Product Manager, IT Technical Operations - Calgary, Canada - WestJet

Description

Overview of role:

As the Product Manager, IT Technical Operations reporting to the VP, IT Airline Operations you will have both internal and external product management responsibilities. This is an operationally focused team dedicated to ensuring a high level of end user support, system maintenance as well as driving enhancements on products critical to our ability to operate. You will lead a team of IT professionals who support our maintenance and safety teams, ensuring the overall health of systems including upgrades, enhancements, adherence to security practices, DR practices, incident and problem management. Strong relationship building with internal partners, Technology and Digital teams, business units, and vendors is important for ensuring delivery that drives stability, resiliency, and product optimization. A high sense of ** for business impacting incidents is required.

You will be responsible for guiding the success of a product and leading the cross-functional team responsible for improving it. This is a critical role that sets the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for a product or product line. This includes product adoption and change management required to ensure successful use of the product. The position may also include marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss responsibilities.

Product managers provide the deep product expertise needed to lead the organization and make strategic product decisions. They often analyze market and competitive conditions, laying out a product vision that is differentiated and delivers unique value based on customer demands. The role spans many activities from strategic to tactical and provides important cross-functional leadership — most notably between engineering, business functions, and support teams.

Product managers hold budget responsibility for all products they support, including the cost of development and ongoing operational support. This incorporates continuous improvement in time-to-market and cost reduction on a per-unit basis.

Key deliverables include:

• Responsible for setting a product vision and strategy for driving capability through technology into the Technical Operations & Aircraft Maintenance teams for WestJet Group.
• Responsible for delivery of WestJet technology solutions related to Technical & Aircraft Maintenance Operations to drive efficiency through automation and mobility solutions.
• Responsible for technology support of critical systems required to maintain our ability to operate safely.
• Prepare and maintain resource plans to identify and plan upcoming work across business units.
• Responsible for assignment of resources balancing effort between operational support tasks and product deliverables.
• Responsible for the delivery of major corporate initiatives impacting the technical and aircraft maintenance teams (ie: system upgrades, new system implementation, integrations, etc).
• Ownership of the product roadmaps and prioritize building what matters most to achieve the strategic goals and initiatives behind the product.
• Responsible for defining the release process and coordinating the activities required to bring the product to market. This involves bridging gaps between different functions within the company and aligning the teams involved.
• In collaboration with business partners, prioritize feature enhancements by ranking them against the strategic goals and initiatives.
• Responsible for defining the requirements for each feature and the desired user experience. They work closely with engineering on the technical specifications and ensure that teams have the information they need to deliver a complete product to market.
• Defines and maintains service levels specific to requirements of the product. This includes continuous improvement, disaster recovery, run books, security and patch compliance, and coordinating cross-functional operational teams to support these services during all operational hours up to and including 24x7.
• Provide leadership and mentorship to team resources to fulfill all elements of the product management lifecycle including both leaders and individual contributors.
• Management of 3rd party vendors specific to the delivery of their products. This includes contract negotiations and renewals, service level performance adherence and improvement plans and quality.
• Accountable to ensure their products conform to all corporate compliance and regulatory governance standards. This includes a broad understanding of these standards and accountability to meet them on an ongoing basis. Standards include PCI, GDPR, SOX, etc.
• Preparation of annual OPEX and CAPEX budgets for their area.
• Adherence to annual OPEX budget, working closely with the IT Financial analyst to accurately update monthly forecast.
• Providing leadership & driving employee engagement for a high functioning team.
• Monitor team performance and deliver recognition and performance management as required.
• Accountable for the development and execution of career and/or skills development plans for members of the team.
• Accountable leader for incident management of systems supported by the IT Tech Ops team.
• Accountable leader for all adherence to ITSM processes including Change Management.
• Collaborates with peers, business SME's and senior leadership on the development of business cases for new technology initiatives.
• Collaboration with our Procurement team on new contracts and contract renewals to reduce costs and ensure the proper SLA's are in place.
• Acts as an escalation point for business requirements and incident management to ensure a high level of satisfaction from our business units.

Experience and qualifications:

• Requires a minimum of 5+ years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
• Requires a Bachelor's Degree (Technical/Business/Scientific).
• Understanding of Scrum or equivalent Agile methodology.
• Curious, thoughtful and organized.
• Requires complex problem-solving skills and advanced interpersonal and communication skills including the ability to influence others.
• Ability to clearly articulate technical problems from a business perspective and translate business problems into a technology viewpoint.
• Strong commercial acumen including financial management, contract negotiation, and vendor management are essential.
• Demonstrate a strong technical grounding to effectively manage and challenge technology teams with regards to measures of complexity and effort.
• Self-motivated and ability to work independently and cross-functionally.
• Demonstrated ability to create a vision, strategy, and product roadmap.
• Exposure to highly complex and integrated systems using enterprise-class tools and methodologies.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively, demonstrate flexibility and set priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Highly motivated and collaborative individual.

The benefits of being a WestJetter:

WestJet provides all WestJetters with a competitive total rewards package. On top of that, we offer:

• A fun and friendly culture with colleagues who work together to win
• Travel privileges for you and your family, effective from your start date
• Savings and Benefit programs that are flexible to meet your specific needs