Wolters Kluwer Looking for Manager, IT Operations at Pune, Maharashtra Full Time

Job Description Summary:–

Responsible for coordinating and supervising the daily activities of an IT Operations support team. Sets priorities for the team to ensure task completion. Supervises the configuration, installation, maintenance and upgrades of computer systems hardware and software. May restore files or systems by designing, writing and implementing back-up procedures. Supervises operational support for the organization’s information systems and peripheral equipment such as application servers, database servers, web servers, desktops, printers and storage devices. May perform recovery procedures, scheduling and back-ups and monitors batch processes. Coordinates work activities with other managers. Work is guided by policies, procedures and the local business plan. Reviews and evaluates the work of others and applies leadership in day-to-day activities of the team. Ensures policies, practices and procedures are understood and followed by direct reports, customers and stakeholders.

Job Description – IT Operations Manager

We are seeking an IT Operations Manager who is eager to lead a diverse set of disciplines and responsibilities from Production Support, Operations, DevOps and Portfolio management for a major Business Unit. The scope of responsibilities includes managing ongoing support operations, standardization of tools, configuration management, deployments, CI/CD pipeline management, managing platforms, upgrades, environment readiness, and improving overall production support and application performance. The candidate must have strong leadership skills along with a deep technical knowledge in the areas above and enjoy playing a hands-on role and diving deep into technical details when necessary.

In this role the candidate will focus on several key areas for multiple Business Units:

Production Support. Provide leadership to onshore/offshore teams focusing on the maintenance of a suite of applications in both the Production and Disaster Recovery environments. This includes the planning, change control, deployment, analysis and implementation, as well as the isolation of issues for later resolution by GBS or BU development teams. You will serve as a key resource for escalation support and technical operations including project resources (partners, subcontractors or staff), risk management and resource management (internal and partners). You must be able to coordinate between a variety of technical and non-technical experts.

IT Operations. In this role the candidate will focus on operational readiness, application support, and DevOps adoption, managing the application portfolio and configuration management. Work with other managers and engineers to develop improvement and expansion plans. Work hands-on to plan and implement these changes including creating new VMs, expand storage, coordinate with release teams and DBAs on new capabilities. Provide proactive production monitoring and corrective actions.

Application Portfolio Management: The Portfolio management function includes managing SLAs and ensuring that the applications are meeting the committed SLAs and SLOs. It also includes collaborating with key product managers and BU stakeholders in developing an application roadmap and application lifecycle strategy

APM Services. The Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Services represent a centralized capability where GBS provide applications across the company with a common service for APM realization. Application of these tools for the Business Unit requires designing a solution, deploying agents, configuring the instrumentation scripts, and monitoring. This requires familiarity with a variety of monitoring solutions, both server and web applications such as AppDynamics.

Thought leadership. In this role, the candidate will be called upon to provide thought leadership in a variety of areas and engage in strategic and tactical discussions / engagements with the BU teams. Examples of such needs include contributing to acquisition integrations, conducting platform upgrades or re-hosting, cloud strategies, analyzing and driving cloud migration efforts, and conducing DR planning and testing.

Relationship Management. In addition to providing the above technical leadership and contributions this role calls for extensive customer liaison activities. This will allow for the exercise of significant responsibility in shaping the plans, expectations, and deliverables between the Business Unit customer and GBS. As needs are identified they will be codified for fulfillment by the GBS engineering teams. Regular interface sessions with the customer development teams will maintain the broader relationship and help guide the specific work as detailed above.

Our ideal candidate bridges development, operations, support, and customer relationship. This candidate feels comfortable in a development capacity and also understands the ITIL framework and its implementations. A strong interest in continuous improvement is required and an orientation towards a DevOps model of working is strongly desired.

Essential duties and responsibilities

Ensure day to day operations and support functions are appropriately staffed and SLAs / SLOs are being met

Manages and appropriately escalates delivery impediments, risks, issues, and changes associated to product development initiatives and deployments.

Open to wearing many hats; from development to solution engineering to project planning to team and resource allocation and staff development.

Displays technical leadership and oversight of implementation and deployment planning, system integration, ongoing data validation processes, quality assurance, delivery, operations, and sustainability of technical solutions.

Manages application aspect of production, staging and development environments working with infrastructure team including developing and validating compliance with procedures related to disk space usage, monitoring solutions, deployment, conventions, access to the production and development environments, performance monitoring, code modification validation, scheduling, and more.

Works across teams and with vendors in order to successfully identify, prioritize, and resolve issues and provide subject matter expertise for enhancements, developments, and operational improvements.

Identifies technical and process improvement opportunities and socialize/advocate to get them implemented.

Works closely with the development and change management teams on release planning, preparation, validation and post-release monitoring.

Resolves conflicts by demonstrating leadership and appropriate decision-making competencies.

Other duties

Taking on related duties as directed. Investigating new technologies.

Job Qualifications

Education: A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or another technical discipline or equivalent experience is desirable however candidates with non-technical degrees shall be considered based upon significant job experience. A Master’s degree in a related technical subject a plus.

Experience:
Significant Application development experience

10 years technology focused experience in application management and IT infrastructure disciplines or related functions including 3-5+ years of technology leadership or management experience with a demonstrated understanding of ITIL and DevOps including technical quality control processes, artifacts and tools.

An ability to quickly identify and drive to the optimal solution when presented with a series of constraints.

Demonstrated ability in people management, strategic planning, risk management, change management, and project management.

Self-motivated individual that possesses excellent time management and organizational skills.

Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, relationship building skills, and ability to achieve results without direct reporting relationships. Ability to manage onsite, distributed, and offshore teams required.

Strong sense of personal responsibility and accountability for delivering high quality work, both personally and at a team level.

Other Knowledge, Skills, Abilities or Certifications:
Possesses excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to interact across a diverse group of stakeholders including development, product owners, business stakeholders and subject matter experts.

Possesses expert technical understanding of the intersection of development and operations (SDLC, ITIL, DevOps), monitoring and management tools, and deployment processes and tools.

Possesses high level understanding in the areas of web application programming, content management systems, API, databases, and system design.

Excellent judgment, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

Deployment tools such as Octopus, Puppet, Chef or similar.

Monitoring tools such as App Dynamics, Dynatrace or similar.

Exposure to cloud computing technologies, specifically with Azure and AWS. Rackspace experience a plus.

Highly organized and productive.

Travel Requirements:
Approximately 20% domestic travel but may vary.

Ability to travel independently.

Must have a valid driver’s license.

Ability to travel by air.