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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Technical Operations Manager

💰 $130,000 - $195,000

IT & OperationsManagementTechnologyDevOpsSite Reliability Engineering

🎯 Role Definition

The Technical Operations Manager is a critical leadership role responsible for the overall health, availability, and performance of our company's entire technical ecosystem. You will oversee a dedicated team of engineers and specialists focused on infrastructure management, application support, incident response, and automation. This position serves as the essential bridge between our technology infrastructure and our business objectives, ensuring our systems can scale and perform under pressure. You will champion a culture of proactive problem-solving, continuous improvement, and operational excellence, ultimately guaranteeing a reliable and seamless experience for our end-users.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Lead DevOps Engineer / Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
  • Senior Systems Administrator / Infrastructure Engineer
  • IT Manager with a strong technical background
  • Senior Network Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Director of Technical Operations
  • Head of Infrastructure & Operations
  • Vice President (VP) of Technology
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in smaller organizations

Lateral Moves:

  • Senior Technical Program Manager
  • Director of Engineering
  • Security Operations Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of technical operations engineers, SREs, and support specialists, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous learning.
  • Oversee the 24/7 availability, performance, and security of all production infrastructure, including cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), data centers, and corporate networks.
  • Develop and implement a comprehensive incident management and response strategy, acting as the primary incident commander during major service disruptions and conducting thorough post-mortem analyses to prevent recurrence.
  • Define, monitor, and report on key operational metrics, Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to drive performance and provide executive-level visibility into system health.
  • Champion and expand automation initiatives across the organization to reduce manual toil, improve deployment speed, and increase system reliability using tools like Ansible, Terraform, and scripting languages.
  • Manage vendor relationships and contracts for critical infrastructure services, software, and hardware, ensuring cost-effectiveness and high-quality service delivery.
  • Collaborate closely with software engineering teams to build and maintain robust CI/CD pipelines, ensuring smooth, reliable, and frequent code deployments to production environments.
  • Establish and enforce best practices for system monitoring, alerting, logging, and observability, utilizing tools like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, or Splunk to gain deep insights into system behavior.
  • Own and manage the operational budget, including forecasting for cloud spend, software licenses, and hardware procurement, while identifying opportunities for cost optimization.
  • Develop and maintain a comprehensive disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plan (BCP), conducting regular drills and tests to ensure organizational readiness.
  • Drive the strategic planning and execution of large-scale infrastructure projects, including cloud migrations, data center consolidations, and the adoption of new technologies.
  • Ensure all technical operations and systems comply with relevant security standards and regulatory requirements such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA.
  • Act as a key stakeholder in the architectural design and review process, providing a crucial operational perspective to ensure new systems are built to be scalable, reliable, and supportable.
  • Manage the complete lifecycle of all IT assets, from procurement and deployment to maintenance and decommissioning, ensuring an accurate inventory and efficient resource allocation.
  • Develop and maintain clear, comprehensive documentation for systems, processes, and runbooks to empower the team and facilitate effective knowledge sharing.
  • Refine and manage the on-call rotation schedules, policies, and escalation procedures to ensure fair distribution of responsibilities and timely response to critical issues.
  • Implement and mature IT Service Management (ITSM) processes, such as change management, problem management, and configuration management, using frameworks like ITIL.
  • Partner effectively with business stakeholders across departments to understand their evolving needs and translate them into technical requirements and operational improvements.
  • Continuously evaluate and recommend new tools, technologies, and methodologies to enhance operational efficiency, system performance, and overall team productivity.
  • Lead capacity planning and performance tuning efforts to proactively ensure our infrastructure can handle future business growth and peak user demand without degradation.
  • Foster a proactive, "predict and prevent" mindset within the team, shifting focus from reactive firefighting to strategic, preventative maintenance and system hardening.
  • Oversee the administration and security of corporate IT systems, including identity management (Okta, Azure AD), email platforms (Google Workspace, O365), and core collaboration tools.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis from business teams.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader technology and data strategy roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies with adjacent engineering teams.
  • Assist the security team with vulnerability assessments and the remediation of findings.
  • Act as a final escalation point and provide technical guidance for complex internal IT helpdesk issues.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Cloud Infrastructure Management: Deep expertise in managing and scaling environments in major cloud providers like AWS (preferred), Azure, or GCP.
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Hands-on experience with tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible for automating infrastructure provisioning and configuration.
  • CI/CD & DevOps Tooling: Proficiency with CI/CD pipeline technologies (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI) and understanding of DevOps principles.
  • Containerization & Orchestration: Strong knowledge of Docker and container orchestration platforms, particularly Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, AKS).
  • Monitoring & Observability: Expertise in implementing and utilizing monitoring and logging solutions such as Datadog, New Relic, Prometheus, Grafana, and the ELK Stack.
  • Scripting & Automation: Advanced scripting skills in languages like Python, Bash, or PowerShell to automate operational tasks.
  • ITSM & Project Management: Experience with IT Service Management frameworks (ITIL) and tools like Jira, ServiceNow, and Confluence.
  • Networking Fundamentals: Solid understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, VPNs, firewalls, and load balancing concepts.
  • Database Operations: Familiarity with the operational aspects of both relational (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, Redis) databases.
  • Identity & Access Management: Experience with single sign-on (SSO) and identity provider solutions like Okta or Azure Active Directory.

Soft Skills

  • Leadership & Team Management: Proven ability to lead, mentor, and grow a technical team, fostering a positive and high-performance culture.
  • Strategic Planning & Execution: Ability to develop a long-term operational vision and translate it into an actionable roadmap.
  • Incident Management & Crisis Leadership: The capacity to remain calm and lead decisively during high-pressure situations and system outages.
  • Exceptional Communication: The skill to articulate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, from engineers to executives.
  • Problem-Solving & Analytical Thinking: A systematic and data-driven approach to troubleshooting complex issues and identifying root causes.
  • Stakeholder & Vendor Management: Adept at building strong relationships and managing expectations with internal partners and external suppliers.
  • Process Improvement & Optimization: A continuous drive to identify inefficiencies and improve operational processes through technology and automation.
  • Budgeting & Financial Acumen: Experience managing operational budgets, controlling costs (especially cloud spend), and making financially sound decisions.
  • Adaptability & Resilience: Thrives in a fast-paced, evolving environment and demonstrates resilience in the face of challenges.
  • Mentorship & Coaching: A genuine passion for developing the skills and careers of team members.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent, substantial practical experience in a technical operations role.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in a technical or management discipline.
  • Certifications in cloud technologies (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect), ITIL, or project management (PMP).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology
  • Software or Systems Engineering
  • Business Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 8-12+ years of progressive experience in IT Operations, DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering.
  • Minimum of 4-5 years in a direct management or team leadership capacity.

Preferred:

  • Proven track record of managing 24/7 mission-critical production environments in a major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP).
  • Demonstrable experience scaling infrastructure and teams within a fast-growing technology, e-commerce, or SaaS company.
  • Strong background in building and maturing an SRE or DevOps culture from the ground up.
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