Disaster Recovery & High Availability Program Manager

Guidacent•Seattle, WA

About The Position

Guidacent is seeking an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead a high-profile, large-scale Disaster Recovery (DR) and High Availability (HA) program for an enterprise client undertaking data center modernization and resiliency transformation. The program includes migrating and activating a new colocation facility as part of the client’s disaster recovery strategy, migrating business-critical applications and infrastructure, establishing governance and operating standards, and implementing repeatable DR and HA capabilities. The role provides end-to-end leadership across application, infrastructure, network, operations, and business teams. The Senior Program Manager drives planning, execution, governance, risk management, stakeholder alignment, and organizational adoption, while coordinating multiple workstreams and dependencies, facilitating executive decisions, and ensuring successful delivery and operational transition.

Requirements

10+ years of experience leading large-scale enterprise programs.
Enterprise disaster recovery and high availability program leadership experience.
Demonstrated success managing complex, multi-workstream technology initiatives.
Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and facilitation skills.
Experience establishing governance structures, operating models, and program controls.
Proven ability to drive alignment across cross-functional teams and executive leadership.
Experience leading data center migrations, infrastructure transformation initiatives, colocation deployments, or technology modernization programs.
Experience supporting Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, or Resiliency programs.
Strong understanding of High Availability architectures and operational resiliency practices.
Ability to engage effectively with infrastructure, network, engineering, and operations teams.
Experience developing organizational standards, governance models, and operational processes.
Demonstrated ability to drive adoption of new operating models and ways of working.

Responsibilities

Lead the Disaster Recovery and High Availability program from initiation through operational transition.
Develop and maintain an integrated program roadmap, execution strategy, milestones, and dependencies.
Drive stakeholder alignment, kickoff activities, charter development, and governance establishment.
Establish program operating rhythms, executive communications, and reporting structures; facilitate steering committee meetings and governance forums.
Provide overall accountability for successful program delivery.
Develop and promote enterprise-wide DR and HA standards and best practices.
Establish repeatable approaches for resiliency, failover, recovery validation, and operational readiness.
Drive alignment on Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).
Partner with technical teams to align solutions with business continuity requirements and support adoption of disaster recovery capabilities.
Lead a structured, wave-based migration approach that balances risk, readiness, and business impact.
Coordinate migration sequencing across application, infrastructure, network, and operational teams.
Drive readiness assessments, dependency validation, change planning, cutover preparation, and post-migration support.
Ensure migration activities have documented runbooks, rollback strategies, testing plans, and operational procedures.
Establish and maintain a comprehensive governance framework, including RACI models, stage-gate reviews, and readiness checkpoints.
Coordinate with Change Advisory Boards (CABs) and governance bodies to support controlled execution.
Monitor program health through metrics, reporting, and risk management processes.
Align application, infrastructure, network, engineering, operations, and business stakeholders.
Facilitate executive decision-making and resolution of cross-functional issues; drive accountability for commitments, dependencies, and deliverables.
Keep leadership teams informed about program progress, risks, and critical decisions.
Establish and manage RAID processes; identify, assess, and mitigate risks, facilitate issue resolution and escalation, and manage critical dependencies.
Deliver program artifacts including a charter and governance framework, integrated master plan and migration roadmap, stakeholder engagement and communication plan, RACI matrix, DR and HA standards, readiness assessment framework, migration wave plans, risk and dependency registers, executive status reports, cutover and rollback plans, operational readiness assessments, and post-migration validation and transition plans.