Senior Manager, Application Platform Support

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Compensation Range

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Posting End Date

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary

The University of British Columbia ("UBC") is a global centre for teaching, learning and research, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the world and recently recognized as North America's most international university. UBC is a diverse environment, with almost every industry vertical represented from healthcare, education, food and beverage, legal, media, real estate, etc. and with more than 70,000 members of the community UBC's service providers need to be able to meet a variety of stakeholder needs with both robust and mature operational capabilities combined with the agility and innovation required to meet the ambitious objectives laid out in its new Strategic Plan: Shaping UBC's Next Century.

The Integrated Service Centre ("ISC") maintains, continuously improves and enhances the systems and processes that support operational functions of UBC, including human resources and finance and student servicesTeam members within this unit will work cross-functionally with other departments/units across UBC. The vision for the ISC is to provide integrated services that create an enriched user experience for UBC faculty, staff and students.

The Senior Manager, Application Platform Support provides technical leadership and establishes strategic direction for long-term sustainment of the ISC products and services. Responsible for ensuring technical development of releases, enhancements and changes that sustain products and support a seamless user experience. Provides technical oversight and leadership to the Delivery Manager and other members of the team responsible for application sustainment to ensure core delivery of work. Creates a respectful working environment and coaches the team to achieve their potential though career conversations and tactical succession planning practices.

Organizational Status

Dual reporting to the Sr Director (ISC) and the Director Program Delivery (IT). Partners with the ISC senior leadership team to lead and sets the strategic direction of product delivery and application sustainment.

The Senior Manager, Application Platform Support anticipates University and IT needs to make key strategic decisions regarding product continuous improvement practices. Partners across the ISC to improve functionality of product solutions, providing technical expertise. Partners closely with leadership across the UBC community to align objectives. May be required to support management of external vendor relationships.

Work Performed

1) Develops, mentors, and provides leadership, including all aspects of the team member lifecycle (e.g., hiring, training, coaching, etc.).

• Executes performance conversations with members of the team.

• Provides career planning advice; creates development plans to help team members achieve their career goals, including assigning work which leverages their skills and provides them with opportunities for learning.

• Manages performance development and evaluation in partnership with HR and, where applicable, the Director.

2) Provides technical leadership and strategic direction regarding product delivery and sustainment within the ISC.

• Develops integrated strategies and operational plans for project delivery and sustainment. Determines and approves targets and measures to track performance of sustainment activities.

• Provides leadership to professionals across the ISC to resolve application issues and configure releases, enhancements, and changes.

• Provides technical leadership and oversight, and guides the development and management of releases, enhancements and changes to sustain and improve ISC products.

• Provides technical leadership and guides application development including configuration, prototyping, and testing.

• Develops and is accountable for systems, procedures, methods, standards and controls being in place and adhered to, regarding effectively managing access management, data management, tenant management, integrations, and security for the application over its lifecycle.

• Leads, guides and is responsible for effective management and operations of both production and non-production environments related to the product.

• Leads and creates a collaborative team environment that supports alignment between delivery and sustainment teams within the ISC.

3) Develops and maintains influential partnerships across the organization, including internal and external customers and stakeholders.

• Partners with the Sr Director, ISC, and Director, Program Delivery in creating and socializing application sustainment strategies that enable the broader unit strategy for ISC.

• In collaboration with the Senior Manager Product Continuous Improvement, creates project plans and manages outcomes that support the delivery of product capabilities and implement solutions to meet business outcomes.

• Works collaboratively with key leaders and stakeholders within UBC IT and across the UBC community to achieve product objectives and related goals aligned with broader strategic objectives.

• Partners across UBC to ensure that product solutions are adequately and appropriately integrated with other core university systems and that future interoperability is preserved.

4) Partners to move UBC's practices from "system of record" to "platform of engagement" through collaborative and innovative efforts.

• Demonstrates change advocacy through leadership in promoting change activities within the UBC community, playing a strategic role in soliciting feedback and fostering an agile, innovative, and collaborative transformation experience.

• Develops and fosters relationships with various UBC committees to positively influence matters related to stakeholder engagement, adoption, sustainment, and continuous improvement.

5) Advocates for and ensures alignment with UBC's data governance framework, privacy and information security practices.

6) Performs other related duties as required.

Consequence of Error/Judgement
Makes decisions and recommendations regarding the management of a centralized, complex campus-wide product and service. Recommendations may have University-wide financial, contractual and operational implications. Accountable for promoting and fostering a positive atmosphere and relationship between the University and its stakeholders. Balances ISC objectives within the context of University wide IT strategies. Focusing on partnerships and product delivery will ensure optimal functionality and customer satisfaction in support of ISC's strategic goals.

Supervision Received
Reports to the Director, Application Sustainment and the Chief Data Officer (CDO). Work is reviewed under broad direction; results are reviewed for achievement of overall strategic objectives. This position is expected to partner with leaders across the ISC to determine strategic priorities but will provide direction to their team throughout execution with great independence. This position works in close communication and partnership across the ISC and relevant stakeholder groups.

Supervision Given
Manages the Reporting, Security, Quality Assurance, Tenant Management, and Release Management teams in ISC. Provides strategic leadership, guidance, and expertise to their team to ensure product improvement is consistent with a high degree of customer satisfaction, technical expertise, and timeliness in delivering service is provided across divisions. Is responsible for the hiring and performance evaluation of the team to ensure responsibilities are performed efficiently and effectively

Minimum Qualifications
Post-graduate degree. Minimum of ten years of related experience including at least four years of managerial experience plus three years of specialized experience in the design and implementation of major computer systems, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one's own

- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one's own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

Post - graduate degree in a relevant discipline (Business Administration, Commerce, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Business Technology Management preferred). Experience in supporting Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") systems is preferred. Workday and ITIL experience would be an asset. Experience working in complex, academic environments (and specifically within UBC) is preferred.

KNOWLEDGE & ABILITIES

• Prior experience in large-scale enterprise application development, capacity planning, optimization, re-engineering, performance fine tuning and cost optimization.

• Technical understanding that spans multiple products with broad knowledge of the business processes required to resolve complex problems.

• Advanced experience working with a variety of software including Jira, Confluence and ticketing software, such as ServiceNow.

• Proven experience partnering with key senior leaders and diverse stakeholders to develop product strategies and roadmaps.

• Demonstrated ability to lead, enable and motivate teams by painting a compelling vision that enables a large team to adapt, collaborate and innovate cross-functionally.

• Demonstrated ability to apply change management methods and approaches to complex organizational contexts.

• Demonstrated leadership that fosters collaboration, innovation, continuous improvement and creativity on teams.

• Proven ability to lead employees through the team member lifecycle (i.e., onboarding, performance conversations, career mobility, etc.).

• Demonstrated commitment to enhancing one's own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to difference.

• Demonstrated ability to lead in a collaborative and inclusive manner, fostering equitable experiences and a respectful environment through reflection, empathy, sensitivity, and curiosity towards differences across teams.

• Excellent interpersonal skills including active listening, written and verbal communication, conflict management, and the ability to manage diversity across identities, perspectives, and behaviours.

Core Competencies:

• Collaboration: Consistently fosters collaboration and respect among team members by addressing elements of the group process that impedes, or could impede, the group from reaching its goal. Engages the "right people," within and beyond organizational boundaries, by matching individual capabilities and skills to the team's goals. Works with a wide range of teams and readily shares lessons learned and credit for team accomplishments.

• Communicating for Results: Converses with, writes reports for, and creates/delivers presentations to all levels of colleagues and peer groups in ways that support problem solving and planning. Seeks a consensus with business partners. Debates opinions, tests understanding, and clarifies judgments. Brings conflict into the open empathetically. Explains the context of multiple interrelated situations, asks searching, probing questions, and solicits expert advice prior to taking action and making recommendations.

• Problem Solving: Diagnoses problems using formal problem-solving tools and techniques from multiple angles and probes underlying issues to generate multiple potential solutions. Proactively anticipates and prevents problems. Devises, facilitates buy-in, makes recommendations, and guides implementation of corrective and/or preventive actions for complex issues that cross organizational boundaries and are unclear in nature. Identifies potential consequences and risk levels. Seeks support and buy-in for problem definition, methods of resolution, and accountability.

Role Based Competencies:

• Leading Self: Calms self and others during stressful times. Comfortably handles risk and uncertainty and is decisive in ambiguous situations. Uses setbacks in a constructive way and demonstrates a mindset of continuous learning and improvement. Anticipates and responds in a proactive manner to future needs that may not be obvious to others. Ability to adapt to ever changing workload priorities and events and effectively reprioritizing or deferring tasks in line with operational and strategic goals.

• Leading Others: Supports team members in learning from each other, being self-directed, and being responsible for their own assessment and learning. Recognizes employee potential and develops reporting leadership strength. Works with employees to define realistic yet challenging work goals. Helps others to resolve complex or sensitive disagreements and conflicts.

• Leading the Organization: Promotes an aligned perspective of the organization and the broader University community; fosters and leverages a strategic view to address complex business issues. Establishes clear service expectations and outcomes based on organizational strategy and takes corrective action to ensure ongoing availability of critical services. Maintains and develops an effective network of both technical and business contacts that provides information and intelligence around the market, emergent opportunities, and best practices.