Data Center Operations Lead

Data Center Operations LeadLocation: Kansas City, MO- OnsiteDuration: FulltimeJob Description:Skills:• Typically requires 10–15+ years of experience in data center operations, infrastructure support, or similar operations-focused leadership roles• Proven experience managing 24/7 production environmentsProcess:• Leads ITIL-aligned service delivery processes, ensuring consistent and efficient execution• Ensures governance across incident, problem, change, and service request management• Focus on operational stability, process adherence, and continuous improvementPreferred Skills:• Experience in banking or financial services domain• Exposure to cloud platforms (Azure, AWS) and hybrid environments• Familiarity with automation tools (Ansible, Terraform)• Strong troubleshooting and analytical capabilitiesKey Competencies:• Strong operations leadership and incident management skills• Ability to work in high-pressure, critical production environments• Excellent problem-solving and decision-making abilities• Effective communication and stakeholder managementWork Environment:• 24/7 support model with on-call responsibilities• Coordination across multiple data center locations and teamsResponsibilities:The Data Center Operations Lead / Architect is primarily responsible for leading 24/7 data center operations, ensuring high availability, reliability, security, and cost-effective delivery of infrastructure services. This role focuses heavily on operational excellence, incident management, and service delivery, while providing practical architectural inputs to improve performance, scalability, and stability.Key Responsibilities:Operations Management (Primary Focus):• Lead and manage day-to-day data center operations across servers, storage, networking, and facilities• Ensure maximum uptime, system availability, and SLA compliance• Oversee monitoring, alerting, and proactive issue resolution• Manage operational activities such as backups, patching, batch jobs, and scheduled maintenance• Ensure reliable, secure, and cost-effective delivery of infrastructure servicesIncident, Problem & Change Management:• Act as the primary escalation point for critical incidents and outages• Drive resolution of incidents in collaboration with cross-functional teams• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and implement preventive measures• Ensure strict adherence to ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Service Request Management)Service Delivery & Process Governance:• Lead ITIL-aligned service delivery processes, ensuring consistent execution• Drive operational excellence, SLA adherence, and continuous improvement initiatives• Ensure high-quality handling of incidents, problems, changes, and service requestsTeam Leadership:• Lead, mentor, and manage a team of data center engineers and operations staff• Manage shift schedules, on-call rotations, and 24/7 support coverage• Drive performance management and team skill developmentInfrastructure Operations & Maintenance:• Oversee installation, configuration, maintenance, and lifecycle management of infrastructure• Manage hardware upgrades, patching, and DC activities (Moves/Adds/Changes)• Ensure backup, disaster recovery (DR), and business continuity readinessArchitecture Support (Secondary Focus):• Provide operational insights into infrastructure design and architecture decisions• Support implementation of new technologies ensuring operational readiness and stability• Recommend improvements for performance, capacity, and resilienceCapacity & Performance Management:• Monitor infrastructure utilization and performance metrics• Plan and manage capacity and scalability requirements• Optimize resource usage to improve efficiency and reduce costVendor & Stakeholder Management:• Coordinate with vendors for support, maintenance, and issue resolution• Collaborate with Cloud, Network, Security, and Application teams• Ensure adherence to SLAs and service delivery commitmentsCompliance & Security:• Ensure compliance with security standards, policies, and regulatory requirements• Maintain operational documentation and SOPs• Support audits, risk assessments, and compliance activitiesMonitoring & Reporting:• Manage monitoring tools and implement alert thresholds• Track and report key metrics such as uptime, MTTR, SLA compliance, and incident trends• Provide dashboards and reports to leadershipTechnical Skills:• Responsible for ensuring reliable, secure, and cost effective delivery of infrastructure services across the environment• Strong hands-on expertise in servers, storage, networking, and virtualization• Deep understanding of ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Service Requests)• Experience with monitoring tools and ITSM platforms (e.g., ServiceNow)