Director of Operational Excellence Engineering

TIAA•Frisco, TX

1d•$178,000 - $271,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Operational Excellence Engineering will serve as a strategic individual contributor responsible for driving operational excellence and system reliability across B2C retirement platforms. Reporting directly to the Head Retirement Solutions Individual Technology (B2C), this role is essential to achieving our Executive Committee mandate to make 2026 the year of operational excellence, with particular focus on serving our top institutions, TRAC users, and participants. This position will function as the Technology lead for B2C operational excellence initiatives, working in close partnership with the Retirement Technology Operations & Managed Services organization to establish unified standards and practices across service delivery functions. The role brings critical parity to our operating model, mirroring a parallel position being established for B2B operations.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in Technology Operations, Service Delivery, or IT Service Management
Demonstrated experience leading operational excellence initiatives at enterprise scale, including root cause analysis, incident management, and systemic remediation
Experience with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, practices, and implementation, including graceful degradation, redundancy strategies, and automated recovery
Experience establishing and managing monitoring frameworks, KPIs, and escalation protocols for production systems
Experience managing third-party managed services partnerships, including SLA tracking, performance management, and vendor accountability
Experience developing and delivering executive-level reporting, dashboards, and presentations that translate technical complexity into business outcomes
Ability to assess complex enterprise architectures and translate findings into clear, actionable strategies that simplify systems, reduce fragility, and strengthen operational resilience

Nice To Haves

Experience with B2C retirement, financial services, or similarly regulated technology platforms
Experience operating as a strategic individual contributor in a matrixed organization, driving outcomes through influence rather than direct authority
Familiarity with AI-powered monitoring, observability, and automated remediation tools
Experience with chaos engineering, digital twin simulation, or advanced resilience testing methodologies
Experience governing increasingly autonomous or AI-augmented operational systems
Familiarity with ITIL, Agile, or SAFe frameworks as they apply to operational service delivery
Experience managing large-scale vendor relationships, specifically with Accenture or similar global managed services providers
Retirement technology or financial services industry experience preferred
Experience building and maturing operational excellence programs from the ground up in an enterprise environment
Experience working across cross-functional technology and operations teams to drive alignment and shared outcomes
Debugging
Prioritizes Effectively
Problem Solving
Systems Design/Analysis

Responsibilities

Conduct comprehensive analysis of system performance, service incidents, and outage patterns to identify systemic issues and their underlying causes.
Synthesize data from incident reports, monitoring systems, and operational metrics to pinpoint areas where structural improvements will yield the greatest impact on system reliability and participant experience.
Develop holistic remediation strategies that address root problems rather than symptoms.
Champion Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles and practices to build more resilient systems.
Identify opportunities to implement graceful degradation patterns, ensuring systems maintain core functionality even during partial failures.
Evaluate current architecture and operational practices to recommend and drive implementation of fail-safe mechanisms, redundancy strategies, and automated recovery procedures that minimize participant impact during system stress or component failures.
Establish and maintain rigorous monitoring frameworks and early warning systems in support of our zero tolerance posture for system outages.
Define key performance indicators, establish escalation protocols, and ensure real-time visibility into system health across all B2C platforms.
Develop proactive intervention strategies that prevent incidents before they impact participants.
Serve as the primary oversight lead for our Accenture managed services partnership, ensuring contractual service level agreements are consistently met for all B2C operations.
Track service delivery metrics, conduct regular performance reviews, identify gaps in service delivery, and drive accountability for remediation.
Maintain detailed scorecards and documentation that demonstrate compliance and highlight areas requiring attention.
Develop and deliver regular executive-level reporting on operational excellence initiatives, system reliability metrics, incident trends, and program progress.
Create dashboards, presentations, and written reports that clearly communicate both technical and business impacts of operational improvements.
Translate complex technical information into business outcomes that resonate with EC-level stakeholders.
Work collaboratively with Retirement Technology Operations & Managed Services leadership to identify opportunities to create operational synergies, eliminate redundancies, and establish consistent practices across service delivery functions.
Ensure alignment between development, operations, and managed services teams in pursuit of common operational excellence goals.