Director – Infrastructure

Overview

At Banner Life Insurance Company, we lead with heart and ambition. Every day, we transform purpose into progress, guided by our unwavering commitment to be better for our customers, clients, and communities, not just today but long-term as well. Our people are the driving force behind everything we achieve. Their passion, purpose, and pursuit of innovation empower us to deliver cutting-edge solutions that support those we serve, ensuring we are here for you, here for good and striving for better.

We’re a forward-thinking company energized by our work and how we show up for one another. Our culture is built on meaningful impact and genuine enjoyment, because we believe great work and great experiences should go hand in hand.

By offering career development opportunities, comprehensive benefits, and programs that support your wellbeing, we help you thrive personally and professionally. We are here for you, here for good and here for better.

Our vision is to cover more American families through digital solutions, and we have been delivering market leading double digit growth in the last 4 years going from #8 to #3 market position in term life market. We are looking for a senior IT leader to lead infrastructure projects across our Microsoft Azure cloud and on prem data center. Must possess transformation experience and be a change advocate for the team, department, and organization.  Responsible for managing all infrastructure functions, working with IT leadership to deliver high quality results on schedule.  Foster, build, and lead a team who are empowered to continually improve.  Work directly with stakeholders to understand needs, gaps, opportunities, and develop infrastructure, data center and telecommunication practices to meet the organization demands and support corporate goals.

Infrastructure Services

·         Systems Administration

·         Systems Engineering

·         Virtualization Engineering

·         Storage Management

·         Network Engineering

·         Data Center Engineering

This role will also need to be forward looking, working with the Cyber Security teams, and Application Engineering team to align practices, transformation initiatives, technology roadmaps, and capacity planning. This will require a culture of strong partnership, excellent project management and oversight, developing detailed plans, and rigorous status reporting, The infrastructure and services department is split into RUN and CHANGE teams. The RUN teams are focused on managing production and preproduction ecosystems with ownership for availability, performance, scalability, and stability based on XLA service model managed by our strategic partner Tata Consultancy Services. This role is focused on CHANGE goals and visions to build for the infrastructure future that aligns with both technology strategy and business growth strategy. This role owns the infrastructure architecture and future state definitions, executions.

Responsibilities

• Ensure infrastructure solutions are compliant with corporate policies/standards and state regulations. Stay abreast of new policies/regulations to ensure proper planning & budgeting is completed in advance of compliant timeframes.
• Collaborate closely with the cyber security team to maintain a strong cyber posture, security first, and cyber aware culture.
• Earn trust by providing consistent service delivery, regular reporting, transparency, and handling escalations promptly.
• Plan, prioritize, assign, supervise and review the work of assigned staff performing a variety of work activities.
• Ensure that SLAs/OKR’s are developed to meet business expectations, identify gaps between capability and expectations, remediate those gaps, and continually measure for compliance.
• Ensure a high standard of service performance by managing teams to adhere to the appropriate policies and procedures.
• Effectively manage vendors and their relationships in compliance with Banner Life’s Vendor Management Policy and Program Procedures; as well as ensure that commercial, contractual, and performance obligations are adhered to and maximized.
• Assess and manage infrastructure (hardware, software, network) risks. Report risks to senior management along with mitigation recommendations.
• Architect, build, and maintain best in class hosting environments for enterprise applications.
• Maintain hardware/software asset management, including maintenance of network component inventory, life cycle management, and related documentation.
• Ensures the highest levels of database server performance and stability through monitoring, optimization, and disaster recovery planning.
• Works with the IT senior leadership team on the service portfolio and governance required to prioritize resources, including budget. Works with key stakeholders to measure and prioritize technical debt remediation.
• Self-starter who self-assesses and solicits feedback from others to improve their performance.
• Research new technologies, making recommendations to senior management, forecasting future needs/capacity planning, and participating in the strategic planning/evolution of the company’s internal and outsourced systems, security and business continuity requirements that are scalable to meet the company’s growth expectations.
• Provide guidance and career mentoring to staff. Identify role progression and suggest training and certification goals.  Hold regular 1-on-1 meetings with staff to stay abreast of staff issues and provide feedback on staff performance.
• Direct team assignments and work plan for a team of 10-15 staff. Provide clarity on team project priorities and empower the team to deliver solutions using Agile Scrum methodologies that continually improve effectiveness and deliver value to the business.   Hold regular team meetings to ensure open communication with team members. 
• Develop and manage infrastructure budget. Perform comprehensive budget planning to ensure business infrastructure needs are considered.  Manage costs to the agreed annual budget. 

Qualifications

Education

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Technical certifications (MSCE, MCP, MOS, CCNA, CCDA, CISSP, CISM, ITIL, COBIT etc.).

Experience/Knowledge

• Senior to Advanced level (5+ years of leadership experience, 15+ years of infrastructure experience, 5+ years of people management experience).
• 3+ years’ experience of public cloud like Azure, AWS.
• Proven stakeholder management experience at all levels.
• Exhibits strong leadership capabilities and emotional intelligence skills, and is a proven, results oriented individual focused on delivering customer value.

 Skills

• Passion for excellence in infrastructure modernization, advancing infrastructure capabilities, automation, and proactive monitoring.
• Expertise in Agile Scrum/scaled agile processes and concepts.
• Ability to understand and breakdown complex problems and frame problems to create cross team alignment and effective solution ideation.
• Strong leadership and management skills - creates and drives strategic vision, mentoring and coaching of staff and continuous feedback and support through effective planning and tracking.
• Proven solid written and oral communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate status and issues to executive management.
• Proven stakeholder management and ability to interact at all levels using expert presentation skills and material to effectively communicate and influence stakeholders.
• Proven capabilities in managing a budget of at least $5m with clear controls and reporting.
• Proven experience in IT leadership, with a clear track record of meeting SLA’s and KPI’s.

Reports To

Vice President, Infrastructure & Operations

Staff

• 15 + Including Permanent and Service providers (Network Eng, Telephony Eng, System Eng)

What’s in it for you?

The expected hiring compensation range for this position is $157,100 - $227,800 annually. This is a hybrid opportunity working in our Frederick, MD office.

The total compensation package for this position may include other elements, such as a sign-on bonus, long term incentives, and annual bonuses.  This role is eligible to participate in the Annual Incentive Plan. The current target payment for the position is 20% of base salary, modified for corporate and individual performance. Bonuses are pro-rated based on start date.  This role has 20 vacation days and 10 sick days that are accrued on a bi-weekly basis. Employees also have 9 paid holidays throughout the calendar year.

We have a competitive compensation and benefits package focused on your overall wellbeing.  Employee benefits include health, life, and dental insurance; 401K with company match up to 6% as well as a pension package; generous time off; and wellbeing initiatives throughout the year (we like doing fun stuff).  We’re big on professional development and we’ll support and mentor you in your career progression and expect you to help us pay it forward by helping us develop tomorrow's leaders and growth-focused professionals. We value our teams and our communities and believe in giving back. Enjoy time off to volunteer for those causes that matter most to you!

If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. The Company reserves the right to change benefits plans at any time.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.