Technical Leader

The role of a Technical Lead is to oversee day-to-day application development projects and software engineering for the Reservations Platform group.

• Key Responsibilities:
• Managing Application Development Standards, Processes, and Tools
• Works with direct reports to facilitate consistency of service delivery across client groups
• Facilitates compliance with the standard set of application development tools and processes that will drive consistency and predictability throughout the SDLC for all client groups including:
• SDLC standard tools and processes for both waterfall and agile development
• Estimating standard tools and processes, incorporating flexibility for small and large projects
• Deployment standard tools and processes
• Monitors projects for adherence to defined application development processes
• Communicates to Application Development leaders opportunities to create broader IT related and corporate standards and policies where necessary
• Communicates important application development policy changes that affect service provider and/or operations

Day-To-Day Relationships:

• Manages application development projects in partnership with IT teams, business partners and providers
• Provides project management of business projects
• Oversees effective reporting within application development team
• Leads project reviews with team on application development projects
• Manages day-to-day relationships with all IT teams to promote the delivery of services that meet or exceed the client expectations
• Monitors projects for alignment with defined business case process
• Drives timely resolution of escalated service delivery problems and minimizes the impact of any client service delivery issues
• Manages, and improves service level reporting for application development
• Provides early warning to the appropriate Business Partnership & Planning leaders and team regarding degraded or missed service levels
• Assists with application, development and maintenance of service provider project management standards and tools
• Participates in client portfolio and demand management processes, and engages service providers to ensure client satisfaction

Working with Service Providers:

• Validates the service provider(s) performs the services agreed to by the master services agreement in a manner that is consistent with both the spirit and the letter of the agreement
• Works with team to progress the service providers services to match client needs
• Facilitates team and service provider compliance with the agreement
• Validates service levels meet business needs
• Facilitates the definition and enforcement of good service provider contracts

Supporting the IT Organization:

• Provides input to IT's business strategy and planning as needed
• Supports and follows defined IT Governance decision rights, standards and practices
• Emphasizes accuracy and effectiveness of estimating and planning management with team
• Provides input to business/discipline and continent IT budgets

Implementing and Managing Continuous Improvement Program:

• Drives adoption of CMMi or similar metrics to demonstrate continuous improvement and alignment with the industry
• Demonstrates continuous improvement through metrics of quality consistency and client satisfaction
• Works with application development service providers, IT teams, and business partners to implement continuous improvement activities
• Responds to issues identified in project surveys or other feedback processes, to continually improve client satisfaction

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• 10+ years of application development leadership experience that includes:
• 7+ years of technical experience within architecture development, integration of backend systems and development
• In-depth knowledge of integration approaches and architectures
• Deep understanding of the pros and cons with cloud-native solution, microservices-architecture and API orchestration architecture
• Experience with technologies – Java, NoSQL, Spring boot and WebFlux, Kafka, Docker, K8s, Cloud
• Experience & understanding of DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, logging, metrics, monitoring, tracing, service mesh, LTM, GTM, SEO etc.
• Strong understanding of API platforms, back-end services, database and networking components of full stack infrastructure
• Direct management of cross functional, sourced, or matrixed teams
• Undergraduate/graduate degree or equivalent education + experience
• Demonstrated success leading medium- to large-scale initiatives/transformations
• Proven management experience in strategic planning and budgeting within one or more business groups
• Experience with and knowledge of IT outsourcing activities in a managed services environment
• Proven management experience in application development across waterfall and agile environments.
• Proven knowledge of SDLC; good understanding of ITIL v3 Framework
• Proven knowledge of Agile methodology; preferably SAFe Agile
• Relevant technology certifications
• Good process management, negotiating, influencing and problem resolution skills
• Proven ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment
• Knowledge of business environment, service requirements and hospitality culture
• Solid understanding of IT financial structures and ability to manage to corporate financial processes and standards - including drivers of process costs
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical ideas in easy to understand business terms
• Ability to accomplish results through others, particularly by establishing relationships, effective controls and leading in a managed service environment
• Ability to bridge the gap between technology and business
• Self-driven, curious and a fast-learner, and able to work in a fast-paced environment launching new consumer products to market
• Possess strong problem-solving skills and ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks
• Strong interpersonal and stakeholder management skills with the ability to coordinate between technical and business teams
• Excellent collaborator, working in fully agile product or software delivery teams regionally
• Experience working in a Product-based model and building strong partnerships with Product owners by providing innovative technology solutions to complex business problems
• Ability to communicate complex technology solutions to both Product owners in a business-friendly manner and to Enterprise Architects in most technical detail
• Experience/ understanding of GraphQL
• Strong experience and knowledge of what it takes to operate a production platform
• Experience with Automation testing, Performance Engineering, CI/CD, Release Management processes and Application Deployments.

Education and Certifications:

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience/certification