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United Airlines

Flies passengers and cargo worldwide from US hubs

Managing Director - Digital Infrastructure and Reliability

IT OperationsPosted on Nov 7
Full-timeChicago, IL, USAIn-person

About the Job

Requirements

  • A bachelor's degree in Information Technology or a related field.
  • At least 10 years of IT experience, including at least 8 years of IT management.
  • At least 10 years of work experience in planning and operations in large and complex corporate computing environments.
  • At least 6 years of experience with process development and continuous improvement principles, with a demonstrable record of implementation.
  • Experience managing large teams of technical experts and multifunctional teams, and the ability to influence senior-level management and key partners.
  • Superior client-facing management skills and demonstrated experience managing service support to large clients; key skills in service support and IT operations, with an interest in operational trend analysis and critical thinking.

Responsibilities

  • Define and execute a five- to seven-year strategy for secure, resilient, and efficient technology services supporting always-on airline operations.
  • Oversee infrastructure engineering and operations across on-premises data centers, hybrid cloud, and SaaS environments, including servers, virtualization, container platforms, storage and data protection, and network services.
  • Modernize service delivery through full-stack observability, AI-enabled operations, generative AI, and intelligent automation; own the DT Command Center and enterprise incident and problem management.
  • Work with cybersecurity, architecture, and engineering leaders to embed Zero Trust, immutable data protection, and validated recovery capabilities into infrastructure services.
  • Develop infrastructure strategy, engineering roadmaps, operating plans, and budgets aligned with business priorities and the DT technology vision.
  • Direct end-to-end service lifecycle management, from architecture and production readiness through modernization, technology refresh, and retirement.
  • Establish common standards, governance, ownership, and service expectations across the infrastructure portfolio.
  • Partner with DT leaders to balance reliability, security, performance, cost, and speed of delivery in technology investments and architectural decisions.
  • Define a generative AI strategy for technology operations, prioritizing measurable improvements in incident triage, troubleshooting, knowledge discovery, runbook development, and change-risk assessment.
  • Expand automation across provisioning, configuration, patching, monitoring, remediation, recovery, and service fulfillment using infrastructure as code and policy-based controls.
  • Introduce self-healing capabilities where appropriate, with testing, auditability, rollback mechanisms, and defined escalation paths.
  • Measure outcomes through reduced manual effort, faster restoration, fewer recurring incidents, and improved service quality.
  • Lead engineering and operations for Windows Server, Linux, virtualization, hybrid cloud, and container platforms, including Kubernetes.
  • Standardize platform builds, hardening, patching, upgrades, and end-of-support remediation across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.
  • Manage compute availability, capacity, performance, and workload placement to meet service requirements.
  • Establish container platform standards for scaling, workload isolation, upgrades, production readiness, and recovery.
  • Partner with cybersecurity to maintain privileged access controls, endpoint protection, vulnerability remediation, and configuration compliance.
  • Define support models for foundational platform services, including directory services, identity integration, and time synchronization.
  • Lead enterprise block, file, and object storage services, including SAN, NAS, software-defined, and cloud-native storage platforms.
  • Manage storage performance, capacity, connectivity, replication, snapshots, and backup integration to meet workload requirements.
  • Implement immutable recovery copies through policy-enforced retention and appropriate write-once controls, supported by isolated copies, encryption, and separation of administrative access.
  • Partner with cybersecurity and business continuity teams to establish ransomware-resilient cyber recovery capabilities and clean recovery procedures.
  • Validate data integrity and end-to-end restoration against defined recovery time and recovery point objectives.
  • Optimize storage tiering, retention, utilization, and lifecycle policies to balance protection, performance, and cost.
  • Lead LAN, WAN, wireless, data center, and cloud networking services across corporate locations, airports, and operational facilities.
  • Oversee load balancing and application delivery, including traffic distribution, health checks, failover, certificate management, and secure connectivity.
  • Manage firewall and network security operations with cybersecurity partners, including rule lifecycle management, segmentation, remote access, and threat prevention.
  • Advance Zero Trust through identity-aware access, least privilege, microsegmentation, and continuous validation; support SASE and secure web access where appropriate.
  • Maintain enterprise wireless coverage, capacity, authentication, roaming, and interference management for employee and operational devices.
  • Ensure reliable routing, switching, internet connectivity, DNS, DHCP, and IP address management.
  • Establish service expectations and escalation paths with telecommunications providers, managed service partners, and technology vendors.
  • Lead enterprise observability, integrating infrastructure and application telemetry with service dependencies to identify business impact and emerging risks.
  • Apply AIOps and predictive analytics to reduce alert noise, correlate events, detect anomalies, and accelerate diagnosis and resolution.
  • Oversee the DT Command Center, major incident response, and problem management, ensuring effective escalation, stakeholder communication, and service restoration.
  • Drive post-incident reviews, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions with clear accountability for preventing recurrence.
  • Modernize ITIL-aligned practices for incident, problem, change, configuration, availability, and capacity management, incorporating reliability engineering principles.
  • Establish operational readiness and continuity requirements, including recovery objectives, exercises, and remediation of identified gaps.
  • Establish service-level objectives and performance measures tied to business impact, reliability, responsiveness, and customer experience.
  • Use operational trends to prioritize improvements, optimize capacity, reduce complexity, and lower total cost of ownership.
  • Partner with finance and engineering to strengthen cloud cost management, infrastructure efficiency, and investment prioritization.
  • Provide DT and business leaders with clear insights into service health, operational risks, financial performance, and roadmap progress.

Desired Qualifications

  • A master's degree.
  • At least 5 years of director-level leadership.
  • ITIL/ITSMF certification.
  • Six Sigma certification.
  • A background in airline operations.
  • Understanding the capabilities and limitations of generative AI tools and using them for research, analysis, content creation, and problem-solving; critically validate AI-generated outputs while following organizational policies for responsible AI use, data privacy, and security.

About the Company

United Airlines

Flies passengers and cargo worldwide from US hubs

United Airlines flies passengers and cargo across the United States and to destinations around the world, running a hub network that spans Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco, Washington Dulles and Guam. It was a founding member of Star Alliance, the global airline partnership that links its routes and frequent-flyer benefits with carriers such as Lufthansa and Air Canada. Travelers book seats in economy, premium and Polaris business cabins, and United earns money from fares, bag and seat fees, cargo, and its MileagePlus loyalty program, which sells miles to card partners. United traces its roots to Varney Air Lines, which began flying airmail in 1926, and is based in Chicago.

Company size
10,001+
Company stage
IPO
Headquarters
Chicago, IL
Founded
1926

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