Platform Delivery Manager in Liverpool

About Princes The Princes Group has over 7,000 employees with offices and production sites in the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, France and Mauritius. Princes manufactures 350 different food and drink products responsibly sourced and enjoyed by consumers every day. None of this would be possible without striving to be an employer of choice, where our colleagues are proud to represent our business.

Role Description

Platform Delivery Manager
Liverpool

The Delivery Manager – Technology Platforms performs a critical role in leading the delivery of the Princes Group technology strategy. This role offers the opportunity to devise and deliver the evolution of technology platforms across the enterprise.

Reporting to the Head of IT - Technology, this role will have primary responsibility for the delivery and integrity of IT platform solutions across the Group. The role will build key partnerships across IT delivery, IT operations, IT security, and business teams.

The role will hold line management responsibility for a team of two Platform Engineers, an Infrastructure Engineer and an Infrastructure Architect. The post holder will also act as a further senior technical point of escalation for the direct reports, guiding them with handling priority incidents that have been escalated from the internal support teams.

The role will support and develop the Technology strategy in conjunction with the Head of IT - Technology to ensure that there is a consistent & professional approach to delivering technology projects and a strong focus on regular delivery of preventative maintenance activities.

The role forms part of a business which recognises the need for change with major growth ambitions and as part of which is highly likely to expand both in the UK and overseas. The role will need to be flexible and provide support as required to capitalise on whatever opportunities arise.

The role requires expert level understanding of general technology, End User Computing, systems, Infrastructure, data and processes across multiple system platforms.

Dimensions:

• 6000 users globally
• Royal Liver Building Head Office
• 15 UK Manufacturing sites
• 16 European Manufacturing sites
• 2 Mauritius Manufacturing sites
• 350+ servers
• 150TB+ data storage
• Internal contacts can include members of the organisation at all levels, from junior staff to Chief Executives. Regular contacts will be Senior Managers and both Departmental and Group Directors. External contacts will include representatives from our key technology partners who provide equipment, service and support. These contacts will be for the negotiation of contracts and services, as well as resolution of day-to-day issues and the definition of future strategy

Technology Advancement – Progress investigations and proof of concept development into new technology that may be an advantage to Princes. Build business cases for investment in platform solutions. Stay abreast of technology developments and present opportunities to the wider Princes IT Teams and Business.

Product Delivery Management – define product and solution roadmaps, coordinate Business and IT resources, determine suitable product lifecycles, perform competitive analysis and product selection processes, making decisions about product capabilities and priorities.

Project Delivery – Drive the team to develop and manage key business platforms, providing expert-level technical implementation knowledge and skills to deliver high-quality key system platforms on time and in-budget through to the point of transition to internal support teams.

Line Management – Line management of a team of Engineers who hold a dual project delivery/support escalation responsibility, as well as an Infrastructure Architect. The post-holder will have a dotted-line responsibility for an Infrastructure Engineer based in Mauritius so will be required to work in conjunction with the Head of Finance, Procurement and IT for Princes Tuna Mauritius when setting objectives.

Develop People - Ensure that the Platform team is appropriately recruited, trained and managed to be able effectively and safely deliver their tasks and ensuring the stability and continuity of this workforce consistent with the long-term needs of the business. This includes where appropriate managing and developing team members in line with Princes guidelines on performance management.

Resource Allocation – Manage the planning and scheduling of resources required to delivery and support the Group Finance portfolio of products in addition to the research and development of new products.

Support Escalations – Receiving and responding rapidly to escalated support incidents from internal support teams to ensure disruption is limited and key business systems are restored promptly in the event of failure. This will require regular knowledge-transfer to ensure escalations are kept to a minimum level.

Security – Responsibility for each platform’s security concepts, in agreement with the Security Team, SOC and Head of IT - Technology.

Business Continuity - Agree recovery time and recovery point objectives with key business stakeholders to ensure service recovery within a disaster recovery scenario. Provision of Incident Reports in the event of service outages, to include root cause analysis and preventative measures to ensure incident recurrence is minimised.

Tools, Techniques and Controls – Ensuring that changes to system architecture, platforms and software are managed through the appropriate change processes, and mechanisms to track changes are maintained. Progression of escalated support incidents and problems through the Service Desk toolset.

Support and Maintenance - Propose, develop and execute plans for upgrading and maintenance of technology platforms, liaising with third party suppliers of solutions and software in the provision of escalated support for technology solutions. The role may at times be required to perform duties outside of normal working hours.

• 25 days annual leave plus your birthday off
• 14.5% pension - 5% employee opt in / 9.5% employer
• Flexible holiday option - buy 5 additional days
• Enhanced family friendly & carers policies
• Life assurance cover
• Private medical insurance
• Critical illness cover
• Learning and development opportunities

Role Requirements

Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

The Delivery Manager – Technology Platforms will hold expert level knowledge of the following technologies:

• On-premises virtualization platforms; Hyper-V or VMware.
• Identity and access management (IAM), authentication, and federation services using Microsoft Entra.
• Active Directory Domain Services including Group Policy and Certificate Services.
• End User Computing: endpoint management and device lifecycle administration using MECM and Intune.
• Microsoft 365 administration including Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint Online.
• Mobile Device Management, Intune and SOTI Mobicontrol preferred.
• Windows Server platforms.
• Azure IaaS + SaaS, particularly Storage and Automation accounts.
• PowerShell scripting and general automation practices.
• Microsoft SQL Server and IIS platforms.

The Delivery Manager – Technology Platforms will also be expected to be proficient in the following non-technical areas:

• Batchelors Degree in a related field, or equivalent experience
• Practical experience of technology delivery.
• Line Management experience including employee development and performance management.
• Strong operational grounding within a complex, fast-moving environment.
• Appreciation of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery principles.
• Ability to produce written reports on support issues.
• Appetite for continuous improvement and an attention to detail.
• ITIL Foundation certified or experience in an ITIL environment.
• Strong understanding of change management principals and application.
• Extensive technology experience with Microsoft on-premises and cloud technologies
• Strong problem solving and analytical skills.
• Work under tight timescales whilst maintaining attention to detail and quality of work.
• Excellent personal organisational skills.
• Excellent communication skills including the ability to communicate effectively by formal and informal means with strong negotiation and persuasive skills.
• Ability to work cross-functionally dealing with all levels of business employees from senior executives and shop floor operations.
• Ability to make key decisions to ensure availability of core IT platforms
• Understanding of Enterprise Systems and Solution Architecture.

Benefits:

• Cash car allowance
• 25 days annual leave plus your birthday off
• 14.5% pension - 5% employee opt in / 9.5% employer
• Flexible holiday option - buy 5 additional days
• Enhanced family friendly & carers policies
• Life assurance cover
• Private medical insurance
• Critical illness cover
• Learning and development opportunities

#LI-RK1 #LI-Hybrid

#J-18808-Ljbffr