VP, Digital Infrastructure and Operations

Company Description

Guardant Health is a leading precision oncology company focused on guarding wellness and giving every person more time free from cancer. Founded in 2012, Guardant® is transforming patient care and accelerating new cancer therapies by providing critical insights into what drives disease through its advanced blood and tissue tests, real-world data and AI analytics. Guardant tests help improve outcomes across all stages of care, including screening to find cancer early, monitoring for recurrence in early-stage cancer, and treatment selection for patients with advanced cancer. For more information, visit guardanthealth.com and follow the company on LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and Facebook. 

We're seeking an exceptional Vice President, Digital Infrastructure & Operations to lead the next evolution of Guardant's enterprise technology foundation.

This executive will shape the infrastructure strategy for a rapidly growing global organization, building resilient, cloud-first, AI-enabled platforms that accelerate scientific discovery, enable business growth, and deliver exceptional employee experience.

This is not a traditional infrastructure leadership role. We are looking for a visionary executive who sees infrastructure as a strategic business capability, AI as a force multiplier, and automation as a catalyst for innovation. The successful leader will help redefine how enterprise technology enables precision medicine and supports Guardant's mission to improve outcomes for patients worldwide.

The Opportunity

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer, the Vice President, Digital Infrastructure & Operations will define and execute Guardant Health's enterprise infrastructure strategy, supporting a global organization operating at the intersection of biotechnology, diagnostics, data science, and healthcare.

This executive will lead the transformation of Guardant's technology foundation by delivering secure, scalable, and resilient infrastructure across cloud platforms, enterprise networking, workplace technologies, identity and access management, collaboration services, endpoint computing, platform operations, and core infrastructure services.
Success in this role requires balancing innovation with operational excellence. The Vice President will modernize legacy capabilities, reduce complexity, embed automation throughout the infrastructure landscape, and leverage Artificial Intelligence to augment engineering teams, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the digital experience for employees across the company.

Most importantly, this leader will build the technology foundation that enables Guardant's scientists, laboratory operations, clinicians, commercial teams, and corporate functions to move faster, collaborate more effectively, and continue advancing precision oncology.

What You'll Lead

As Vice President, Digital Infrastructure & Operations, you will:

•    Define and execute a multi-year enterprise infrastructure strategy aligned with Guardant's business objectives, technology roadmap, and long-term growth.
•    Lead global Infrastructure, Cloud Engineering, Network Engineering, Workplace Technology, Collaboration Services, Identity & Access Management, and Infrastructure Architecture.
•    Build highly available, secure, and resilient technology platforms supporting laboratory operations, corporate functions, commercial teams, clinical operations, manufacturing, and research organizations.
•    Advance Guardant's cloud-first strategy with AWS, and hybrid environments while optimizing reliability, scalability, security, and cost.
•    Champion AI-enabled infrastructure operations through intelligent automation, AIOps, predictive monitoring, generative AI, and workflow orchestration that increase operational effectiveness and improve service delivery.
•    Establish modern engineering practices incorporating Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD toolchains, self-service capabilities, observability, automation, resilience engineering, and operational excellence.
•    Partner closely with Information Security, Enterprise Applications & Software teams, Data & AI Engineering, Digital Product, Laboratory Operations, and executive business leaders from multiple domains to deliver integrated technology solutions.
•    Develop technology roadmaps that enhance employee productivity while supporting the quality, regulatory, privacy, and compliance requirements of a global healthcare organization and public company.
•    Lead disaster recovery, infrastructure resilience, and own availability strategies that ensure uninterrupted support for mission-critical business and laboratory operations, and partner with cross-functional leadership for enterprise business continuity.
•    Build and develop an inclusive, high-performing global infrastructure organization through coaching, mentorship, succession planning, and a culture of continuous learning.
•    Manage strategic technology investments, vendor partnerships, and infrastructure budgets with strong operational and financial discipline.

What Success Looks Like

During the first 12–24 months, this leader will:

•    Establish a modern enterprise infrastructure strategy that supports Guardant's next phase of growth and innovation, with the ability to pivot for changes such as M&A integrations or implementation of emerging technologies.
•    Accelerate infrastructure automation to improve operational efficiency, reduce manual effort, and increase service reliability.
•    Embed AI-driven capabilities across infrastructure operations that augment engineering teams and enable smarter, faster decision-making.
•    Improve infrastructure resilience, scalability, security, and employee experience through measurable operational improvements.
•    Simplify technology architecture while reducing technical debt and increasing operational agility.
•    Build an engaged, diverse, and high-performing infrastructure organization recognized as a trusted strategic partner across the business.
•    Position the Digital Infrastructure team as an agile enabler of innovation, operational excellence, and Guardant's mission to transform cancer care.
•    Lead change management and adoption across the technology org and enterprise as new solutions are deployed.

What You'll Bring

Leadership

•    Executive leadership experience leading enterprise infrastructure organizations within high-growth biotechnology, life sciences, healthcare technology, medical diagnostics, or technology companies.
•    A proven track record of leading enterprise transformation across complex, global organizations.
•    Demonstrated success building inclusive, high-performing teams where diverse perspectives drive innovation, collaboration, and better business outcomes.
•    Exceptional executive presence with the ability to influence senior leaders, communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences, and build trusted cross-functional partnerships.
•    Relationship management skills across key stakeholders, including vendors, partners, auditors and regulators.
•    Business ownership of a technology function – driving technical excellence while delivering measurable business value.

Technology

Experience across many of the following disciplines:

•    Cloud Operations & FinOps (Azure, AWS)
•    Network engineering 
•    Infrastructure engineering and operations
•    Database engineering and operations
•    Modern workplace technologies
•    Identity and access management
•    Collaboration platforms
•    Self-service provisioning
•    Infrastructure as Code
•    Observability and operational intelligence
•    Enterprise resilience and disaster recovery
•    Hybrid architecture (cloud & on-prem/OT)
•    Website performance and reliability at scale

AI & Automation Mindset

At Guardant Health, we believe AI has the potential to transform how enterprise technology teams operate.
We're looking for a leader who has successfully leveraged AI to augment engineering teams, automate or eliminate repetitive work, improve operational intelligence, and accelerate technology delivery while maintaining the governance, security, and compliance expected within a regulated healthcare environment.
Experience with generative AI, AIOps, enabling infrastructure for AI solutions (management and provisioning for agents, MCPs), predictive analytics, intelligent automation, workflow orchestration, productivity tools is highly desirable.

Education and Experience

Typically 15+ years of progressive experience leading enterprise infrastructure, platform engineering, cloud operations, or enterprise technology organizations, including executive leadership experience within complex global environments.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline, (or equivalent practical experience). Advanced degree preferred.

Preferred Experience

Experience supporting the unique demands of High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters, including compute, storage, networking, scalability, and performance optimization.

While no single background is required, successful candidates will likely bring experience from one or more of the following industries:

•    Biotechnology
•    Precision Medicine
•    Medical Diagnostics
•    Genomics
•    Healthcare Technology
•    AI-first technology organizations
•    Cloud-native software companies

We also welcome leaders from innovative technology companies who have successfully modernized enterprise infrastructure through cloud transformation, platform engineering, automation, and AI-driven operations.

Candidates should demonstrate operating at scale in a high growth environment, successfully transitioning through waves of expansion and infrastructure build-out. Experience of heterogeneous environments with enterprise, OT, on-prem and cloud under management.
 

AI & Digital Fluency

• Demonstrate curiosity, sound judgment, and the ability to critically evaluate and responsibly leverage AI-enabled tools in accordance with company policies, ethical standards, and regulatory requirements to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of work.

Hybrid Work Model: This section is applicable to onsite employees who are eligible for hybrid work location as specified by management and related policies.  Guardant has defined days for in-person/onsite collaboration and work-from-home days for individual-focused time. All U.S. employees who live within 50 miles of a Guardant facility will be required to be onsite on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. We have found aligning our scheduled in-office days allows our teams to do the best work and creates the focused thinking time our innovative work requires. At Guardant, our work model has created flexibility for better work-life balance while keeping teams connected to advance our science for our patients. 

The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. This range does not include benefits or, if applicable, bonus, commission, or equity. Each candidate’s compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, education, job-related skills, job duties, and business need. Primary Location: Palo Alto, CA Primary Location Base Pay Range: $288,100 - $396,150 Other US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $288,100 - $396,150 If the role is performed in Colorado, the pay range for this job is: $288,100 - $396,150