Director, Platform Systems

G Adventures•Boston, MA

About The Position

Reporting to the VP of Global Technology, the Director of Platform Systems will be responsible for leading the evolution of our current software and infrastructure platforms, as well as building the future versions. The solutions-oriented individual will direct software engineering and DevOps teams to develop a customer-centric platform for customizing, booking, managing, and operating trips across the G Travel Community (GTC) portfolio of products. They will be accountable for architecting and scaling the underlying AWS infrastructure which hosts these applications. The candidate will help identify, plan & implement multi-year programs for all practical migrations of applications from future acquisitions, to GTC platforms. As part of the global Technology leadership, the role will be responsible for the mentorship and growth of manager and staff developer direct reports, as well as collaborate with executive leadership across the organization. They will help evolve the current organizational structure of distributed teams and lead the strategy of offshore locations.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in software development, ideally with some in travel and tourism or related industries
10+ years of technical management experience
5+ years of AWS solutions architecture & services such as S3, ALB, ECS, RDS/Aurora, Elasticache, Lambda, SQS
Experience establishing and growing offshore teams
Proficiency with architecting CI/CD, accessible logging, performance monitoring, and issue dashboards using tools such as CircleCI, Datadog, Sentry
Operational experience with infrastructure provisioning/configuration tools such as Ansible, Terraform
Familiarity with containerization technologies such as AWS ECS, Kubernetes, Docker
Detailed knowledge of agile development methodologies
Foundational background of writing code with the ability to read code in a variety of languages, ideally Python, Go, JavaScript
Fundamental understanding of data modeling and impact on database designs, clustering and replication
Foundational background working and building in an API driven architecture, creating scalability for interconnected systems organization wide
Demonstrated experience engaging with all levels of management including senior level executives and proven ability to manage relationships both horizontally and vertically
Knowledge of software development lifecycles and Kanban/Agile methodologies
University bachelor’s degree in computer science or related experience

Responsibilities

Play a key leadership role in developing and executing strategies that meet business objectives and enabling critical decision making
Plan integrations of current and prospective G Adventure acquisitions by identifying system synergies & conducting gap analysis to determine how to best meet business requirements
Present G Adventure product offerings to potential partners, developing white labeling and back office opportunities that leverage proprietary systems
Lead build vs buy decisions to align with product requirements and stories, architecture specifications, and customer/stakeholder needs
Work closely with Business Analysts and Project Managers team to ensure technology projects are properly scoped with the correct business stakeholders, risks are being mitigated, and transparent communication with the business is being maintained
Evolve the SDLC to improve delivery of complex software projects and provide greater predictability of timelines
Define, report and analyze a comprehensive set metrics to inform decision making on development practices
Identify engineering challenges and guide the architecture and implementation of scalable solutions
Help define the architecture, design, requirements, and tooling for the AWS infrastructure which hosts custom software applications
Maintain high availability and reliability of platform systems, by establishing and improving SLAs, SLIs, and SLOs via service performance monitoring
Lead initiatives to optimize performance, fault tolerance, and alignment with application requirements across queue-based workflows
Automate cloud infrastructure and configuration, as well as CI/CD of the hosted applications
Apply DevSecOps practices across the software lifecycle and ensure that all infrastructure complies with regulatory requirements (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR)
Oversee the design and management of complex networking environments, including VPC architecture, VPC peering, NACLs, VPNs, and multi-region setups
Develop and enforce a log management strategy that optimizes system observability and provides actionable insights
Forecast budgets for infrastructure requirements and the associated tooling
Lead, inspire, manage, and motivate a group of managers and very senior contributors while growing their leadership and technical skills
Manage the expansion of development teams in existing and new offshore locations
Monitor team member performance, set individual goals, meet for regular 1-on-1s, and perform yearly reviews
Conduct interviews to assist with hiring qualified team members
Work jointly with the Global Technology leadership team to define the technology vision, strategy, and roadmaps to ensure success
Collaborate with the Global Technology management team to define departmental policy, processes, and procedures that scale across the group of businesses
Manage communication at all levels of the organization regarding team goals and progress to those goals
Prioritize a high-volume of competing tasks in an extremely fast-paced environment, while managing stakeholder expectations