Head of DXP Operations | 2024UK12001

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Job Description
Job Summary

This role is within the Organisation's Group CTO directorate. New products are developed to meet the needs of the members now and in the future and provide technology leadership within the organisation and to members and customers. There are several departments which make up the Group CTO directorate, and this role is within Workplace IT, in the Digital Experience Platform (DXP) Operations Team. This team is responsible for the development and maintenance of the DXP Platform to support our customer facing activities.

The purpose of this role is:

1.Responsible for directing all operational and strategic activities for the Platform(s) and its team members, to ensure that Jisc's goals are achieved efficiently and effectively.

2.Responsible for defining, creating, improving and delivering Services (ITIL v4) which are reliable, scalable and secure, providing a customer-first experience meeting the organisational goals and improving outcomes.

Platform(s) refers to the primary technology(s) used by the team to deliver products and services to our customers. For this team this includes Salesforce and Mulesoft.

This strategic leadership role will develop and execute a vision for the team and Platform(s) that aligns with the overall business strategy and target architecture. They will drive innovation and continuous improvement in customer experiences, collaborating with cross-functional teams and architects to ensure seamless integration of digital solutions. This role must understand the technical and commercial landscape, and horizon-scan to enable us to better serve the overall vision of the organisation.

This role has ownership of the Service and leadership of the team. To ensure the strategic direction and priorities are executed, schedules are met and dependencies managed, quality standards are met, performance is within the agreed OLA/ SLAs all within a customer experience operating model. A strong acumen for cost control, risk management, and meeting compliance and overall business performance.

Responsibilities & Duties
• Commercial management; responsible for the negotiation and management of your technical estate. To proactively manage commercial relationships to maintain or improve value for Jisc. Demonstrate commercial decision making and develop positive partnership relationships to provide stability (of services and spend) and assurance (to the quality of the provider, offerings and outputs). Accountable for operating within procurement and licencing organisational governance and responsible for commercial awareness within your team.
• Resource management; responsible for managing and developing the team of technical staff. To foster a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging innovation and agility within the team. Responsible for resource management and capacity planning in-line with pipeline for support, operational backlog and projects/ transformation programmes. Ability to co-ordinate colleagues and contracted parties through expert leadership, motivation, teamwork, supervision and accountability to deliver agreed outputs. Able to balance retention of in-house skills to deliver today and grow with the business, and transfer expertise for legacy and niche to 3rd party as appropriate. Responsible for maintaining gap analysis and skills matrix to resolve single points of failure and manage succession. Develop skills-based development pathways, investing in training to support this and individual professional development.
• Budget; responsible for delivering the expected value for the agreed spend, applying controls and governance to budget management, identifying measures to optimise and/ or reduce expenditure, operating within Jisc financial procedures and responsible for fiscal awareness within your team. Demonstrate mindfulness on how and where we invest, and the expected return on this to achieving the short term goals and long term vision for Jisc. Operating as a value centre for the investment.
• Platform strategy and roadmap; responsible for the overarching vision and strategic direction of the Platform in line with our architectural, IT and Jisc strategy. Articulating a clear roadmap and execution plan. Ownership of the creation, development and execution of the roadmap and plan, ensuring alignment with business goals and objectives and our target architecture. Exercising leadership skills to drive innovation and transformation across the organisation, leveraging technology to create competitive advantages.

o Develop and maintain a comprehensive Platform strategy in accordance with our architectural strategy that aligns with the company's vision and market opportunities.

o Own the Platform roadmap, prioritising initiatives based on strategic value, alignment to our target architecture, customer needs, and technological advancements.

o Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration of the Platform strategy with business processes and systems.

o Monitor performance metrics and optimise/ enhance the Platform and drive business outcomes.

o Lead the assessment of new technologies and trends, evaluating their potential impact on the Platform's evolution.

o Establish rolling 3-5-year plans to renew/ replace legacy/ obsolete or otherwise at-risk technology in a timely manner in the Services for which the team is responsible. Preparing and presenting business cases as needed.
• Stakeholder Management; responsible for proactively identifying and engaging stakeholders across the organisation, managing expectations and escalations, and resolving conflicts. Manage steering groups/ boards to agree overall strategy and priorities to meet organisational needs for value, quality and investment.

o Communicate the Platform strategy and progress effectively to stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership, customers, and partners.

o Partner with Product Owners, Product Managers, Architects and other stakeholders across the organisation to define and communicate the coherent Salesforce strategy and roadmap.

o Support the development of business cases in-line with the defined strategy. Set, agree and communicate project priorities and roadmaps with stakeholders.

o Work collaboratively with stakeholders to create and maintain roadmaps for future development of processes and systems.
• Policies + Standards; responsible for creating, developing, and maintaining internal standards, policies, and procedures. Ensuring they are followed and maintained. Supporting the implementation and effective operation of the key frameworks including ITIL, Agile and DevOps.
• Incident Management; when and where required act as the Major Incident (MI) manager for major/ impact and service outage issues.
• Advocacy;representation on project boards to provide technical expertise and guidance to influence appropriate technical direction for Jisc and its customers.
• Identify opportunities; to leverage Jisc's wider IT (data) assets to support strategic decision making. And to proactively identify opportunities to improve operational and Platform efficiency through, for example, business process reviews, automation, value stream mapping, etc.

Essential skills, knowledge, and behaviours

Experience

Need to have
• Previous experience in a leadership role within digital platform management, preferably within the education or technology sector.
• Demonstrable experience in managing large-scale digital transformation programmes from inception to completion, demonstrating outcomes and realising benefits.
• Demonstrable experience managing cloud based development and production of Platform(s). Experience setting, owning and leading the strategic delivery of the Platform(s) and managing complex IT systems, services and infrastructure.
• Demonstrable experience motivating, performance managing and developing teams to deliver a portfolio of projects, technical support, maintenance, operational backlog, through to the development of complex new and/ or changed functionality.
• Demonstrable experience leading technical support and development teams, managing projects and programs, developing senior and board level communications materials, developing / executing vendor management and selection processes.
• Demonstrable experience managing significant (six figure+) budgets.
• Demonstrable experience with organisational, communication, presentational, negotiation and interpersonal skills - with the capability to communicate concisely and effectively equally well across stakeholders; engineers, non-technical colleagues, suppliers and with external customers.
• Demonstrable experience with strong verbal and written communication, and interpersonal skills with the ability to listen to and interpret requirements with technical and non-technical audiences, as well as building relationships with stakeholders. Ability to create and present technical information in order to influence and gain the understanding of business as well as technical roles across the organisation.
• Demonstrable experience in competence and knowledge of managing 'Tier 1' applications, and diversity and breath of knowledge within the Platform ecosystem.
• Understanding of digital experience from a customer first perspective.
• Understanding of ITIL and experience of ITIL in end user operational environments.
• Understanding of DevOps, Agile, and Scrum.
• Understanding of the regulatory landscape, knowledge of core data protection (UK DPA/ GDPR) principles, GRC and cyber security fundamentals.

Nice to have
• Demonstrable experience working with Azure, AWS or GCP cloud service providers.
• Demonstrable experience of delivering complex solutions and integrations.
• Demonstrable experience managing a team working on cloud based business solutions.
• Demonstrable experience of working with and developing against APIs and data frameworks.
• Demonstrable experience development and administration of Platform(s).

Skills & personal qualities

Refer to the 'Workplace IT Skills and Behaviours Guide.pdf' for the skills and behaviours expected across the entire team.

Qualifications & training

Need to have

• Evidence of professional development.
• Salesforce certification.
• Trailhead profile with relevant badges.

Nice to have

• ITIL v4 Foundations or above.

• Membership of an appropriate institute or industry body.

Security-related

requirements

NA

Background Check Required
• Must have a British Passport or Valid Work Permit for UK.
• Must have Basic DBS Check Certificate (issued within last 24 months)

Benefits

Weekly Working Hours: 40 hours.

Work Schedule: as per UK office hours.

Salary: £51,000 to £69,500 per annum plus benefits

Overtime: Allowed, subject to prior written approval of the project manager.

Computing Devices: candidate should have his/her own internet connection, computing device to execute day-to-day activities while "Work from home".

Specific Benefits offered by the Customer:
• Flexible work pattern, which can adapt to suit your schedules and personal commitments
• 31 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) that includes an additional three closure days over Christmas plus the opportunity to buy up to an additional 5 days
• Generous flexible pension schemes
• Protection benefit - life cover
• Annual performance award
• A range of wellbeing lifestyle benefits including company paid health care cash plan, employee assistance programme, mental health first aiders and support
• A generous budget to support you with external learning and Continuous professional development
• Allocated allowance of up to £250 to equip your home office
• Financial well-being support including access to preferential loan and savings plans, mortgage advice, will writing tools and support and resources to help you make the most of your money
• The opportunity to donate to charity tax-free with our Payroll Giving benefit
• Electric Car Lease Scheme and option to purchase SmartTech - spreading the cost of your everyday white goods and technology
• A wide range of discounts from retailers and big-name high-street stores and CSSC membership
• Family friendly policies including enhanced parental, maternity and paternity leave and opportunity for career breaks
• Support your volunteering with up to 3 days volunteer leave
• Cycle to work scheme and eye care scheme including free eye test vouchers and £70 towards new glasses for VDU use
• Free flu vaccinations
• Employee recognition awards and travel loans
• A company culture which supports and promotes personal learning and development, including access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning

Additional Assessment

Evaluation Weighting
• Technical Competence: 80%
• Price: 20%