Director of DevOps

At Pearson, we’re committed to a world that’s always learning and to our talented team who makes it all possible. We are bold thinkers and standout innovators who push the boundaries of technology. We create seeds of learning that become the catalyst for the world’s innovations. Within the Pearson Virtual Schools (PVS) division we have reimagined K-12 education through our virtual school and curriculum offerings. Our schools, Connections Academy and Pearson Online Academy, provide a best-in-class online learning environment for K-12 students to acquire the skills and confidence they need to adapt and thrive in a changing world. We also support school districts with curriculum, teachers, and technology as they make the shift to online. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced significant disruption and transformation to the K-12 learning market. And as a result, our category has seen explosive growth and our business has experienced enormous increases in awareness and enrolments. This presents an incredible opportunity for our team to chart a ground-breaking path through this shifting environment to achieve continued success.

Purpose of the position

The Director of DevOps is responsible for managing a team of DevOps engineers. As the Director of DevOps, you will be responsible for the team building, running, and supporting our Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelined environment with an eye towards best-in class automation and security integration. You will also be responsible for driving DevOps culture and best practices into the environment and leading the establishment and adoption of the technology eco-system. Your team will also support the documentation and governance of best practices and provide training, coaching, and mentoring on those best practices, including SCM, TDD/BDD, YAML templating, PR, built-in security remediation. etc. This leader is a both an organizational and a strategic leader and visionary that drives DevOps maturity across the entire organization. The DevOps team supports the build of K-12 Virtual School experience, and the Director of DevOps guides the team towards best technical and business outcomes, supporting multiple agile release trains, as well as builds an effective organization through coaching, mentorship, and technical and strategic leadership. Additionally, this role will make key decisions on how to best evolve the platform technology, making smart decisions on where to pay down technical debt vs where to invest in new technology, always driving the platform technology forward towards cutting edge technology and capabilities.

Core Tasks and Responsibilities

• Simplify and standardize our CI/CD pipeline to allow us to continuously release new features while ensuring the stability of our existing systems

• Develop best practices, standards, and desk-level procedures, and then educate and evangelize them across the Engineering organization; you are an information sharing leader.

• Continually evaluate new and emerging technologies to determine when they should be considered for integration into our environment; you are a thought leader.

• Provide security guidance and standards that pivot us to best-in-class in terms of security remediation and built-in security practices; you are obsessed with keeping us secure.

• Enrich engineers’ job satisfaction through involvement and refinement of all aspects of the company: recruitment, onboarding, day-to-day working modus, appraisal, and career growth planning

• Fosters a culture of continuous improvement in all areas of technology and instill the principles of this culture in your team.

• Monitors team performance, provides timely and critical feedback on a regular cadence, establishes plans for improvement when necessary, and provides at least quarterly performance checkpoints with each direct report; you are invested in your people.

• Develop, maintain, and communicates DevSecOps related metrics to be shared organizationally and with senior leadership

• Ability to quickly analyze situations and determine teams to delegate responsibility as well as appropriate levels of follow-up and accountability.

• Work together with peer Directors, and other leaders across technology and other departments, to understand and address gaps or improvement opportunities in the organization.

• Maintains technical knowledge and understanding of the latest development methodologies and best practices by participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining personal networks, and participating in professional organizations.

Personal Style

• You are a leader. People listen to you because what you have to say makes sense and is actionable.

• You are both strategic and tactical. You think of the bigger picture and drive your teams and the overall organization in the right direction and roll up your sleeves to support the team.

• You listen. You gather data and hear many perspectives to get “ground truth”.

• You have a bias towards action. You solve problems no matter where they are, and you work with others to rally them towards a solution. The words “not my job” are not in your vocabulary.

• You are candid yet compassionate. You don’t shy away from difficult conversations.

• You are proactive. You see problems as or before they arise, and you take action to work with the team to correct them.

• You are a thought leader. You see beyond the day to day and recommend better ways to do things in the future. You constructively propose better solutions to things that we are currently doing or work with others to hone their good ideas into great ones. “Because that’s how we’ve always done it” is not a good reason to keep doing something, in your eyes.

• You are collaborative by default. You draw in diverse perspectives, both technical and non-technical, and you can convey technical things in language your business partners can understand.

• You care about people and our mission. People are your #1 priority, both employees and customers.

Required Skills, Experience, and Competencies

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related discipline required

• Proven track record of leading diverse teams of technologists

• Extensive technology experience, with more recent demonstrable experience in DevOps practices

• 5 years of experience with Azure DevOps. Working knowledge of Microsoft Team Foundation Server also desired.

• Strong knowledge of Cloud technologies – Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, etc.

• Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code.

• Strong understanding of CI/CD including systems, processes, and YAML templating.

• Strong understanding of security tooling, scanning, and audits.

• Experience in short release cycles; proficient in SAFe Agile scrum operating environment.

• A data and metric driven approach to decision making

• Demonstrable experience of influencing and driving DevOps & Engineering strategy

• Possesses ability to work well across teams, to get things done without the need for continuous/regular intervention of leaders; able to exercise personal influence, resolve conflict, and bring about required behaviors.

• Excellent communication skills in verbal and written English.

Bonus Points

• Knowledge of Learning Management Systems (LMS), Educational Management Systems, or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

• Master’s degree in computer science or related disciple

Job: TECHNOLOGY

Organization: Virtual Learning

Schedule: FULL_TIME

Req ID: 2803