Director- DT, Tech Ops, Safety Program Management, and Strategy

$171,475 - $233,640/Yr

United Airlines - Chicago, IL

Full-time - Senior

Chicago, IL

Administrative and Support Services

About the position

The Director of Tech Ops, Safety Program Management, and Strategy will be responsible for leading a team that will support in driving the transformation aimed at modernizing and optimizing our Technical Operations and Corporate Safety business units. This role must establish and maintain strong business relationships with both senior and operating level business leaders and be the key interface point of contact with the business. This role will be responsible for the program management for key critical initiatives, including data management, cloud operations and agile transformation strategies. This role will collaborate closely with cross-functional collaborators to find opportunities, develop solutions, and deliver results that enhance operational efficiency and improve overall team performance. This role will help set strategy for high visibility/large impact programs, along with partnering strongly with business partners and other DT organizations.

Responsibilities

• Strategically lead, develop, and continuously refine multi-year application program strategies for strategic projects, ensuring alignment with corporate objectives and IT goals.
• Proactively identify and evaluate new strategic IT capabilities, including tools and processes, to enhance the delivery and performance of the DT Tech Ops and Safety team.
• Maintain a thorough understanding of business strategy and performance, coupled with an in-depth knowledge of business processes, to drive relevant IT improvements and innovations.
• Act as the primary liaison for IT demand prioritization on strategic projects, ensuring effective communication and alignment with business needs and IT resource management.
• Advance, assist, and follow through on the resolution of issues related to the delivery of technology solutions.
• Communicate strategy, goals, and measurable components to senior IT and Business leadership to drive success and accountability across the organization.
• Establish and maintain strong business relationships with senior and operating-level business leaders to optimally deliver business deliverables and technology solutions.
• Collaborate with business partners on roles, responsibilities, processes, and continuous improvement initiatives required to deliver new technology solutions optimally.
• Develop project governance including status reporting.
• Lead and supervise projects to ensure delivery of work requests and projects are within the committed budget, on schedule, and the quality of individual projects meets the overall department performance goals.
• Aligning with business partners on delivery success criteria and ensuring technology solutions follow architectural standards software development teams, ensuring security and quality in deployments.
• Ownership, management and coordination of the DT Tech Ops and Safety budget.
• Develop business case updates to support overall IT performance metrics, monthly project status reporting, and quarterly resource planning reviews.
• Identify needs and secure commitments from internal and external service providers. Integrate project initiatives with other software applications.
• Advance and assist in resolving issues related to technology solution delivery.
• Organize and effectively lead monthly operating reviews bringing to bear lean principles (bowlers, action plans, problem solving) and portfolio reviews focused on product roadmaps and project reviews.
• Lead Agile transformation and own Team of Teams / Big Room Planning strategies to ensure cohesive roadmap plans and aligned delivery across DT Tech Ops and Safety teams.
• Own data and cloud dev/ops and execution in support of products and projects across the DT Tech Ops and Safety domain.
• Ensure reliability and stability of applications within portfolio.
• Empower, coach, and develop team members.
• Establish department and individual goals, including performance reviews and career and performance plans.
• Responsible for developing and maintaining an overall sourcing plan that includes creative sourcing options and alternatives to ensure supply capacities meet work demand, the roles and skills required, and cost objectives.
• Assess and recommend improvements to the organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree; Computer Science, Supply Chain, or related field.
• 10+ years of proven experience.
• 7+ years of application development or product ownership experience.
• 5+ years of management experience in an IT or leadership-related role.
• Requires advanced technical and business knowledge in software development life cycle, quality assurance, project management, and other related fields/processes.
• Experience with Agile development.
• Experience with cloud delivery.
• Experience with REACT, HTML, JavaScript, .net, and document databases.
• In-depth understanding of application development processes, methodologies, and lifecycle management.
• Strong program management/execution & delivery skills required.
• Strong grasp of business operations and the ability to translate business needs into IT solutions.
• Knowledge of financial principles to manage budgets, forecast costs, and deliver cost-effective solutions.
• Experience with implementing Scaled Agile project delivery.
• Ability to develop and present business cases to senior management and collaborators.
• Excellent communication skills to effectively liaise with technical teams and business leaders.
• Ability to build strong relationships with internal and external partners, vendors, and service providers.
• Collaboration skills to work across different departments and cultivate a team-oriented environment.

Nice-to-haves

• Master's Degree.
• Experience in application development delivery of large-scale projects/programs.
• Experience with implementing large scale MRO technology solutions (i.e. IFS, TRAX, AMOS, SAP, etc.) in the aerospace industry.
• Experience using and applying Lean principles to improve IT operations.
• Experience implementing IT solutions in the airline industry a plus.
• Experience with cloud dev/ops.

Benefits

• medical
• dental
• vision
• life
• accident & disability
• parental leave
• employee assistance program
• commuter
• paid holidays
• paid time off
• 401(k)
• flight privileges