Director, Transformation

About Avis Budget Group

At Avis Budget Group, we're redefining mobility. With iconic brands such as Avis, Budget, and Zipcar, we are a global leader in vehicle rental and mobility solutions. Our continued investment in innovation, sustainability, and customer-centric technology is transforming how people move around the world.

Position Overview

We are seeking a dynamic and visionary Director of Cloud Transformation & Technology Modernization to lead evolution of our technology platforms. This role will drive the strategic transition from legacy systems to modern architectures, while also overseeing the optimization of our core services portfolio.

This leader will be responsible for defining the long-term technology roadmap, aligning with business strategy, and delivering scalable, secure, and efficient systems. You'll play a critical role in modernizing the technology landscape and enabling business agility across our global operations.

Key Responsibilities

Cloud Transformation & Technology Modernization

• Strategic Leadership: Define, plan, and execute the cloud transformation and technology modernization strategy across the enterprise.

• Legacy to Modern Migration: Lead the transition from mainframe and distributed legacy systems to microservices-based, cloud-native architectures.

• Tech Standardization: Drive standardization of modern tech stacks across value streams to streamline operations, reduce support costs, and increase delivery efficiency.

• Application Rationalization: Develop and implement a global strategy for application rationalization, identifying opportunities to eliminate redundancy and optimize performance across regions.

• Cloud Governance & Optimization: Establish best practices for cloud adoption, architecture, security, cost control (FinOps), and compliance.

Core Services Portfolio Oversight

• Service Design & Optimization: Oversee the design, development, and performance tuning of core services in critical domains such as Reservation and Rental systems.

• Resilience & Scalability: Work with enterprise architecture and engineering teams to ensure service availability, fault tolerance, and scalability.

• Platform Excellence: Ensure services align with a modern, API-first approach and are built for extensibility and global scale.

Team Leadership & Culture

• Cross-Functional Team Leadership: Lead and grow teams of backend engineers, API developers, and DevOps engineers to execute modernization initiatives.

• Agile & DevOps Practices: Promote a high-performance engineering culture, fostering innovation, continuous learning, and agile delivery.

• Change Management: Champion transformational change and build alignment across IT and business units.

Business and IT Alignment

• Strategic Alignment: Align technology initiatives with business goals, revenue growth, customer experience, cost savings, and innovation.

• Operational Efficiency: Identify and implement cost optimization and operational excellence strategies across systems and services.

• Stakeholder Engagement: Partner closely with product, finance, and executive leadership to communicate progress, value realization, and strategic direction.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline (Master's preferred).

• 10+ years of experience in IT leadership roles with a strong focus on cloud transformation, enterprise modernization, or core platform engineering.

• Proven success in managing large-scale migration projects and driving platform modernization initiatives.

• Hands-on expertise with AWS, Azure, or GCP; hybrid or multi-cloud strategy experience preferred.

• Strong knowledge of microservices, containerization (e.g., Kubernetes), CI/CD, DevOps, and infrastructure as code.

• Experience with enterprise application rationalization and modernization strategies.

• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred:

• Cloud certifications (AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Architect Expert, etc.).

• Experience in the transportation, travel, or automotive industry.

• Strong understanding of performance tuning, observability, and service-level management for high-volume systems.

Why Join Us?

• Lead a Game-Changing Transformation: Influence the future of mobility at a Fortune 500 company.

• Technology Innovation at Scale: Drive cutting-edge cloud, DevOps, and modernization initiatives.

• Collaborative Culture: Join a team committed to growth, learning, and impactful work.

• Competitive Benefits: Enjoy industry-leading compensation, bonuses, flexible work options, and more.

Avis Budget Group is an equal opportunity employer - M/F/Veterans/Disabled. We celebrate diversity and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace for all.