Mission
Deliver reliable, secure, and scalable SaaS experiences through operational excellence and strong release discipline - ensuring users can depend on KNIME's platform every day.
Role Overview
As SaaS Operations Director, you will own the full operational backbone of KNIME's customer-facing SaaS platform - from CI/CD pipelines and release engineering to incident management and vendor oversight. You'll lead and scale teams across CloudOps, DevSecOps, and Release Engineering, while working closely with Platform Engineering and product teams to ensure safe, repeatable, and compliant deployments.
Responsibilities
* Take full responsibility for customer-facing SaaS operations, including SLAs, runbooks, and incident management for critical issues
* Ensure high availability and reliability of CI/CD pipelines, enforce policy-as-code, and maintain secure, scalable delivery workflows
* Own packaging and release engineering across SaaS and on-prem components, including orchestration, validation, and rollback strategies
* Oversee subcontracted operations partners, ensuring performance against contractual KPIs and driving continuous improvement
* Establish and scale CloudOps, DevSecOps, Release Engineering, and QA practices including on-call structures and operational readiness
* Maintain SoC2/ISO readiness for operational controls and ensure audit evidence is complete and reliable
* Work closely with Platform Engineering and product teams to define release gates and ensure safe, repeatable deployments
* Reduce MTTR, increase release success rates, and ensure consistent pipeline and service availability
Requirements
* Deep experience running SaaS operations with a strong track record of delivering uptime, reliability, and customer SLAs
* End-to-end understanding of CI/CD systems including runtime reliability, policy-as-code, and secure pipeline design
* Proven experience leading high-severity incident response and communicating clearly with stakeholders and customers
* Ability to build repeatable, auditable processes for releases, on-call, and operational workflows
* Experience managing external vendors and holding them accountable to clear SLAs and KPIs
* Demonstrated track record of growing and leading teams across CloudOps, DevSecOps, and release engineering functions
What Success Looks Like
* Consistently high SaaS platform availability with strong customer SLA adherence
* Reliable, secure CI/CD pipelines with measurable improvements in release success rates and reduced MTTR
* A high-performing, well-structured operations organization with clear on-call practices and runbooks
* Full SoC2/ISO operational compliance with complete, audit-ready evidence
* Vendor partners delivering consistently against contractual KPIs
What we offer
Purpose-driven leadership: Own the operational backbone that ensures users can rely on KNIME’s platform every day.
End-to-end impact: Shape how software moves from development to production at scale in a growing SaaS environment.
Autonomy and collaboration: Take ownership of operations strategy while working closely with platform, product, and engineering teams.
Learning: Work with experienced engineers and operators in a highly technical, collaborative environment.
Sports: Sports programs in both locations.
Flexibility: Hybrid setup with flexible working hours to support focus and balance.
About us
KNIME is a leading AI platform that enables organisations to make sense of their data through intuitive, scalable, and collaborative data science. We empower data professionals and business users alike to build, deploy, and manage AI and data workflows that drive better decisions. Hundreds of global enterprises use the KNIME platform including Citi, Bosch and P&G.
KNIME is an equal opportunity employer. We’re all about providing opportunities for different perspectives to come together, where everyone feels included no matter their background.