Manager, Data and AI Platforms

WM•Houston, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Manager, Data & AI Platform is responsible for coordinating the operational delivery of the Data & AI Platforms function. This role serves as the primary connection between business stakeholders, technical teams, strategic vendors, and Managed Service Providers. The manager ensures that platform services are delivered reliably, stakeholder expectations are managed effectively, vendors meet contractual and operational commitments, and technical teams receive the coordination and support required to execute successfully. This position reports directly to the Director, Data & AI Platforms.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree (accredited) in Computer Science, MIS, Business Administration, or in lieu of degree High School Diploma or GED (accredited) and 4 years of relevant work experience.
5 years of relevant work experience (in addition to education requirement).

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting cloud, data, analytics, AI, integration, or business-intelligence platforms.
Familiarity with platforms such as Snowflake, AWS, Power BI, Tableau, Matillion, Informatica, dbt, Atlan, ServiceNow, or similar technologies.
Experience with vendor contracts, statements of work, licensing models, renewals, and technology-spend management.
Knowledge of ITIL, Agile, DevOps, DataOps, FinOps, or platform-operating models.
Experience coordinating distributed teams and offshore or nearshore service providers.

Responsibilities

Serve as a primary point of contact for business, technology, and enterprise stakeholders regarding Data & AI platform services.
Translate stakeholder needs, priorities, risks, and operational concerns into clear actions for technical teams and service providers.
Facilitate regular stakeholder reviews, operational updates, roadmap discussions, and service-performance meetings.
Manage expectations, communicate delivery status, and escalate material risks or dependencies.
Build strong relationships across Data Services, Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, Governance, Finance, Supply Chain, and business teams.
Oversee the day-to-day operational relationship with Managed Service Providers.
Establish and manage operating rhythms, including daily or weekly service reviews, monthly performance reviews, and quarterly business reviews.
Monitor service levels, incident response, request fulfillment, backlog health, problem management, and continuous-improvement commitments.
Ensure MSP resources are aligned with business priorities, platform needs, and contractual expectations.
Review SLA, OLA, KPI, MTTR, backlog, availability, capacity, and service-quality performance.
Lead escalations related to service performance, recurring incidents, missed commitments, or resource constraints.
Validate that operational documentation, support procedures, runbooks, and knowledge-transfer materials remain current.
Manage relationships with strategic technology vendors and implementation partners.
Coordinate vendor deliverables, professional services, support cases, renewals, licensing discussions, and technical engagements.
Track vendor commitments, risks, dependencies, performance, and contract obligations.
Partner with Procurement, Finance, and Legal teams during contract reviews, renewals, and commercial negotiations.
Support software-spend visibility, license utilization, vendor rationalization, and value-realization activities.
Ensure vendor roadmaps and capabilities remain aligned with the Data & AI platform strategy.
Support technical teams by removing operational blockers, coordinating dependencies, and facilitating decisions.
Help prioritize operational work, incidents, platform improvements, technical debt, and continuous-improvement initiatives.
Coordinate across platform engineering, administration, DataOps, DevOps, architecture, security, governance, and application teams.
Ensure clear ownership, timelines, acceptance criteria, and escalation paths for technical activities.
Support change-management, release-management, maintenance, disaster-recovery, and platform-readiness processes.
Facilitate root-cause analysis and corrective-action tracking for significant or recurring incidents.
Develop and maintain platform operating procedures, service-management standards, governance forums, and decision-making processes.
Create transparent reporting for platform health, operational risk, service performance, vendor performance, capacity, cost, and delivery.
Identify recurring operational issues and lead initiatives that improve reliability, automation, scalability, efficiency, and stakeholder experience.
Support financial planning, forecasting, invoice validation, purchase-order tracking, and budget management for vendors and MSP services.
Maintain risk, action, issue, dependency, and decision logs.
Provide the Director with concise reporting, recommendations, and escalation support.
Operate as a trusted delegate of the Director in operational, stakeholder, MSP, and vendor discussions.
Demonstrate strong ownership and follow-through across complex, cross-functional initiatives.
Create accountability without disrupting collaborative relationships.
Balance business urgency with platform stability, security, architecture, and technical sustainability.
Promote a service-oriented and continuous-improvement culture.
Provide coaching, coordination, and operational guidance to internal and external team members.