IT Manager, Cloud Operations

OVERVIEW

Live the experience. From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are.

 

We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty.

THE IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE: 

The IT Manager – Cloud Operations (CloudOps) is responsible for leading and maturing Ulta Beauty’s Cloud Operations function within the Digital Technology Operations (TechOps) organization. This role owns the reliability, performance, optimization, and continuous improvement of cloud-native platforms—primarily Google Cloud Platform (GCP)—supporting Ulta Beauty’s digital, ecommerce and some of the retail workloads.

 

This manager will lead the CloudOps engineering team (onshore offshore), ensure cloud infrastructure stability and scalability, oversee incident & change management, and champion cloud governance, automation, DevOps best practices, CI/CD modernization, observability, and site reliability engineering principles. Strong technical depth in cloud-native operations combined with leadership in high‑availability, large‑scale digital environments is essential.

YOU'LL ACCOMPLISH THESE GOALS BY:

Cloud Platform Operations & Reliability

• Own operational excellence, lifecycle management, availability, and resilience for GCP services including (but not limited to): GKE, Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, networking, and security perimeter services.
• Oversee Kubernetes cluster operations (upgrades, scaling, workload optimization, RBAC, governance).
• Ensure proactive capacity planning, performance tuning, and cost optimization.
• Partner with Architecture/SRE to define and improve cloud standards, patterns, reference architectures, and security best practices.

 

DevOps, CI/CD, & Automation Leadership

• Oversee CI/CD pipeline operations and continuous improvement for cloud-hosted applications and services.
• Drive automation using shell scripting, Python, Terraform patterns, gcloud CLI, and cloud‑native tooling.
• Champion best practices for deployment automation, infrastructure‑as‑code (IaC), configuration management, and environment consistency.
• Partner with development and platform teams to modernize build, test, and deployment workflows.

 

Monitoring, Observability & Incident Management

• Lead CloudOps observability strategy (logging, tracing, metrics, SLO/SRE monitoring).
• Oversee on‑call rotations, incident triage, escalation, RCA, outage communication, and long‑term remediation.
• Drive continuous improvement based on SLIs, post‑incident reviews, error budgets, and operational KPIs.

 

People Leadership & Vendor Management

• Lead, coach, mentor, and develop CloudOps Engineers across onshore and offshore teams.
• Manage team hiring, performance, skill development, and resource planning.
• Coordinate and govern work with third‑party vendors, managed service providers, and cloud partners.
• Build strong communication channels with cross‑functional engineering, architecture, product, and security teams.

 

Systems Development, Quality & Governance

• Ensure adherence to cloud governance, IAM/RBAC, audit controls, compliance practices, and enterprise policies.
• Oversee CloudOps project work, migrations, upgrades, and operational readiness assessments.
• Lead the application of quality management techniques and structured corrective action to reduce operational risks.
• Ensure deliverables meet performance, reliability, and security standards.

 

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

 

• Support enterprise monitoring/observability tools and cloud‑integrated DevOps toolchains.
• Guide and mentor engineers on cloud architecture, DevOps practices, and automation patterns.
• Support weekend/after‑hours activities as part of critical production operations.
• Moderate outage calls, lead daily operations stand‑ups, and ensure 24/7 operational coverage.

ESSENTIALS FOR SUCCESS:

 

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, CIS, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7 years of hands‑on experience in Cloud Operations, DevOps, or SRE roles.
• 4 years managing technical engineering teams in a complex, large‑scale cloud environment.
• 3 years operating and scaling cloud platforms (GCP strongly preferred; AWS/Azure a plus).
• Experience managing high‑availability, high‑traffic digital or ecommerce systems.

 

Technical Skills

• Expertise with GCP services including GKE, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, Compute Engine, networking, IAM, and observability stacks.
• Strong Kubernetes operations experience (kubectl, Helm, YAML, service mesh, cluster operations).
• Proven experience with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, Git/Bitbucket, cloud‑native DevOps pipelines).
• Advanced scripting skills (Bash, Python, gcloud CLI).

• Solid understanding of cloud architectures, microservices, containerization, and security models.
• Experience managing enterprise observability platforms (e.g., Dynatrace, Sumo Logic, Prometheus/Grafana, OpenTelemetry).

 

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Excellent communication skills; able to collaborate effectively with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem‑solving, analysis, and decision‑making capabilities.
• Ability to influence, motivate, and develop engineering talent.
• Proven ability to run operations in an onshore/offshore model.

 

Other

• Minimal travel required (training/conferences).
• Flexibility to support off‑hours operations during peak periods.
  #LI-JK1

 

The pay range for this position is $119,300.00 - $170,000.00 / Year with the opportunity for eligible associates to earn additional compensation pursuant to the Company’s bonus plan. Exact pay will be based on factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, level, shift, geographic location, and business and organizational needs. Full-time positions are eligible for paid time off, health, dental, vision, life and disability benefits. Part-time positions are eligible for dental, vision, life, and disability benefits. For additional information concerning our benefits, visit our Benefits and Career Development page: https://learn.bswift.com/ulta

ABOUT

At Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), the possibilities are beautiful. Ulta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and the premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, hair care products and salon services. We bring possibilities to life through the power of beauty each and every day in our stores and online with more than 25,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including Ulta Beauty’s own private label. Ulta Beauty also offers a full-service salon in every store featuring—hair, skin, brow, and make-up services.

 

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York City Fair Chance Act.

Salary : $119,300 - $170,000