Platform Operations, Sr Manager Systems Operations

We are actively looking for a hands-on and dynamic Sr Manager to join our diverse team. The System Operations Team is responsible for the hosts and services supporting Samsung Private Cloud’s (SPC) customer-facing products. We are looking for a Sr. Manager (Mountain View CA) who shares and practices our values: open communication, transparency, taking ownership, and a high level of craftsmanship.

As the Senior Manager, you will be leading the Systems Operations team architecting tools to create and maintain cloud infrastructure, automate the management of complex service-oriented applications, databases, and other tools, and develop frameworks to ensure the SPC’s stability and scalability.

We are looking for a self-starter who can help shape the systems operations team and bring it to the next level. You are someone who lives and breathes SLIs and SLOs for products and services. You enjoy solving deep technical problems as much as you enjoy mentoring your team to do the same and working cross-functionally throughout the organization to grow our collective skills.

In this role, you will be a hands-on leader, leading and inspiring a diverse, globally remote team by driving change through providing technical and leadership guidance and removing blockers to achieve goals. Under your leadership, your team will partner with developers to continuously improve performance, reliability, and cost efficiencies, not to mention you will play a crucial role in shaping the engineering and company culture

Job Responsibilities:

●      Build Automation: Design, build, and support SPC’s cloud infrastructure, leveraging automation and infrastructure-as-code

o  Develop and execute a strategic roadmap for cloud infrastructure, aligning with business objectives and growth initiatives.

o  Assess cloud technologies, tools, and services to pinpoint and implement avenues for expansion, enhancement, and streamlining.

o  Define standards, best practices, and policies for cloud infrastructure management, ensuring compliance with security and regulatory requirements.

o  Partner with product developers to build services according to modern design patterns

●      Monitoring and Incident Management:

o  Successfully design and implement SLI and SLO for supported services

o  Implement robust monitoring and alerting systems to proactively detect and respond to infrastructure issues and performance bottlenecks.

o  Define and maintain incident response procedures and oversee the resolution of critical incidents, coordinating cross-functional teams to minimize downtime and impact on business operations.

●      Security and Compliance:

o  Collaborate with security teams to implement security best practices and controls in cloud infrastructure, ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations.

o  Proactively conduct regular security assessments and audits, addressing vulnerabilities and implementing remediation measures as necessary.

o  Build tools to empower self-service for SPC development teams, bolster platform scalability and availability, and improve security posture in service to SPC’s customers

●      Stakeholder Engagement:

o  Partner with key stakeholders, including software development teams, product managers, and business leaders, to understand requirements and prioritize initiatives.

o  Communicate effectively with senior management and executive leadership, providing updates on project status, risks, and opportunities.

o  Develop and maintain strong relationships with engineers, managers, customers, and other colleagues based on trust, empathy, and technical expertise

●      Leadership and Team Management:

o  Lead and mentor platform engineers, providing guidance, support, and professional development opportunities.

o  Foster a culture of collaboration, customer focus, innovation, and ownership within the team, promoting a shared vision and alignment with organizational goals.

o  Set clear objectives and performance expectations, conducting regular meetings and providing constructive feedback to team members.

Skills & Competencies

●      Strategic Planning: Capability to develop and communicate a strategic vision and roadmap for initiatives, aligning them with business goals and objectives. This involves proactively identifying opportunities for process improvements, automation, and innovation to enhance productivity and efficiency within the remote team. 

●      Remote Management: Competence in remote team management, including task assignment, resource allocation, maximizing productivity and performance, keeping team focused, performance evaluation, and conflict resolution. This involves leveraging remote collaboration tools and platforms to monitor progress, track metrics, and ensure accountability within the team. 

●      Technical Proficiency: Proficiency in DevOps methodology and principles, practices, and tools to effectively guide and support the team in implementing continuous integration, continuous delivery, and infrastructure as code practices. This includes staying updated with emerging technologies and industry trends relevant to DevOps.

●      Problem-Solving Ability: Strong problem-solving skills to identify and address challenges encountered by remote teams, such as communication gaps, technical issues, or workflow bottlenecks. This includes a proactive approach to troubleshooting and a willingness to seek input from team members to find solutions collaboratively.

●      Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Understand and empathize with remote team members' perspectives, experiences, and challenges. This includes fostering a supportive and inclusive remote work culture, promoting work-life balance, and addressing individual concerns or well-being issues.

●      Ownership: Take ownership of the projects within Systems Operations, ensuring excellence in execution and accountability for results. Foster a sense of responsibility and pride in delivering high-quality work

●      Innovation: Drive innovation by proposing and implementing creative solutions to challenges. Stay abreast of industry trends and technologies, bringing fresh ideas to the table

●      Customer focus: Understand and prioritize customer needs, striving to exceed expectations in every interaction. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure the delivery of customer-centric solutions

●      Teamwork/Collaboration: Ability to collaborate effectively with team members across different time zones and locations. This includes participating in virtual meetings, sharing documents and code repositories, and providing timely feedback on colleagues' work. Drive change within the organization while maintaining positive morale.

Education & Experience

●      Previous hands-on experience in building an DevOps/SRE team with a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.

●      Minimum of 5 years of experience in a leadership role

●      Proficient in designing DevOps solutions while managing highly available cloud infrastructure and services (to include multi cloud and Kubernetes),

●      Deep understanding of monitoring, logging, and observability platforms, and a passion for SLI and SLO best practices

●      Experience managing a production infrastructure/Software including 24/7 on call

●      Familiarity with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Terraform, Helm, Vault, and Ansible

●      Experience in creating and working with containers and leveraging container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes or Nomad

●      Experience developing CI/CD workflows

●      Experience in managing remote teams and demonstrating ability to lead by influence

●      Strong development experience in Go, Python, Bash, and/or other programming languages

●      Cloud Certification is a plus