POSITION PURPOSE:
This is a senior level management position that is critical to the successful daily operations and strategic projects for the entire organization with matrix alignment to the onshore Vice President of IT Operations and directly reporting to Senior Director for Cloud Operations Group. The Sr Manager of IT Operations leads a core group of managers and engineers that are responsible for 24/7/365 support & operations and efficiently managing world class critical cloud data center and IT operations. This includes operational relationships with our key third party data center provider as well as other services for more specific applications. In addition, the position will partner with both onshore and offshore Leadership to provide services related to the IT Command Center, which includes the Compute & Network Operations and ITIL based processes to run the Albertsons IT Environment. Candidates must be experienced in the various infrastructure components and best practices/security/operations related to our architecture. This position will be tasked with driving efficiencies in how we provision and support our environments and help minimize the time/complexities around many of our current processes.
The Sr. Manager of IT Operations must have proven managerial experience working with technical professionals, as well as, our business facing colleagues in other IT areas including other IT teams – Cloud, DevOps, Network Infrastructure, ITSM, Architecture, Planning and Delivery and the Application Development teams. Provides input on ways to improve our processes, best practices and policies. Must have strong communication and relationship building skills with the ability to discuss and present information and issues across a wide variety of individuals and groups (inside and outside of IT). A practiced demonstrable background of Retail business acumen is also necessary.
JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Key Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Accountable Product Owner in Managing the IT Operations Team within a Command Center environment working closely with Mission Critical Incident Management
- Provide effective oversight to all high-risk IT change activity
- Champions change and drives for continuous process improvement
- Work in collaboration with other IT teams, Portfolio DevOps, Client Services, Architecture, Program and Project Delivery, and the Application Development and Support teams to meet agreed upon service levels and project timelines.
- On-call and must be available 24/7 if there are major outages.
- Manages operational supplier management for data center services from Safeway Philtech and Albertsons’ co-lo hosting provider(s).
- Together with the architecture team, continually mature the data center strategy that includes on-prem and external services
- Ensure active Compliance with Audit, Information Security Policy & Architectural standards, ensuring Audit & regulator Readiness and timely resolution on open findings.
- Ongoing facilities planning including life cycle maintenance to ensure adequate capacity and efficient operating and productivity capability in Albertsons’ data centers for projects and operational activities
- Build and defend financially sound business cases as needed to uplift various components in the data center or its support for greater efficiency and productivity
- Maintain the operating budget for the data center and related operational services
- Manages and further develops a large, enterprise IT operation in partnership with Stakeholders supporting a flexible, “follow the sun” model
- Measures KPI ‘s of team and service delivery for success, reporting and adjusting as required to deliver continuously improving service quality
- Development of staff for future opportunities and evolving organizational needs
- Champions and delivers operational processes based on ITSM and ITIL disciplines in areas such as Operations, Incident, Change, Service Restoration, Configuration and Workflow Scheduling
- Ensure service levels are met and adverse impacts are minimized
- Report to Upper Management on service interruptions and impact to Customer base
- Integrate and build/maintain positive relationships to work seamlessly across groups/disciplines
- Work with Observability and Monitoring team to drive substantial ongoing improvements in monitoring and to ensure the highest performance and availability of Data Center and Cloud-delivered business services.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Requires 10+ years of experience as a proven leader in Data Center Services in a large, enterprise environment, with 24/7/365 Operations covering core business critical IT services.
- Bachelor’s degree in related field while Masters degree is a plus
- Requires a proven track record of strong leadership of Infrastructure and Application Support technical teams to resolve critical issues as quickly as possible to minimize adverse business impact
- Previous retail experience desired
- Experience in supporting Public Cloud (e.g. Azure)
- Experience in developing and implementing wide-scale, multi-site and global IT Resiliency and Business Continuity Plans.
- Demonstrates a high level of energy, results driven and able to work under pressure with tight delivery deadlines
- Demonstrates strategic thinking skills and maturity in tackling complex problems, dealing with technical, interpersonal, and process
- Must have experience leading teams through and managing complex technology and organizational transition
- Ability to effectively influence and communicate with Sr. IT and Business Management in setting strategy, enterprise priorities and adding increased value through the delivery of Data Center Services
- Experience in building and developing productive operational relationships with significant third-party suppliers
- Proven track record of strategic leadership and driving organizational transformation
- Strong interpersonal skills and multi-faceted communications
- Demonstrated ability to effectively build relationships, influence, mentor and obtain results through a diverse team
- Proven financial acumen relative to budget development, management and business case development
- Experienced with Data Center automation, service monitoring and supporting capabilities that enhance problem determination, root cause analysis and rapid problem resolution
- Must be knowledgeable on complex networks, open systems and mainframe computing services
- Thorough understanding of ITIL; Incident, Event, Problem, Change and Configuration Management principles and able to apply best practices
- Solid understanding of Data Center architecture, infrastructure and critical facilities management