A Senior IT Operations & Support Lead for a global software product is a leadership role responsible for the stability, scalability, and continuous improvement of IT services that power the product globally.
The primary goal is to bridge the gap between development and operations, ensuring that the software product is delivered reliably to customers worldwide while managing global infrastructure, vendor relationships, and cross-functional teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Oversee Operations & Support: Define and manage global Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) to ensure high product availability and performance.
- Global Incident & Problem Management: Act as the ultimate escalation point for critical incidents, overseeing root cause analysis and implementing preventive measures.
- Change & Governance: Lead the Change Advisory Board (CAB) to govern technical changes, ensuring minimal disruption during global product updates.
- Strategic Infrastructure Planning: Design and manage the roadmap for cloud-based (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and hybrid infrastructures to support product growth.
- Supplier Relations: Manage internal service providers (SaaS, IaaS) deliverables and oversee operational expenditure (OpEx).
- Team Management: Mentor and lead distributed, and multicultural teams of system administrators, SREs, and support specialists.
- Continuous Service Improvement (CSI): Drive initiatives to automate repetitive tasks and optimize operational costs (often targeting ~10% YoY efficiency gains).