Director Data Center & Enterprise Operations

JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY:

Provides operational and strategic direction for Information Technology (IT) solution development projects and implemented system support. Directs the selection, design, development, release, and maintenance of IT solutions and integration interfaces. Resolves complex operational and organizational issues within and beyond engineering and service provider teams to enable multi-platform solution development and support. Assesses project viability and recommends strategies and tactics.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead Data Center and Enterprise Operations, with responsibility for Data Center Management, Compute/Server Operations, Storage & Backup, Middleware Operations, and Enterprise Infrastructure Monitoring, providing overall leadership and accountability for the teams that operate and support the company’s critical production infrastructure.
• Own the operational availability and reliability of enterprise infrastructure, ensuring data center, compute/server, storage and backup, middleware, and infrastructure monitoring services are proactively monitored, maintained, and operated to established availability, performance, resiliency, and service-level expectations.
• Provide 24x7 operational leadership and infrastructure incident response, ensuring effective event detection, triage, escalation, service restoration, and operational coordination during infrastructure incidents, while partnering closely with Major Incident Management, Disaster Recovery, Engineering, Cybersecurity, and Application Support to minimize business impact and accelerate recovery.
• Drive operational excellence and service management, establishing consistent practices and accountability across change, incident, problem, event, capacity, configuration, patching, maintenance, and technology lifecycle management, with a focus on improving service stability, reducing repeat incidents and operational risk, increasing automation, and minimizing manual effort.
• Own data center operational readiness and infrastructure continuity, ensuring facility and technology coordination, environmental monitoring, hardware deployment and maintenance, backup and recovery operations, capacity management, and infrastructure recovery readiness, while partnering with Disaster Recovery and Engineering to ensure critical infrastructure can be effectively recovered when required.
• Develop the operations organization and continuously improve how infrastructure services are delivered, building strong technical leaders, teams, and operational capabilities while advancing automation, observability, proactive monitoring, operational metrics, runbook maturity, vendor management, and continuous service improvement to increase efficiency, consistency, and service reliability.
• Manages and provides support for changes/enhancements by assigning projects to appropriate personnel ensuring that staff has adequate training and understanding of project context within Advocate, ensuring that proper analysis, testing, and user consultation procedures are followed and that projects are executed within cost and time constraints to meet requirements.
• Oversees the implementation, training and support associated with designated solutions are accomplished in a manner that operationalizes cultural and organizational change management processes and facilitates achievement of project goals.
• Consults with users to identify, evaluate, and formulate strategies to deal with opportunities for improvements in solutions. Ensures all engineering activities and support efforts are closely coordinated with all business units. Ensures that user personnel remain informed throughout the design and implementation process and is available to user personnel to discuss issues and recommend solutions to challenges. Serves as an escalation point for problem-solving and issue resolution.
• Assists with the management of hardware, software and/or consultant contracts and service agreements. Establishes and maintains vendor relationships.
• Performs human resources responsibilities for staff which include interviewing and selection of new employees, promotions, staff development, performance evaluations, compensation changes, resolution of employee concerns, corrective actions, terminations, and overall employee morale.
• Develops and recommends operating and capital budgets and controls expenditures within approved budget objectives.
• Responsible for understanding and adhering to the organization's Code of Ethical Conduct and for ensuring that personal actions, and the actions of employees supervised, comply with the policies, regulations, and laws applicable to the organization's business.

MINIMUM EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Level of Education: Bachelor's degree in information technology or related field

Years of Experience: 7 years in information systems, solution design, systems development, implementation, and installation within a complex environment. Includes 3 years of management experience in project management and managing multi-discipline work teams.

MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES (KSA)

• Demonstrated leadership skills and proven track record of managing/directing technical staff and financial resources through various system life cycle phases.
• Extensive background in the information service field, including design, programming, testing, implementation, hardware, systems software, and computer operations.
• Effective team leadership skills with demonstrated ability to manage multidiscipline, high performance work teams and development groups; demonstrated competency in the execution of multiple projects, including managing resource across multiple projects to meet goals; development of efficient and effective solutions to diverse and complex business problems; and demonstrated strong abilities in relationship management.
• Broad understanding of cultural and organizational change management processes, including workflow analysis, process re-design, benefits analysis/measurement, training, and support
• Strong listening, interpersonal, and critical thinking skills. Active coach and mentor who provides feedback in a quick and accurate manner.
• An in-depth understanding of health care systems and capabilities of available technologies in the marketplace.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Excellent planning and organization skills.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS AND WORKING CONDITIONS

• This position requires travel, therefore, will be exposed to weather and road conditions.
• Operates all equipment necessary to perform the job.
• Exposed to a normal office environment.

This job description indicates the general nature and level of work expected of the incumbent. It is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the incumbent. Incumbent may be required to perform other related duties.