This High-Tech, Global leader seeks a Technical Service Director responsible for the end-to-end technology operations management for a high volume transaction processing 24x7x365 environment that services customers globally including feeds and applications, as well as data collection network gathering information provided to premier clients and partners. The role directs, plans, supports, and manages application and hosting services and is the primary interface between the delivery functions, R&D, and business organizations. This includes management of Linux and Microsoft System Administrators responsible for server operations in a production, development and test environment. The position is also responsible for monitoring and reporting on delivered services including customer satisfaction, business relationship management, and proactive improvement of the levels of service delivered. The position will ensure that the operations services meet the requirements of the business, premier clients, consumers, and partners at all times, spanning the entire product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Primary point of contact with business, product, technical operations, and R&D teams to assure smooth transition from high-level design, through product development or system/service modification, including development of support and escalation models, and service levels.

• Directs the development, maintenance, and documentation of operational infrastructure components, applications, platforms, and/or externally-provided technology solutions.

• Evaluates proposed system or service modifications to ascertain impact on existing processes or systems. Ensures evaluation and testing of changes to guarantee uninterrupted service.

• Manages global team of system & database administrators, service engineers, technical managers, project management, solution architects, technical writers, and release managers aligned to support company’s products and services.

• Create and manage budgets while seeking opportunities for return on investment, analysis of total cost of ownership, and cost savings opportunities.

• Directly responsible for managing project pipeline/intake. Identifies and plans resource allocation to meet internal operational and customer demands.

• Analyze technical or service-provision problems or deficiencies and manage through to resolution, directing internal, external or vendor resources as required.

• Develop and present detailed reporting on key performance indicators, service levels, project status, service availability/performance, and contractual performance of vendors.

• Leads and motivates a global technical staff working continuously in a 24x7x365 environment.

• Participate in and lead troubleshooting calls for major service impacting incidents, providing overall guidance and direction for resolving operational issues.

• Ensure alignment with service platforms objectives and internal business partner roadmaps.

• Evaluate emerging technologies, keeps current with industry trends and innovations.

• Facilitates the resolution of complex technical and business problems which have long-term impact on technical methods, service levels or budget.

• Supervises one or more first level managers or project teams.

Qualifications

Skills and Experience required

· 12+ years of relevant experience

· A background in managing and supporting multiple, large commercial online products and services in a production environment

· Experience in developing high volume, high availability web sites that have low maintenance and support costs

· Experience building and managing high-end operations teams focused on operational excellence

· Well versed in the procedures and policies required to operate an application across a global organization

· Detailed understanding of public and private cloud technologies, application security, and “Operational best practices” for the online service industry.

· Ability to work on multiple projects, simultaneously, with aggressive schedules

· Creative problem solver with a keen ability to standardize a process or procedure

· Extremely well organized and accustomed to maintaining highly dynamic schedules

· Comfortable making presentations and attending a variety of client meetings and events

· Excellent communication and relationship management skills

Responsibilities

• Overall planning and management of Service Transition delivery including Continual Service Improvement
• Managing and coordinating the Service Transition functions
• Budgeting and accounting for Service Transition team activities and resources
• Acting as the prime interface for senior management in terms of Service Transition planning and reporting
• Making a final recommendation to the business and IT regarding the decisions to release and deploy into production
• Ensuring all organizational policies and procedures are followed throughout transition
• Ensuring the final delivery meets the agreed customer and stakeholder requirements specified in the Service Design.
• Communicates Service Transition activities and strategies to IT management and staff community
• Defining the requirements, processes and tools for Transition Planning and Support
• Maintaining and integrating lower level plans to establish overall integrated transition plans, including planned vs actuals
• Maintaining and monitoring progress on Service Transition changes, issues, risks and deviations including tracking progress on actions and mitigation of risks
• Maintaining records on and providing management information on resource use, project/Service Transition progress, budgeted and actual spend
• Managing and coordinating requests for resources
• Coordinating Service Transition activities across projects, suppliers and service teams where appropriate
• Publishing Service Transition performance statistics and identifying key areas for improvement
• Undertaking formal quality reviews of the Service Transition, release and deployment plans and agreed transition activities in accordance with the quality management plan
• Works directly with ITSM Program Owner and Manager, but will collaborate across IT domains and other IT service management processes to ensure Service Transition processes are well integrated

Education and Training

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, management information systems (or related field), or equivalent experience
• IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certification required (Foundation-level v2 or v3, and Intermediate-level, including Service Transition, and Release, Control & Validation); in addition, Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (CobiT) and project management certification desirable

Required Knowledge and Skills

• Demonstrated management leadership experience
• Proven ability to build and manage complex relationships in a matrixed environment
• Strong organizational skills; ability to lead different process teams with competing demands for resources
• Strong analytical, multitasking and prioritization skills
• Proficiency in working in a fast-paced, complex, dynamic and multicultural business environment
• Proven ability to build relationships and influence individuals at all levels of the organization

Key Behaviors and Competencies

• Ability to understand strategic business objectives and the ability for different Service Transition processes to align and support those objectives

Recruiter Information:

Bryan Hearn – Sr. Executive Recruiter
bhearn@htassociates.com
Other Job Openings: http://htassociates.com/category/recruiters/bryan-hearn/

Responsibilities

• Strong data management, data warehousing, Business Intelligence, decision support systems
• Engaging directly with the business to understand their reporting & business reqs
• Formulating a strategy to support the needs of the business
• Creating a solutions/high level systems design in support of those business reqs
• Engaging with and directing both internal as well as external resources needed to successfully deliver the solution to the business community
• Ability to operate within a “Managed Services” organization whereby off shore resources are leveraged & managed to deliver a solution
• Have experience in an Insurance, Banking, Financial Services or Trading env.
• Strong technical knowledge & experience with Oracle, PL/SQL, UIX, DW, etc.
• J2EE development env with websphere being an advantage
• Ability to influence & communicate at the C-Level
• Strong change management experience

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Expert technical knowledge of the system development life cycle, and system and application program development technological alternatives.
• Senior level knowledge of client area’s functions and systems.
• Must be competent to work at the highest technical level of all phases of application program/system design and implementation and have excellent analytical and problem solving skills.
• Excellent project management skills and ability to organize and plan effectively to meet both short and long range project goals.
• Solid knowledge of interface design and user centered design method.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively with peers, IT management and staff, and internal business partners/clients.
• Advanced computer skills including Microsoft Office suite and other business related software systems or languages including, but not limited to Oracle, Informatica, Crystal Reports, Hyperion, Maximus, BO, BI, Hyperion, Unix and PL/SQL. Experience with Investment and/or Financial applications necessary.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor?s Degree with Master?s preferred in Computer Science, or related discipline, or equivalent work experience.
• Typically a minimum of nine years of solid, diverse work experience in IT with a minimum of six years experience in application program development.
• Applicable certifications preferred.

Recruiter Information:

Bryan Hearn – Sr. Executive Recruiter
bhearn@htassociates.com
Other Job Openings: http://htassociates.com/category/recruiters/bryan-hearn/

Individual contributor ensuring the release of high quality software and systems through the management of quality assurance (QA) testing projects. Provides technical consultative assistance to management and technology process owners with respect to the development and implementation of quality IT systems and software, provides guidance to others informally, and formally leads project teams on a short-term basis.

 These candidates will be responsible for:

• Engage with the users to understand their requirements
• Define the high level test strategy to support those reqs
• Create the test plan, test beds, test cases, etc
• Engage with vendors to ensure execution of strategy and plan
• Review the vendors deliverable to ensure they are meeting the requirements

 Responsibilities

• Leads quality assurance projects and teams, and consults with IT management, staff and internal clients throughout the QA project life cycle utilizing advanced problem-solving assistance tools.
• Provides technical consultative assistance to management and client areas to ensure the development and implementation of quality IT systems and software, and works with IT management, staff and internal clients throughout the project life cycle.
• Analyzes, develops and implements new or modified quality assurance procedures and processes, test plans, test scripts, and applications/systems for assessing the quality of delivered application software and systems across multiple computing environments.
• Develops metrics for assessing the quality of delivered application software or systems and analyzes trends, researches anomalies and summarizes findings for business process owners.
• Analyzes metrics and data from applicable systems to identify the most complex quality assurance issues.
• Recommends process improvements and works with process owners to determine and manage implementation strategy and roll-out when process improvements are required.
• Participates in the identification and implementation planning of new QA software.
• Stays up to date on trends and developments within functional area of expertise and the insurance industry.
• May focus on software testing ensuring successful testing of releases and programs.

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Full technical knowledge of automated testing and modeling tools, change management and test case generation techniques as well as business processes and ability to apply continuous process improvement and quality assurance methodologies effectively.
• Proven knowledge of client area’s functions and systems.
• Advanced knowledge of software and hardware systems and a solid understanding of the potential use of technology solutions in a business environment.
• Strong analytical skills and detail orientation.
• Senior level knowledge of the project management life cycle and project management tools.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to effectively interact with internal and external business partners.
• Ability to lead teams on short-term projects.
• Advanced computer skills including Microsoft Office Suite and other business related software systems along with the ability to learn new systems applications quickly.

Education & Experience

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, or related discipline, or equivalent work experience.
• Typically a minimum of seven years experience in systems analysis, programming and quality assurance project management including prior software testing experience.
• Applicable professional certifications preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develops, publishes, and implements test plans.
• Writes and maintains test automation.
• Develops quality assurance standards.
• Defines and tracks quality assurance metrics such as defect densities and open defect counts.
• Requires a bachelor’s degree and at least 3 years of experience testing in C, C++, Java.
• Must have a working knowledge of quality assurance methodologies.
• Familiar with NT, UNIX and/or Solaris environments.
• Relies on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals.
• May lead and direct the work of others.
• Works under general supervision; typically reports to a manager.
• A certain degree of creativity and latitude is required.
• Skills used on the project include: Java, SQL, Python, Red Hat Linux, DBMS, and Oracle SQL.

 Qualifications

• Testing skills including test approach and test case preparation, execution, result analysis, recommendations and reporting
• Advanced level of SQL required. Ability to load data, extract data, write complex SQL queries and manipulate data required
• Experience automating scripts and creating automated testing frameworks required (PL/SQL and Python preferred, but Perl is helpful also)
• Ability to read and understand Java code and XML
• Minimum of 2 years of Unix scripting languages experience
• Minimum of 2 years experience working in an Agile environment preferred
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving and multi-tasking ability.
• ARC GIS and 3D experience desired.
• Intermediate knowledge Robot framework desired

Recruiter Information:

Bryan Hearn – Sr. Executive Recruiter
bhearn@htassociates.com
Other Job Openings: http://htassociates.com/category/recruiters/bryan-hearn/

These candidates will be engaged in the testing of networking, data transfer, etc type apps verses traditional business apps. Due to this, the candidate MUST HAVE IP Networking and Linux scripting and troubleshooting with a minimum of 5 years of testing experience.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with development and test engineers to understand product features.
• Design, develop and execute test cases that validate product features.
• Produce documentation for test strategy and test cases. Report status and gather related metrics.
• Learn new technologies and procedures to remain current with industry standards and new products.
• Passion for delivering high quality software
• Partner with other cross functional teams (Development, QA-IT, and Operation) to coordinate daily test activities to ensure test commitments are met.
• Develop test strategies/methodologies, cases, and procedures based upon approved requirements and designs.
• Create, implement, maintain and ensure compliance to test policies, methodologies, standards and best practices.
• Design, develop, and execute manual and automated test cases using test plans and functional specifications.
• Plan, schedule, and conduct all phases of testing – Integration/System Testing, Performance Testing, Regression Testing, Acceptance Testing, Verification and Validation, etc.
• Perform both new functionality and regression tests and identifies, analyze and report issues using “Test Director” defect tracking tool.
• Identify and coordinate the creation and maintenance of relevant test environments and infrastructure.
• Create new test strategies for Automation Test, Test Tools and Performance Test.
• Document findings and recommendations.
• Manage a continuous process improvement program within the team.
• Reproduce and verify defects in lab as well as in the field.
• Troubleshoot issues by evaluating log files, SM reports, MySQL data base and data packet capture.

Requirements:

• Solid knowledge of software development lifecycles, test methodologies, test case identification/development, and test execution.
• Candidate must have at least four years of software testing experience, with strong background in end to end system level testing.
• Minimum of two years of direct experience with IP networking and Linux operating system, including script writing.
• Direct experience validating system software; developing test cases, executing test cases, both manual and automated.
• Excellent investigation, troubleshooting and analytical skills to be able to isolate the software issues.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to work on multiple projects with date-driven schedules.
• Ability to work independently and manage priorities .
• Some background in Java will be a plus.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills.
• Detail-oriented with attention to product quality.
• Experience with various mobile devices/internet browsers.

 Qualifications:

• Must possess a 4 year college degree, CCNA preferred.
• Experience with Linux, Perl, Python, Java, Wire shark, and MySQL. -Experience with scripting using Python, Perl, and “vi”.

Recruiter Information:

Bryan Hearn – Sr. Executive Recruiter
bhearn@htassociates.com
Other Job Openings: http://htassociates.com/category/recruiters/bryan-hearn/

Scott Murray

smurray@htassociates.com

(847) 577-0300

Scott Murray

Group Manager

Office: (847) 577-0300 Ext. 105

smurray@htassociates.com

Responsibilities:

• Analyze customer needs and business requirements — assessing data from multiple sources including product requirements, tech constraints, UX research, Web analytics, etc. — in order to develop and validate product design alternatives.
• Work closely with Product Managers, Engineering, Product Marketing and customers to create wireframes, task flows, storyboards and prototypes that serve as the blueprint for Product Development efforts.
• Conduct/coordinate usability testing
• Lead the development of best practices and standards regarding user interface and interaction design, usability, and information architecture.

Experience Required:

• A Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interactive Design, Cognitive Psychology or related discipline. Master’s degree preferred.
• 7+ years experience in one or more of the following: Human Factors Engineering, Interaction Design, Information Architecture (IA) or Usability Engineering in the development of large-scale dynamic websites
• Expert level knowledge of user interface & information design principles, and Interaction Design & Usability testing methodologies
• Proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Visio, Dreamweaver, Axure RP, Balsamiq Mockups, Protoshare, etc.
• Experience facilitating usability tests and focus groups.
• Working knowledge of web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS
• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal; ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously.
• Ability to work collaboratively within a team environment.
• Specialized Knowledge & Skills:
• Usability: Utilizes key design principles and industry standards to ensure clear navigation, GUI, content design and ease of use for target audience.
• Capable of interpreting and distilling business goals and objectives
• Must have the ability to communicate effectively to multiple stakeholder groups including engineering, marketing, operations, and Senior Management.
• Model and render documented UI functional specifications from wire-frame, testing, business presentations, as well as clear communication of functionality to development teams.
• Must be familiar with, and able to discuss, the latest trends in interactive development practices, trends and emerging technologies.
• Experience with high trafficked consumer focused e-commerce websites preferred.

Recruiter Information:

Bryan Hearn – Sr. Executive Recruiter
bhearn@htassociates.com
Other Job Openings: http://htassociates.com/category/recruiters/bryan-hearn/

Responsibilities:
• Review requirements and high level designs.

• Support the creation of technical documentation for projects assigned [detailed design documents & system interface specifications documents].

• Develop service gateway API’s based on the technical documents.

• Focus on end-to-end performance and on the customer experience as key differentiators against the competition.

• Track project tasks, provide status and ensure tasks completed on schedule.

• Troubleshoot defects and code resolutions.

• Maintain robust build process and produce detailed release notes.

• Assist infrastructure team in configuration of web, application & SOA servers.

• Provide guidance and mentoring to other members of the team.

• Contribute to process improvements, including researching and introducing new development tools.

Required Skills:
• 7 + Years Experience in Information Technology.

• 5+ Years Experience developing n-tier Internet applications with Java/J2EE (EJB, JSP, Servlet & JMS). • Must be proficient with SOAP/REST Web services, message queues & rules engines.

• Experience with JBoss or similar J2EE application server(s).

• Experience with JBoss Enterprise SOA platform is a must.

• Prior experience in integrating with Payment Gateway is desirable.

• Strong understanding of JBoss ESB, Drools, jBPM/JPDL, SAML, Web services security.

• Excellent understanding of cache and performance management within the application layer stack.

• Good understanding of JBoss Seam framework.

• Proficient with open source frameworks such as Struts, Spring, and Hibernate and with Standard JAVA development tools including Eclipse, Jboss developer studio, ANT, Maven, Cruise Control, log4J, etc.

• Experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML and XSLT.

• Strong understanding of Linux/Unix/Microsoft Environments.

• Operations architecture and/or security architecture.

• Working knowledge of Oracle and MySql database platform