Job Description

Job Description:

Organization:  Network Operations Support
Department:  Network Transport Operations
 

As the manager of Transport Operations, you will be accountable for leading the Transport Operations for the AEP Enterprise in the corporate, generation, transmission including substations, distribution, and radio networks.

You will lead a team of skilled professionals who provide advanced support of AEP’s Transport Operations including, wired and wireless infrastructure. The team participates in on-call support covering Transport Operations 24x7x365. This team also provides installation and maintenance of transport hardware and participates in the maintenance and creation of standards for these devices with Transport Engineering.

You will be responsible ensuring environments are built with design thinking principles that focuses on reliability, resiliency, security, costs, non-functional requirements and ease of ongoing management that transform and grow with AEP. In this role you will drive innovation and new technologies leveraging industry trends and best practices. You report to the Director, Network and Telecom Ops and will lead a high-performing team that is focused on the customer experience. You will also effectively collaborate with your peer groups, and engineering teams to lead AEP in best practices with the objective to create stable, standardized, transport networks that are focused on service oriented delivery and security.
 

1. The individual applying for this position must posses a solid understanding of project implimentation and day 2 support of network Transport Infastructure across the AEP enterprise. This inclues but is not limited too; Fiber Optics, SONET, Carrier Ethernet, DWDM, Microwave, and MESH RF hardware.
 

2. Participates in on-call support covering 24x7x365.
 

3. Develop short to mid-range strategies for transport network service and support with clear roadmaps and milestones towards creating a best-in-class infrastructure capabilities.


Position Summary:

Responsible for the strategic direction of a technology domain, services, or process within a broader strategy of a Business Unit (BU) customer or technology functional area.  Promotes and applies Technology processes and solutions to meet the needs and align with the strategies of that BU customer or technology functional area.

Responsible for directly managing and developing technology staff, building and sustaining collaborative relationships with operating companies, BUs, and technology teams.  Lead the teams to complete projects and/or services and perform all technology work activities via efficient processes and effective use of resources. 

Responsibilities include decision making, risk assessment, task prioritization/assignment/tracking, project assignment, employee development, performance feedback, motivation, team building, communication, planning, resource allocation, cost control, problem/issue/conflict resolution, customer service, and client relations. Decisions are guided by policies, procedures and business plans; receives guidance and oversight from senior manager.

• Responsible for stable and resilient functioning of infrastructure, application and operational environment that support internal and external customers,  including network infrastructure, server and device management and ITIL (IT infrastructure library) management

• Drive Incident/Problem management with strong focus on root cause analysis and permanently resolving issues

• Manage the lifecycle of technology tools and assets enhancing security, stability and risk posture

• Operationalize technology general controls to ensure SOX, NERC-CIP and general technology compliance

• Responsible for 24/7/365 operations including production support, environment monitoring and ticket escalations

Essential Job Functions:

• Build and foster strategic and effective business and/or technology peer relationships and represent the Technology organization when collaborating with operating companies and business unit leaders.

• Provide safety leadership and compliance without exception; enhance a strong safety culture.

• Promote a winning culture that is actively engaged, mutually supportive and high-performance oriented.

• Provide corporate compliance leadership and accountability for NERC CIP, physical and cyber security, ethics, corporate policies, etc., without exception.

• Ensure ongoing reliability of the technology infrastructure and business solutions.

• Provide financial leadership, including strategic forecasting and planning; establish and manage departmental O&M and capital budgets in coordination with the plans of the Technology organization.

• Develops diverse and inclusive teams (hiring, training, performance management, culture curation) that deliver world-class technology services with a focus on an efficient and intuitive customer experience. Provide training opportunities for employees to learn and share knowledge, strengthen skills, and deepen and broaden technical and professional capabilities; ensure that all employees are well-trained, knowledgeable, enabled and focused on the success of the company.

• Prioritize and direct area work activities, and optimize utilization of resources.

• Manage resources to provide safe and timely service restoration during storms and other outages.

• Lead and/or direct business continuity planning and disaster recovery for the Technology organization as needed.

Requirements

Basic Qualifications:

• Education:  Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, business, or related technical field is required. An equivalent combination of education and related experience may be considered

• Experience: In addition to any experience required above, 8 or more years of technology experience; 4-6 years of direct supervision experience preferred.
  
  Additional Requirements:  
  Operational support leadership strongly desired Successful track record of managing project implementation. 
  
  Experience with Ciena Carrier Ethernet/DWDM, Nokia SAR Carrier Ethernet, SEL ICON, Avait Microwave, Nortel and Ciena Legacy SONET equipment preferred.
  
  Direct experience with logging in, configuring, and managing these hardware types.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Leading team with co-source &/or managed services partnership in on/offshore model

• 2-3 years leading a technology operations &/or production support team in infrastructure &/or application domains
  A solid working knowledge of Transport Networking and Support. Transport engineering background a plus.
   

Licenses/Certifications:

• ITIL certification

Physical demand level is Sedentary