Universal Orlando Resort believes in-person collaboration is key to our success. Many of our Team Members work in a hybrid capacity, contributing from the workplace a minimum of three days per week. There are also roles that require being on-site full time. Limited remote opportunities may be available within specific departments. You’ll learn more about this during the recruitment process.

JOB SUMMARY:

The Director, Digital Platform Engineering & Operations is responsible for “always on” digital platform services, hybrid cloud/CDN solution adoption, stewarding reliability of digital applications, and driving CI/CD devops culture. This role leads a global team of technologists & partners to design, develop, deploy, and support a wide range of devops technologies like Git, SonarQube, Kubernetes, Elastic Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, etc; owns end-to-end technology release deployment to ensure platform stability; and drives broad adoption of application performance monitoring & cloud. Directs technical release components through the completion/sign-off of hyper care, managing the standards & processes for digital technology deployment, and coordinating with global infrastructure & information security.

Leads cloud engineering standards and automation strategy for the organization while delivering an enterprise class ‘platform as a service’ catalog inclusive of database, application, and middleware services. Sets the standards, practices and business process around the automation and development engineering practices and pipelines, as well as the sustainment of all continuous delivery and continuous integration capabilities. Identifies processes and systems that would benefit from rethinking the way applications and workflows are scaled awhile simultaneously developing the roadmap to evolve past current DevOps standards to NoOps and beyond, leveraging emerging technologies including but not limited to AI.

Defines and measures digital technology service levels and key performance indicators; is a driver of automation and effective use of open-source tools to accelerate application, software, and data engineering; and inspires digital transformation culture through solid results. Partners closely within Digital Technology, Corporate Technology/Infrastructure/Security, Digital Product/Innovation, PMO; business divisions; and functional support partners like Finance, Sourcing, and HR.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Technology Strategy & Delivery

• Leads the management of devops tech stack design, development, and deployment.
• Leads the deployment of public cloud, hybrid cloud, CDN/SCDN solutions to increase the “digital show quality” of applications/solutions; support the build out of the metaverse technical platform.
• Drive the strategic direction for simple, scalable, flexible, secure, and cost-effective technology design & engineering.
• Owns the digital technology platform lifecycle through successful hyper care of newly implemented applications; responsible for L2+ platform support 24 x 7 of global user base; post hyper care, will transition L1 support to monitoring/operations team.
• Proactively manage a team of internal resources and external partners to achieve both best in class technology solutions while achieving speed to market.
• Drives day to day incorporation of high-quality automation of processes, devops, quality engineering and management release, cloud into every-day work.

Platform Stability & Operational/Delivery Excellence

• Ensures achievement of consistently high platform reliability and uptime of newly developed digital technology solutions to ensure superior “Digital Show Quality.”
• Drive focus on operational excellence throughout the organization & partners, including (but not limited to) processes, governance, efficient working approaches, collaboration.
• Ensure positive trend in key performance indicators of the digital platform.
• Partner with PMO & Product for on-time delivery of solutions, proactively mitigate risk of “scope creep” and business impact during transformational change.

Cross-Team Collaboration, Team Culture, Staff Development

• Lead and mentor direct reports/team members in day-to day management and administration of digital transformation.
• Provides clear executive decision-making and priority management; coaches and builds confidence in staff to make good business decisions using technology & analytical thinking.
• Promote working culture of accountability and technology depth to support Universal’s physical and virtual business aspirations.
• Drive Universal Culture of team-member satisfaction through effective communication, planning, risk management, and coaching of high-potential candidates at every level of the organization.
• Work seamlessly with other Digital and Technology & business unit leaders to architect and build best in class solutions and experiences.
• Lead by example & oversee a team of technologists (full-time employees, project hires, and partner resources) to deliver best-in-class solutions.

Budget Ownership

• Manage appropriate departmental budgets; review/approve related budget expenditures with “act as an owner” mentality.
• Understands and actively participates in Environmental, Health & Safety responsibilities by following established UO policy, procedures, training and team member involvement activities.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

EDUCATION:

• Bachelor's degree is required. Degree in engineering, technology, analytics, or related fields preferred.
• Advanced degree preferred.

EXPERIENCE:

• 10+ years in progressive system/software engineering, with large scale digital application/cloud deployment.
• 5+ years’ experience inspiring/mentoring high performing system/cloud engineers.
• Extensive experience in leading and managing DevOps teams in a global organization.
• Proven success managing and attaining 99.5% or better system reliability on hybrid cloud solutions (year over year).
• Proven experience using containerization, Kubernetes, and distributed technology to increase application/service availability, reliability, security, and cost effectiveness.
• Experience at large multi-national companies with broad digital technology tools.
• Demonstrated experience in “bi-modal” technology environments that combine digital/agile with enterprise/monolithic applications.
• Experience in using DevOps tool chain – Github, Jenkins, Artifactory, Veracode, SonarQube.
• Experience in executive communication, relationship building and decision making; expert at stakeholder and partner management.
• Or equivalent combination of education and experience.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Ability to work effectively in a highly complex, dynamic working environment.
• Excellent analytical, written, and verbal communication skills, and be able to explain complex concepts both concisely and simply to technical & non-technical audience.
• Successful track record of sustained increase in performance, reliability, and automation through deployment of DevOps.
• Strong expertise in implementing and managing cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure.
• Proven track record in driving the adoption of DevOps practices and culture, implementing CI/CD pipelines, and automation frameworks.
• In-depth knowledge of containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Solid understanding of software development methodologies and experience working closely with software development teams.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities.
• Up-to-date knowledge of industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies in the DevOps space.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, Azure DevOps Engineer Expert) are desirable.
• Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Consistent attendance is a job requirement.

Your talent, skills and experience will be rewarded with a competitive compensation package.

Universal is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at Universal Orlando via-email, the Internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from Universal Orlando HR/Recruitment will be deemed the sole property of Universal Orlando. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by Universal Orlando as a result of the referral or through other means.

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