# Incident Commander

**Company:** [Twilio](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/twilio)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Support Engineering
**Salary:** $171k – $214k/yr
**Experience:** 8+ years
**Skills:** Incident Response, incident command, post incident review, mttr reduction, okr setting, Change Management, Cross-Functional Leadership, Executive Communication, mentoring, itil
**Posted:** 2026-07-29

> Senior Incident Commander responsible for leading high-severity, cross-functional incidents, driving company-wide incident response strategy, standards, OKRs, and tooling vision while mentoring other ICs and influencing executives. Requires 8+ years leading critical incident response at scale, strong influence without authority, and deep IR lifecycle expertise.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Serve as Incident Commander across the full range of severities, including most critical, cross-functional incidents. Orchestrate the incident process company-wide, own the accuracy of incident data, and set standards for how IR lifecycle milestones are met.
- Enforce incident response practices at the Director and VP level and shape which industry best practices Twilio adopts. Identify cross-org gaps and push product groups to prioritize fixes that delay MTTR or block the IR lifecycle. Run multiple concurrent workstreams — deviating from standard process when needed, even across simultaneous incidents.
- Keep VPs and C-level stakeholders informed with clear, timely updates during critical incidents. Own key Incident Command documentation and keep it current through change management. Drive quality and accuracy in incident data company-wide.
- Mentor and train Incident Commanders and engineering teams, with the goal of removing yourself as a single point of failure. Peer-review other ICs' work and surface trends that drive company-wide improvement. Bring genuine curiosity to every incident — asking "why" past the first plausible answer — and carry that same curiosity into Post Incident Review, helping Incident Owners surface real contributing factors and repair items.
- Help Product Managers deliver high-quality Reason For Outage documents within SLO, and drive Product Groups to meet their incident response SLAs/SLOs. Escalate customer issues to the right people, during and after an incident.
- Own the 1-3 year strategic vision for incident response process and tooling. Lead cross-org projects end-to-end with Product Group leadership and Program Managers. Influence C-level and VP leaders on IR direction, define company-wide standards, and set Response OKRs. Evaluate new tools and technology, and represent Twilio externally as a thought leader in incident response.

## Qualifications
**Required:**
- 8+ years leading high-severity incident response, including as incident commander for the most critical incidents at a company operating at meaningful scale.
- Track record of driving company-wide incident response strategy and standards, including setting OKRs and leading multi-team, multi-region adoption over a 1-3 year horizon.
- Proven ability to influence and enforce practices at the Director/VP/C-suite level without formal authority; comfortable being the calm, authoritative voice in the room regardless of who's in it.
- Experience partnering across functions beyond engineering (e.g. Security, Support, Product) during incident response.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with experience conveying incident status and risk clearly to executives and customer-facing teams.
- Ability to size up a situation and make rapid decisions on the right course of action, including across multiple concurrent incidents.
- Experience mentoring and upleveling other incident commanders, aimed at raising all boats within a response organization.
- Deep understanding of the incident response lifecycle (Gameday, Incident Response, PIR, Betterments), including defining or refining it for an organization.
- Ability to lead cross-org projects end-to-end: defining milestones, managing risk, and driving them through formal change management.
- A curious, investigative mindset — asking "why" past the first plausible answer, both live during an incident and in retrospective, to find what's actually going on.

**Desired:**
- Understanding of modern engineering tech stack and tooling.
- Experience with Twilio products and services.
- Certification(s) in Incident Management (CEIM), Security Incident Management (CSIRT), ITIL, program management/project management, Six Sigma, Scrum, or similar.

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