Senior Director of Technology Services

Job no: 494395
Position type: Staff Full Time
Campus: UMass President's Office
Department: UITS-InformationTechnologySrvc
Categories: Information Technology
Advertised: May 29 2018 Eastern Daylight Time
Applications close: Jun 10 2018 Eastern Daylight Time

Primary Work Location:

333 South Street, Shrewsbury, MA

Normal Work Schedule:

Standard: Monday –Friday 8:30a-5:00p (or alternative schedule approved by supervisor).

Job Summary:

The University Information Technology Services (UITS) department of the University of Massachusetts is seeking an experienced, energetic, engaging and visionary leader who wants to become part of an exciting, vibrant community of information technology professionals supporting the institution's mission. Information technology plays a vital and ever-expanding role in the institutional mission. The Institution's information technology environment is highly distributed and diverse, with strong leadership and coordination from the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and direct report units. We are seeking a strong, knowledgeable leader to provide vision, strategy, customer focus, broad-based planning, and hands-on responsibility as the Senior Director of Technology Services within the University Of Massachusetts Systems Office.

The Senior Director reports to the CIO, is a member of the CIO leadership team and serves a key role in university leadership, working closely with Campus CIOs, senior stakeholders and academic leaders. The incumbent will implement and operate technology services on-premise, in outsourced/co-located computing facilities and in the cloud and is accountable for the running of technical infrastructure environments and for setting and ensuring performance and standards compliance. Works closely with other technology staff and vendors to identify and execute cost-effective technology solutions. Manages the work activities of employees and contractors ensuring committed tasks are delivered on time and within budget and that they deliver the expected technology and business benefits.

This position requires a leadership approach that is engaging, imaginative, and collaborative, and with a sophisticated ability to work with other leaders to set the best balance between technology strategies and other priorities at the campus level. The Senior Director is on call 24x7, will have overall responsibility for technology servers, storage and networking, many of which are mission critical to UMASS. The individual also plays an important leadership role as a key member of the CIO’s Leadership team, and will be expected to develop strong relationships with members of UITS, the President’s office and other UMASS technologists.

In accordance with industry best practices and working closely with the UITS Chief Architect, the incumbent will design and implement the technical infrastructure and networking capability necessary to support all business processes and applications systems as well as for collaborating on the architectural direction that ensures the infrastructure and supporting systems are cost effective, reliable, resilient and scalable.

Essential Functions:

Provide organizational leadership to staff involved in delivery of technology services

• Directly supervise the Infrastructure Coordination staff (2 staff), Network Management & Operations Director (5 staff), Infrastructure and Database Services Director (9 staff), and Wintel team (4 staff). Over time additional functions, teams or roles may report into this role or transition to other teams.
• Defines and implements an optimal organizational structure that best positions UITS to deliver technology services.
• Develops management and leadership capabilities within the UITS organization. Develop staff by providing ongoing coaching and feedback, appropriate recognition, assisting the team members with career planning and represent the needs of UMASS leadership to team members.
• Creates a culture of customer service and promotes UITS’s values across all levels of the organization.
• Establish priorities, timelines, and ensure appropriate resources are available.
• Manage/Guide the work and performance of staff and consultants/contractors.
• Plan the team direction and priorities and lead the organization in executing the plan.
• Actively solicit information about the needs and goals of the UMASS community
• Be a role model, leading by example

Manage Operations & Administration

• Work closely with Campus CIOs and other internal and external clients to ensure that networking and other technology services meet defined service levels, clear roadmaps have been developed and effectively discussed and charges and cost models are transparently represented.
• Design and implement robust processes, standards and procedures based on industry and vendor best practices and drive process improvements.
• Create and/or use effective metrics to support fact-based decision-making and drive results
• Work with Associate CIO for Planning and Delivery on streamlining IT Operations and Support processes.
• Coordinate monitoring of and respond to server and infrastructure outages, providing 24x7 coverage as needed.
• Work with the Chief Information Security officer to implement and update security plans for all server, storage and network assets, and support the development of training and communication approaches for raising organizational awareness around information security risks.
• Work closely with Associate CIO for Enterprise Applications to implement and operate robust computing platforms to support applications.
• Design and implement disaster recovery plan for operating systems, databases, networks, servers, and software applications
• Assess the reliability and performance of outsourced/co-located services. Initiate preventive and corrective actions as required.
• Prepare budgets and ensure appropriate cost controls are in place. Manage capital and operating budgets to meet agreed targets.

Technology Leadership

• Set technology standards and direction as part of CIO Leadership team
• Work closely with the Chief Architect to research and evaluate emerging technologies and design/develop architecture strategy.
• Develop, document, and communicate plans for investing in systems architecture, including analysis of performance and service delivery improvement, or cost reduction opportunities.
• Guide the purchase of equipment and services.
• Understand cloud-based computing, mobile, social and big data trends
• Develop, implement, maintain and oversee enforcement of standards, procedures and associated plans for system security administration and user system access based on industry-standard best practices
• Keep current with emerging security alerts and issues.
• Able to provide clear concise executive level presentations.
• Perform special projects and other duties as assigned.

Other Functions:

• Other duties include special projects as required.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience):

• Associates degree and a minimum 5 years of information technology leadership experience.
• Demonstrated computer proficiency in word processing, presentation software (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel) required.

Preferred Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience):

• Bachelor's degree in a technical, scientific or engineering discipline.
• 10+ years recent hands-on work experience in a multiple vendor, multiple customer and multi-protocol environment, preferably working with Windows, Linux and Unix.
• Robust understanding and experience of developing and maintaining budgets, revenue and spending forecasts, business cases.
• Strong technical diagnostic skills and demonstrated ability to manage "crisis'' incidents.
• Experienced in managing a variety of platforms and applications including Microsoft Windows/Linux server administration, SAN/NAS operations, server virtualization, database management and failover high-availability solutions and system/network security
• Experience with vendor selection and vendor management.
• Ability to prioritize and schedule work for multiple staff
• Good knowledge of applicable data privacy practices and laws.
• Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities.
• Superior written and oral communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal and consultative skills.
• Willingness to make training and professional development a high priority
• Ability to present ideas in user-friendly language.
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment
• A high degree of professionalism, diplomacy and sensitivity to the needs of customers
• The ability to work well in an academic setting and be comfortable with the tempo of the academic calendar.
• Experience working in an academic environment preferred
• Experience with implementing DevOps
• Experience with core IT Service Management practices such as Major Incident, Change, and Configuration Management.

Working Conditions:

• Primary work location is Shrewsbury, MA however; travel to all campuses may be required.
• Typical office environment.
• This role may occasionally require working at times during evenings and weekends to support the needs of the department and System Chief Information Officer.

Additional Details:

• This is a full time benefited position
• No relocation assistance provided
• Any job offer within the President's Office is specifically conditioned upon the potential candidate consenting to and successfully completing a background review.