Director Infrastructure & Operations

First Citizens Bank•Raleigh, NC

About The Position

The Director, Technology Operations is responsible for leading critical production operations functions that ensure the availability, stability, resiliency, and operational excellence of the bank's technology ecosystem. This role oversees three core operational domains: 24x7 Enterprise Batch Operations, L1 Infrastructure & Application Monitoring and Incident Response, and L2 Infrastructure Support Services. This leader will play a key role in advancing operational maturity, resiliency, observability, incident management, automation, and service reliability. The position will help drive the consolidation and modernization of multiple command center and technology operations functions into a unified Technology Operations organization capable of providing consistent 24x7 support across infrastructure, applications, and enterprise batch processing. This role requires a leader with deep technical and operational experience, strong organizational leadership capabilities, and a demonstrated track record of driving operational transformation in complex, highly regulated environments. This is a highly visible, executive-facing leadership position with regular interaction across senior technology leadership, business executives, risk management, audit, and regulatory stakeholders. The successful candidate must possess exceptional written and verbal communication skills, executive presence, and strategic thinking capabilities. The individual must be capable of translating complex operational and technical issues into concise business impacts, risks, and actions while maintaining confidence and alignment among senior stakeholders during both routine operations and high-severity incidents.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree and 8 years of experience in Complex leadership and management responsibilities in an Infrastructure and Operations Enterprise environment OR High School Diploma or GED and 12 years of experience in Complex leadership and management responsibilities in an Infrastructure and Operations Enterprise environment
Proven experience leading large-scale 24x7 operational support organizations.
Deep understanding of enterprise batch processing environments utilizing Control-M or equivalent technologies.
Experience supporting distributed, mainframe, and IBM i (AS/400) technology environments.
Strong knowledge of infrastructure operations, production support, monitoring, observability, incident management, and service restoration processes.
Demonstrated success leading operational transformation, organizational maturity, or command center modernization initiatives.
Strong understanding of ITIL disciplines, including Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, and Event Management.
Experience working within highly regulated environments, preferably financial services.

Responsibilities

Lead the bank's Batch Processing Support organization responsible for the continuous monitoring and support of enterprise batch processing across distributed, mainframe, and IBM i (AS/400) environments.
Accountable for the operational execution, monitoring, incident response, and support functions that ensure successful enterprise batch processing.
Lead teams responsible for 24x7 monitoring and operational support of critical batch processing workloads.
Ensure successful execution of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and year-end processing cycles.
Drive timely detection, triage, escalation, communication, and resolution of batch processing disruptions.
Maintain operational readiness procedures, support playbooks, escalation models, and recovery processes supporting business-critical processing.
Partner closely with Application Owners, Application Support teams, and Control-M Engineering to improve processing observability, reliability and operational effectiveness.
Coordinate enterprise response and recovery activities for critical batch failures, delays, dependency issues, and processing exceptions.
Establish and maintain operational metrics covering processing reliability, SLA attainment, incident response, and issue resolution performance.
Oversee enterprise monitoring and command center functions supporting infrastructure, applications, and critical business services.
Ensure timely identification, triage, engagement, escalation, and communication of technology events and service disruptions.
Lead operational teams responsible for event management, alert response, incident engagement, and stakeholder communications.
Drive improvements in monitoring effectiveness, alert quality, event correlation, operational workflows, and response procedures.
Partner with infrastructure, application, and engineering teams to improve observability and end-to-end service visibility.
Establish governance and operational metrics focused on reducing MTTD, improving service awareness, and strengthening operational responsiveness.
Support implementation of automation and tooling improvements that increase operational efficiency and reduce manual effort.
Coordinate seamlessly with India-based operational partners to provide consistent 24x7 support coverage and effective follow-the-sun operations.
Provide leadership, oversight, and operational governance for global L2 infrastructure support functions.
Ensure timely diagnosis and restoration of services during infrastructure-related incidents.
Partner with engineering organizations to improve platform supportability, operational readiness, resiliency, and service stability.
Drive standardization of support processes, knowledge management, operational procedures, and escalation practices.
Improve support effectiveness through automation, process optimization, tooling enhancements, and operational maturity initiatives.