MetLife

Role Value Proposition:

At MetLife, our Database Infrastructure Services (DIS) team within Global Infrastructure is dedicated to making a difference. We prioritize our customers' perspectives and continuously strive to enhance and simplify their experience. Whether you're focused on safeguarding our customers' and employees' data, developing top-tier database solutions, or utilizing data and analytics to transform insights into customer-centric solutions, your work has a significant impact. Each of us plays a crucial role in bringing MetLife's mission of building a more confident future to life. Interested in joining our team? We'd love to have you!

The Opportunity:

As Director of Database Reliability Engineering (DBRE), you will play a pivotal role in leading the transformation of our Microsoft SQL database administration team into a modern, automated, and scalable Database Reliability Engineering discipline. 

This leader will drive strategy, technical execution, and cultural change to enable adoption of site reliability principles, automation-first approaches, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), and modern observability and AIOps tooling to modernize MS SQL database operations. By fostering collaboration across teams and championing cutting-edge technologies, you will be at the forefront of driving transformative improvements to our infrastructure while enhancing customer experience and delivering value to stakeholders. 

Success in this role requires a strong technical background in enterprise database technologies, proven leadership experience, and a passion for transforming traditional teams into forward-looking, resilient infrastructure groups. This role is pivotal in laying the foundation for data platforms that support real-time applications, AI/ML workloads, and enterprise-scale analytics.

Key Responsibilities:

• Led the vision, strategy, and execution to transform a legacy DBA team into a modern Database Reliability Engineering organization.
• Define and implement a vision for self-service, end-to-end automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) services across a hybrid cloud environment.
• Champion the adoption of AIOps and modern observability tools to enable intelligent, self-healing systems.
• Drive cultural change and upskilling within the team to embrace automation, agile practices, and reliability engineering.
• Serve as technical subject matter leader and global product owner for MetLife Microsoft database technologies.
• Ensure database platforms and services meet all MetLife security and compliance requirements.
• Demonstrates strong ownership and accountability.

Essential Business Experience and Technical Skills:

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or another related field, or equivalent relevant experience. 
• 8+ years of experience with Microsoft Database technologies (e.g., SQL Server, SQL Managed Instance) as an administrator, software engineer, or in an infrastructure engineering role.
• 2+ years of people leadership or a transformation-focused leadership role
• Experience with modern observability or AIOps platforms (e.g., BigPanda, Datadog, Elastic, Prometheus, Grafana, etc.).
• Familiarity with DevOps, GitOps, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools (e.g., Ansible, Terraform) and scripting languages (e.g., PowerShell).

Preferred:

• Experience working in regulated industries (e.g., finance, insurance, healthcare)
• Ability to bridge technical strategy with operational execution across business and engineering stakeholders.
• Knowledge of Azure Data Technology stack, Data Lake, or Data Lakehouse technologies
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Effective verbal and written communication
• Experience coordinating across time zones and driving alignment on deliverables

At MetLife, we’re leading the global transformation of an industry we’ve long defined. United in purpose, diverse in perspective, we’re dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our customers.