In June 2022, IDA Ireland announced that VMware will expand its Office of the CTO in Dublin, Ireland, and has committed to hiring 205 new technologists by 2025.
The new team is part of the Office of the CTO and VMware Platform Services (OCTO VPS). It builds on VMware’s established presence in Ireland, which is already its third-largest location globally with more than 1,000 employees.
OCTO VPS focuses on platform engineering to drive innovation and build the trusted multi-cloud foundation of the future. VMware’s multi-cloud platform with cross-cloud services is an integrated portfolio of SaaS solutions to help organizations build, run, manage, and secure all their applications across any cloud.
Andrei Grigoriev, the new VP of Engineering, was appointed to lead OCTO VPS in Ireland and will play a critical role in providing technical leadership and creating a world-class engineering team to drive multi-cloud services and bolster the region’s software engineering expertise.
The VMware Careers team recently sat down with Andrei, who has been in this role for eight months now, to learn more about him, his leadership insights, and his vision for the new organisation in Ireland.
Andrei Grigoriev, Vice President of Engineering
VMware Careers: Andrei, can you share with us a high-level overview of your own career journey to date and why you decided to join VMware?
Andrei Grigoriev: I started my career as a C++ developer working on cutting-edge VoIP projects at 3Com in Dublin and Chicago. Then I moved to Product Management and travelled across the Middle East and Africa. My most recent role prior to joining VMware was VP of Engineering at Datalex, a digital commerce company.
Before that, I had been with SAP for nine years, where I was part of the leadership team that built SAP’s first R&D center in Ireland and then as VP of Engineering that led Industry 4.0 innovation initiatives.
I have worked across different industries, but there is one thing in common – I enjoy solving hard engineering problems and doing something new.
I joined VMware because I knew it was a unique opportunity to do something extremely impactful. The future is multi-cloud. I have been involved in many multi-cloud projects before and agree that despite its potential, multi-cloud complexity can slow down innovation. It is an engineering challenge, and VMware is solving this problem with the cross-cloud services.
VMware Careers: How are the OCTO VPS recruiting efforts going in Ireland?
Andrei Grigoriev: We are building an R&D organisation with a strong engineering culture where everyone, regardless of their role, is an engineer first. We have hired more than 100 people in less than a year, and it has been a great team effort. I would like to say a big thank you to all the managers, engineers, and Talent Acquisition team members for making this happen. We will continue to grow next year.
VMware Careers: What type of Engineering talent are you looking to join OCTO VPS?
Andrei Grigoriev: Essentially, what we are doing is Platform Engineering. As part of OCTO VPS we build and run VMware foundational cross-cloud services for our internal users, partners and customers.
Currently, we are hiring junior and senior software developers who know or want to learn Go, Java, Git Lab, and Kubernetes. More importantly, we are looking for people who can adopt platform thinking and deliver what we call “full spec.”
Platform Engineering is on the rise, and from my perspective, it is about creating the most foundational API surfaces of your organisation that allow other teams, partners, and customers to build on. As a discipline Platform Engineering emerged in response to the increased complexity of the modern software landscape, and it is trending because of its promise to redefine the very nature of partnership between solution developers and operators.
Full stack is popular in app development, but when developing a platform, you need a different mindset. A platform is a trusted foundation on which applications are built. It needs to be full spec – secure, reliable, and performant. Consistency and completeness over proliferation. This is platform thinking, and it influences everything we do.
While based in Ireland, we work closely with colleagues around the world. It is a truly global effort. We enjoy VMware’s people-oriented culture, where you can learn and advance your skills. It is a learning organization.
VMware Careers: What research and innovation projects are newly hired engineers working on at the moment in OCTO VPS?
Andrei Grigoriev: In Ireland, we are working on cross-cloud platform services that help our partners and customers be Cloud Smart.
Multi-cloud environments are the modern operating system where companies create, deploy and operate their applications. Cloud Smart is the desired destination of every multi-cloud journey: a more sophisticated, mature approach where you have the freedom to select the right cloud for your needs and run your apps across multiple clouds with ease.
Recently I attended VMware Explore in Barcelona – it was a great opportunity to engage with our customers and partners in Europe and appreciate the energy and the scale of multi-cloud transformation that is currently happening. It was also absolutely clear that Platform Engineering plays a crucial role in this process. OCTO VPS engineers in Ireland are building many of these critical capabilities for our customers in Europe and around the world.
VMware Careers: Why is now a good time to join OCTO VPS in Ireland?
Andrei Grigoriev: Cloud Smart is the next stage of cloud adoption. It is happening now, and it is hugely exciting. In Ireland, we are at the very center of the multi-cloud universe. It is an opportunity to work on technologies and solutions that influence the entire industry.
Check out all of the current openings in OCTO VPS Ireland below:
· Software Development Engineer, Data infrastructure – Opportunity for Working Remotely
· Software Engineer, Cross-Cloud SaaS Platform – Opportunity for Working Remotely
· Site Reliability Engineer – Opportunity for Working Remotely
· Senior Software Engineer, VMware Platform Services – Opportunity for Working Remotely
· Senior Software Engineer – Opportunity for Working Remotely
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