Senior Manager IT – Travel Services - United Airlines

There’s never been a more exciting time to join United Airlines. We’re on a path towards becoming the best airline in the history of aviation. Our shared purpose – Connecting People, Uniting the World – is about more than getting people from one place to another. It also means that as a global company that operates in hundreds of locations around the world with millions of customers and tens of thousands of employees, we have a unique responsibility to uplift and provide opportunities in the places where we work, live and fly, and we can only do that with a truly diverse and inclusive workforce. And we’re growing – in the years ahead, we’ll hire tens of thousands of people across every area of the airline. Our careers include a competitive benefits package aimed at keeping you happy, healthy and well-traveled. From employee-run "Business Resource Group" communities to world-class benefits like parental leave, 401k and privileges like space available travel, United is truly a one-of-a-kind place to work. Are you ready to travel the world?

We believe that inclusion propels innovation and is the foundation of all that we do. United's Digital Technology team spans the globe and is made up of diverse individuals all working together with cutting-edge technology to build the best airline in the history of aviation. Our team designs, develops and maintains massively scaling technology solutions brought to life with innovative architectures, data analytics, and digital solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

The Sr. Manager - Travel Readiness is responsible for making sure customers around the world are ready to travel from a commercial and regulatory perspective, issuing travel documents and providing self-service options during irregular operations. This will be accomplished by partnering with United's customer and operational product teams to establish organizational goals, KPI's to measure performance and completing the plan. This role will require extensive experience in software delivery in both on-prem and cloud environments and is accountable for the operational performance of these critically important services.

Develop and implement a comprehensive customer self-service strategy in alignment with business objectives.

• Manage the full lifecycle of self-service projects, including planning, development, testing, and deployment.
• Ensure the quality and scalability of self-service solutions by establishing standard methodologies and governance procedures.
• Monitor the performance of self-service solutions and conduct regular reviews to ensure they deliver the expected business benefits.
• Responsible for assisting and following-through on resolution of issues related to delivery of technology solutions

Delivery/Support: Accountable for gaining and maintaining alignment of delivery success criteria with business partners

• Accountable for effective project management and delivery of work requests and projects within committed budget, schedule and quality for individual projects while also meeting overall department performance goals
• Accountable for identifying needs, securing commitments and monitoring progress of deliverables from internal and external service provider teams
• Provide cost estimates and case updates
• Accountable for ensuring technology solutions follow architectural standards
• Responsible for communication of progress to senior IT and Business leadership
• Responsible for organizing and maintaining performance of any application issues in accordance with agreed SLA
• Provide information and periodic updates to support overall IT performance metrics, monthly project status reporting and quarterly resource planning review.

IT Process Management and Administration

• Define, prioritize, allocate resources, track and provide status reporting of work assignments, projects, programs
• Budget and cost management for the projects/programs
• Ensures projects/programs are completed within the committed time and budget and are integrated with other software applications
• Directs multiple teams of developers involved in the analysis, design and development of complex and large scale applications which may include both projects and programs.

Development Standards, Tools & Architecture

• Create a team structure and process for quality control during development, testing for debugging code and deployment
• Ensure that Agile methodologies are implemented, and continuous improvements are made, as needed. Ensure adherence to code scanning and other security protocols are adhered to during development and release.
• Ensure IT application development process: solution delivery, project management, work requests, QA, etc, are established, effectively managed and performed
• Remain informed of new technologies and/or business processes and incorporating those technologies to improve the productivity of the applications staff and software systems' maintainability
• Drive continuous improvement and be adaptable to changing designs and to adding performance enhancements
• Play a key role in formulating and following the procedures and processes for development
• Play a key role with the formation of agile delivery teams for development and technology delivery

Product Development and Roadmap:

• Understand and partner with United business and DT leadership teams along with product SMEs to define the end-state vision, goals, and strategy of the product and create multi-year product development strategy and tactical plans.
• Share knowledge and collaborate to come up with effective and innovative solutions to problems.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of RPA technology trends and advancements.

Collaboration and Partnership:

• Engage, collaborate and partner with collaborators, technical and business, to understand business requirements and user expectations, and lead the development of solutions that meet functional and technical requirements.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including IT operations, security, and quality assurance, to ensure the reliability, security, and scalability of our applications.
• Foster strong relationships with business partners, acting as a trusted advisor and advocate for the IT department.
• Collaborate with various departments to identify and prioritize process automation opportunities.
• Be a Thought Partner, i.e. engaged with Business Owners/Business Process Development

Leadership

• Lead a multi-functional impactful team responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining customer and operational platforms.
• Manage vendor development teams assigned to projects and core support
• Mentor and develop team members, providing guidance on technical skills, standard processes, and career growth opportunities Establish department and individual goals
• Assess and recommend improvements to the organization structure, roles and responsibilities
• Participate actively in future strategy, goals, objectives, and operational performance
• Create and maintain a high performance by interacting and mentoring junior and senior level developers
• Perform short and long term resources planning to ensure the proper number of resources and right skills are available to meet project goals and schedules
• Use creative and proactive leadership skills to address project challenges and opportunities
• Prepare and present reports, metrics, and recommendations to senior leadership on the self-service program status and long term strategy

United values diverse experiences, perspectives, and we encourage everyone who meets the minimum qualifications to apply. While having the “desired” qualifications make for a stronger candidate, we encourage applicants who may not feel they check ALL of those boxes! We are always looking for individuals who will bring something new to the table!

What’s needed to succeed (Minimum Qualifications):

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics,  Information Systems, other related field
• 7+ years of IT and business/industry work experience
• 1+ years of leadership experience in managing multiple, large, cross-functional teams or projects, and influencing senior level management and key partners
• Requires advanced technical and business knowledge in software development life cycle, quality assurance, project management and other related processes
• Experience required in 24x7 operational systems, third party vendor management for large SaaS solutions
• Prior experience managing critically important systems as well as large scale program management and operational excellence

What will help you propel from the pack (Preferred Qualifications):

• Familiar with working within a multi-disciplined, cross-functional technical organization with matrixes reporting relationship
• Experience building, deploying and managing large scale cloud platforms on AWS.
• Experience in travel industry is a significant plus