the above responsibilities.\nIn the first week, expect to:\nOnboard and integrate into Toptal; meet your colleagues and the Solution Architects on your team.\nLearn 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.\nShadow critical teams throughout the organization to learn Toptal’s core operations and capabilities.\nIn the first month, expect to:\nBegin developing relationships with key leaders and stakeholders across the organization.\nDive deeper into the operations of key teams (e.g., Sales, Talent Operations) across the company.\nConduct 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.\nAssess the skills, strengths, and development needs of your Solution Architects.\nArticulate a hypothesis about how to grow the team’s impact (priorities, structure, and standards) and design experiments and execution approaches to get there.\nIn the first three months, expect to:\nBe a well-integrated member of the organization with positive relationships in Sales (Enterprise/SMB), Marketing, and Talent Operations.\nBe in front of clients on a regular basis to hear from them firsthand.\nDefine the team’s operating model, architecture standards, and pre-sales engagement process.\nBuild your team and begin positively impacting revenue growth.\nIn the first six months, expect to:\nHave moved from purely planning to execution.\nSee an impact from your involvement in early initiatives, including repeatable solutions in market and a growing pipeline supported by your team.\nEstablish key partner relationships and a clear hiring and talent plan for the team.\nIn the first year, expect to:\nFeel like you made the best decision of your career.\nIncrease the growth rate of Toptal materially.\nHave a high-performing, fully staffed Solution Architect team recognized for Hybrid Cloud and DevOps expertise.\nQualifications and Job Requirements:\nBachelor’s degree is required; an MBA is preferred.\n15+ 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.\n3+ 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.\nProven experience leading and developing teams of solution architects or senior technical consultants.\nProven ability to build and scale hybrid cloud and DevOps service offerings in a consulting, managed services, technology services, or enterprise environment.\nDeep 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.\nStrong 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).\nDeep knowledge of cloud-native technologies, including containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker), serverless computing, and microservices architecture.\nStrong experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management tools such as Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, or Pulumi.\nHands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, and automation frameworks (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, Argo CD).\nExpertise 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.\nExperience with cloud migration and application modernization strategies, disaster recovery, and business continuity in hybrid environments.\nFamiliarity 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.\nKnowledge of FinOps and cloud cost optimization, and of emerging trends such as AI-enabled infrastructure and operations, and edge computing.\nRelevant certifications (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP Architect; CKA/CKAD; Terraform Associate) are a plus.\nAbility to develop strong relationships with enterprise clients and executives to drive hybrid cloud and DevOps consulting engagements.\nProven ability to lead collaboratively and operate in a high-growth environment.\nSkilled in articulating a strategy with a strong, agile execution plan.\nComfortable with rolling up your sleeves to do the work, demonstrating traction, and building a team over time.\nDemonstrated success in making data-driven decisions and defining key metrics to measure progress.\nAbility 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.\nStrong ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable business strategies for non-technical stakeholders.\nRefined 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.\nConfidence in your analytical abilities, with proven success in delivering results in ambiguous and sophisticated project efforts.\nSkilled in the art of communicating (written and verbal) with both technical and non-technical audiences.\nAbility to work in a fast-paced, rapidly growing company and handle a wide variety of challenges, deadlines, and a diverse array of contacts.\nYou must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.\nEssential Job Functions\nRegularly and reliably attend scheduled virtual team meetings on camera.\nWork independently with minimal supervision.\nUse all required digital collaboration tools.\nPrioritize and self-manage workflows and deadlines.\nUS FLSA Classification: Full-Time/Exempt\nFor candidates who meet the qualifications and job requirements listed above, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.\nApplications are accepted on an ongoing basis. In the US, Toptal’s benefit offerings include participation in a 401(k) retirement plan; medical, dental, and vision health insurance plans; basic life insurance coverage and short-term and long-term disability coverage; access to flexible spending, dependent care, and health savings accounts; access to telehealth virtual doctors; an employee assistance program; and flexible paid time off.","description_format":"text","description_chars":11555,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":15,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Continuous learning","Health insurance","Insurance coverage","Life insurance","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-06T20:01:32Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":54,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.542,"p_room":1,"age_days":5,"expected_fill_days":47,"reasons":["conf:3","agency","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/toptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/toptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-13T10:38:43Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":21734,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":5450},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5450"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ftoptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ftoptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ftoptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/toptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ftoptal-practice-director-cloud-services-us-based"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3887228}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"toptal.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3887228},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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