Manager – Infrastructure Engineering

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

Business Unit Overview
The mission of the Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) is to leverage information and technology as a force multiplier to accelerate, deepen, and sustain development impact. Their vision is to harness information and technology for a world free of poverty on a livable planet. For more information on ITS, check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w. 

Department Context

The World Bank Group Technology Office (ITSTO) defines and executes the technology strategy for the World Bank Group, ensuring that technological investments and standards deliver secure, resilient, and efficient platforms to support global operations. Through strategic planning, enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and core infrastructure management, ITSTO aligns technology initiatives with the Bank Group’s mission and business objectives.

ITSTO drives technology-enabled innovation, modernizes infrastructure, and enhances organizational agility. By fostering collaboration across all World Bank Group entities—including IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA, and ICSID—ITSTO leverages technology as a catalyst for accelerating development impact and advancing digital transformation. Its leadership ensures that technology serves as a strategic enabler for achieving the Bank Group’s development goals, empowering the institution to address emerging challenges and opportunities with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Unit Context

The Infrastructure Engineering team is instrumental in advancing the World Bank Group’s mission by designing, building, and maintaining the foundational IT infrastructure that supports global operations. The team manages critical infrastructure components end-to-end, including data centers, infrastructure as code, enterprise networks, storage systems, compute resources, virtualization platforms, and disaster recovery solutions. Their efforts ensure that infrastructure services are robust, secure, scalable, and cost-effective, forming the backbone for reliable digital services across all business units.

Committed to operational excellence and continuous improvement, Infrastructure Engineering proactively monitors and optimizes infrastructure performance to meet evolving business needs. The team leads modernization initiatives, adopts emerging technologies, and implements best practices in infrastructure management. Collaboration with other technology teams—including cloud engineering, cybersecurity, application development, and IT service management—ensures seamless integration of cloud, automation, and security strategies.

Supporting the World Bank Group’s digital transformation agenda, Infrastructure Engineering champions innovative solutions and automation to enhance the productivity and efficiency of IT operations. The team also plays a vital role in ensuring business continuity and resilience through comprehensive disaster recovery planning and execution. By fostering a culture of collaboration, agility, and technical excellence, Infrastructure Engineering empowers the organization to deliver reliable, high-performing digital services that enable global development operations and advance the Bank’s strategic objectives.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Manager, Infrastructure Engineering, is responsible for leading the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of the World Bank Group’s core IT infrastructure. This leadership role sets the vision and direction for infrastructure engineering, ensuring that infrastructure investments and solutions are strategically aligned with organizational objectives and the institution’s mission. The manager provides guidance and mentorship to a team of infrastructure engineers, fostering a collaborative and innovative environment that supports digital transformation and operational excellence.

The ideal candidate is a servant leader with strong interpersonal skills, capable of energizing and influencing others, fostering collaboration, building consensus, and proactively addressing challenges to achieve key deliverables.

Key Responsibilities:

- Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of IT infrastructure to ensure optimal and secure operation of servers, storage, data centers, networks, endpoints, and security systems.

- Provide leadership for modern enterprise-wide networking infrastructure (LAN, WAN, VPN, Internet, Wi-Fi, and SD-WAN, Starlink), virtualization platforms (VMware, Hyper-V, or equivalent) and enterprise storage infrastructure (SAN, NAS, object storage) with emphasis on scalability, automation and data resilience.

- Lead engineering initiatives and direct strategic plans for infrastructure programs involving significant investments, critical business functions, and high complexity.

- Communicate progress, challenges, and solutions to senior leadership, ensuring timely and budget-compliant program delivery.

- Manage relationships with technology vendors and service providers, ensuring service delivery meets contractual agreements. Engage these partners to increase value for WBG beyond the contractual terms.

- Drive the evaluation, development, and implementation of modern infrastructure solution standards, ensuring effective reviews, governance, low/zero ops and adherence to best practices. Maintain alignment with business goals, architecture standardization, and system availability.

- Provide comprehensive technical support, including troubleshooting hardware and software issues, training new technologies, maintaining documentation, and assisting with other technical needs.

- Develop and execute strategies to enhance the end-user experience, including policies, procedures, communication, and employee engagement initiatives.

- Identify opportunities for continuous improvement in services, processes, and the retirement or replacement of outdated systems.

- Develop IT policies and procedures to support a scalable and secure environment, ensuring compliance with internal audit and business continuity requirements.

- Collaborate with organizational leaders to address deficiencies in solution architecture, develop business cases for strategic infrastructure investments, and ensure successful evaluation and delivery of IT solutions.

- Ensure infrastructure services are robust, secure, scalable, and cost-effective, supporting business continuity and operational excellence.

- Oversee infrastructure operations, including monitoring, incident management, capacity planning, and performance optimization, aggressively moving to low/zero ops.

- Build, mentor, and empower a diverse, high-performing team to deliver program objectives, ensuring clarity of roles, skills development, and alignment with strategic priorities.

Within the first year, this leader will deliver the following:

- Develop and implement a comprehensive roadmap - Design and launch a detailed roadmap that aligns infrastructure engineering initiatives with the World Bank Group’s strategic objectives and digital transformation priorities. This roadmap guides technology investment, modernization, and future planning. The leader defines baselines and success metrics, monitors progress regularly, and requests feedback from stakeholders to maintain the roadmap's alignment with current objectives.

- Complete migration of the backup solution to the new platform and fully decommission the legacy system.

- Optimize SAP ERP infrastructure to improve licensing cost efficiency and operational performance, achieving at least a 50% reduction in Oracle core licensing requirements.

- Complete Phase 1 implementation of the spine-and-leaf network fabric architecture, including deployment of four switches (one spine and three leaf switches).

- Build and deploy a fully functional operational AI assistant capable of supporting at least five major Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

- Implement AI technologies to automate repetitive infrastructure operations tasks, with a target of automating 70% of Level 1 (L1) support tickets.

- Identify and enable at least five client interaction scenarios to be supported by AI agents.

- Formulate a strategy for a potential exit from VMware, including completion of a proof of concept (POC) to evaluate alternative solutions and present viable options.