Manager, IT - Automation

Role Summary: 

The Manager of Automation provides leadership and operational management for the Automation Center of Excellence, overseeing a team of automation engineers responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation frameworks, and configuration management solutions. This role drives automation maturity across infrastructure, colocation strategy, and cloud deployments in Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), ensuring consistent, secure, scalable, and efficient provisioning and operations. The Manager partners closely with Cloud Delivery, Network Engineering, Security, Architecture, DevOps/IT Operations, and Business stakeholders to standardize automation practices, reduce manual effort, accelerate delivery, and align infrastructure capabilities with enterprise goals.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the Automation team, including engineers and specialists focused on IaC development, automation scripting, configuration management, and tool implementation across colo and multi-cloud environments.
• Oversee the design, build, and maintenance of IaC solutions and automation pipelines for provisioning, configuring, and managing infrastructure in Azure, GCP, OCI, and on-premises/colocation setups.
• Drive standardization of automation practices, including IaC templates (e.g., Terraform for multi-cloud consistency, ARM/Bicep for Azure-specific), configuration management (e.g., Ansible), CI/CD integration for infrastructure, version control, and reusable modules/patterns.
• Establish and enforce governance, best practices, security controls, compliance baselines, testing frameworks, and approval workflows for automation artifacts to ensure reliability, auditability, and risk reduction.
• Manage incident resolution, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement for automation-related issues, including root-cause analysis and preventive measures across environments.
• Coordinate automation for hybrid/multi-cloud connectivity, migrations, disaster recovery, scaling, and colo-to-cloud transitions, promoting portability and consistency.
• Monitor, optimize, and report on automation efficiency, resource utilization, deployment velocity, cost savings from automation, and security posture.
• Define, track, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for automation maturity, IaC adoption, pipeline reliability, error rates, and business impact (e.g., reduced provisioning time).
• Lead modernization and expansion initiatives, such as advancing GitOps workflows, self-service automation portals, policy-as-code, observability integration, and adoption of advanced tools/practices.
• Collaborate with Security and Risk teams to embed controls (e.g., secrets management, vulnerability scanning, encryption standards, access governance) into automation processes.
• Mentor and coach team members and cross-functional engineers; facilitate design reviews, knowledge sharing, training, and skill-building in IaC and automation.
• Act as the primary escalation point for automation tool/provider issues (e.g., HashiCorp Terraform, Ansible/Red Hat, cloud-native tools), manage relevant vendor/partner relationships, and contribute to strategic automation roadmap.
• Provide executive-level reporting on Automation COE performance, maturity progress, risks, cost benefits, and recommendations for further investment.

Skills & Competencies:

• Proven leadership in managing automation, DevOps, or IaC-focused teams in multi-cloud, hybrid, or enterprise infrastructure environments.
• Strong expertise in IaC and automation tools, particularly Terraform (multi-cloud), Ansible (configuration), with familiarity in cloud-native options (e.g., Azure Bicep/ARM, GCP Deployment Manager, OCI Resource Manager), Git, CI/CD (e.g., Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Solid operational mindset with experience in automation reliability, pipeline management, troubleshooting complex infrastructure issues, and driving efficiency gains.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills to explain automation concepts to technical and non-technical audiences, influence adoption, and build consensus.
• Collaborative leader skilled at mentoring engineers, implementing governance/process improvements, and fostering a culture of automation excellence.
• Analytical abilities for optimizing automation workflows, measuring ROI, resolving multi-environment challenges, and making data-driven decisions.
• Knowledge of infrastructure security best practices, compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC2, GDPR), policy-as-code, and challenges in multi-cloud/colo automation.

The ability to work outside normal hours, when needed, is expected, and participation in an on-call rotation is required for this position.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leads multiple IT teams or disciplines, ensuring strategic alignment and effective execution
• Develops long-term plans for technology capabilities, staffing, and budget management
• Partners with senior business leaders to define and prioritize technology initiatives
• Establishes governance frameworks, standards, and metrics for performance and risk management 
• Promotes innovation and adoption of emerging technologies to improve efficiency and scalability

• Builds and maintains a high-performing team culture focused on accountability and results