Assistant Director, Cloud and Identity

Overview

Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Ionis has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, and Dublin, Ireland. Ionis focuses on RNA-targeted medicines and ongoing innovation in drug discovery and development to address serious diseases. The company emphasizes a challenging, motivating environment and the value of diverse skills and perspectives in onsite, hybrid, and remote work settings.

We’re building on our rich history, and we believe our greatest achievements are ahead of us. If you’re passionate about the opportunity to have meaningful impact on patients in need, we invite you to apply and join us.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CLOUD AND IDENTITY

SUMMARY:

This Senior Engineer–level individual contributor provides technical leadership for Ionis’s cloud and identity platforms and drives modern infrastructure operations. The primary responsibility is to lead cloud engineering across Azure and AWS, manage enterprise identity and access with Okta, and support core infrastructure services for the broader environment. This role partners IT security and IT application owners to tackle cross-functional challenges and deliver secure, scalable, and highly reliable services across the enterprise.

This position will be on-site in Carlsbad, CA and is open to a flexible/hybrid schedule.

• Cloud Engineering & Operations:
  Lead cloud engineering and operations for Azure (primary) and AWS (supporting), including platform administration, reliability, performance, and cost optimization.
• Design, implement, and manage Azure subscriptions across multiple regions with focus on scalability, availability, and security.
• Establish and maintain operational processes for monitoring, availability, incident response, and continuous service improvement.

• Cloud Architecture, Governance & Security:
  Provide governance for Azure and AWS, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, security, and compliance standards.
• Partner with Information Security to design and implement cloud security controls, including IAM, network segmentation, logging, monitoring, and audit readiness.
• Collaborate on identity and access controls such as RBAC, conditional access, MFA, and privileged access management across cloud and enterprise applications.

• Identity Access Management:
  Administer and enhance Okta workforce identity, including authentication, authorization, user lifecycle management, and access governance.
• Ensure identity platforms are secure, scalable, and aligned with Zero Trust and enterprise access strategies.

• Infrastructure and Platform
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Support core infrastructure services—including networking, wireless, email/collaboration, storage, backup/restore, and VMware—in partnership with the broader infrastructure team.
• Partner with Data, Analytics, and Automation teams to ensure Azure data and analytics platforms (e.g., Azure Databricks) are designed, secured, and operated in alignment with enterprise cloud and identity standards.

• Strategy, Documentation and Leadership:
  Develop technical roadmaps for cloud and identity platforms, translating business and regulatory requirements into scalable solutions.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, standards, and runbooks for cloud, identity, and core infrastructure platforms.
• Act as a senior individual contributor and technical mentor, influencing infrastructure, security, and application teams and driving operational excellence across services.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field or equivalent work experience.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, or related IT roles.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure in an enterprise production environment.
• 3+ years of experience supporting identity and access management platforms such as Okta, Azure AD, or similar.
• Demonstrated experience defining cloud or identity architecture and technical standards.
• Experience working in regulated, security-conscious, or highly available environments preferred.

• Senior-level, hands-on experience operating Microsoft Azure in an enterprise environment (networking, compute, storage,…