Music is Universal
It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.
Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation.
We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com.
Job Summary:
We are UMG, the Universal Music Group. We are the world’s leading music company. In everything we do, we are committed to artistry, innovation and entrepreneurship. We own and operate a broad array of businesses engaged in recorded music, music publishing, merchandising, and audiovisual content in more than 60 countries. We identify and develop recording artists and songwriters, and we produce, distribute and promote the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful music to delight and entertain fans around the world.
As one of three Technical Operations Center Directors operating within a "follow-the-sun" model, you will be a pivotal leader responsible for maintaining the continuous, 24/7 operational excellence of our global technical infrastructure. This role requires a unique blend of deep technical expertise, robust leadership capabilities, and exceptional strategic acumen. You will not only oversee daily activities, incident management, and team performance within your assigned region but also play a critical role in fostering strategic relationships across various business units. Your ability to translate technical capabilities into business value and ensure seamless operational handoffs across global teams will be key to our continuous service availability and success.
Job Functions:
Operational Leadership & Management
Oversee 24/7 Operations: Direct and manage the Technical Operations Center within your region, ensuring continuous monitoring, proactive issue identification, and rapid resolution of incidents to maintain system availability and performance.
Incident & Problem Management: Lead major incident response, driving root cause analysis, and implementing preventative measures to minimize future disruptions.
Process Optimization: Develop, implement, and refine operational policies, procedures, and best practices to enhance efficiency, standardization, and service delivery across the global operations centers.
Performance Monitoring: Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs), using data-driven insights to drive continuous improvement.
Compliance & Audit Reporting: Establish and monitor operational policies to complete audit requirements as needed.
Strategic Relationships & Business Alignment
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Act as a primary liaison between the Technical Operations Center and other critical business units (e.g., Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales).
Business Value Translation: Understand business objectives and translate them into actionable technical operational strategies, ensuring technical efforts directly support organizational goals.
Partnership Development: Develop and maintain strategic partnerships with internal stakeholders and external vendors, ensuring alignment on service delivery, technology roadmaps, and support requirements.
Communication & Reporting: Provide clear, concise, and timely communication on operational status, incidents, and strategic initiatives to senior leadership and relevant business stakeholders.
Team Leadership & Development
Global Team Management: Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of technical operations professionals, fostering an engaged culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning within the regional team and across the "follow-the-sun" structure.
Talent Management: Oversee recruitment, training, and performance management for your team, ensuring adequate staffing and skill development to support 24/7 global operations.
Seamless Handoffs: Establish and enforce robust handoff protocols and communication strategies with the other "follow-the-sun" Directors and their teams to ensure seamless transitions of operational responsibilities and ongoing issues.
System & Infrastructure Oversight
Technical Strategy: Contribute to the overall technical strategy, ensuring the stability, security, and scalability of the company's production environments and critical systems.
Technology Adoption: Evaluate and recommend new tools, technologies, and methodologies to enhance operational efficiency, monitoring capabilities, and automation. This includes driving automation for all repeatable processes and introducing service reliability engineering practices for infrastructure to reduce toil in daily operations.
Job Requirements:
Skills/Abilities:
Technical Skills:
Soft Skills
Exceptional leadership, communication (written and verbal), and interpersonal skills.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities under pressure.
Strategic thinking with the ability to align technical operations with broader business objectives.
Demonstrated ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with diverse internal and external stakeholders.
Adaptability and resilience in a fast-paced, dynamic global environment.
Self-motivated with a high degree of initiative and excellent follow-up skills, along with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Experience:
10+ years of progressive experience in technical operations, network operations, or IT infrastructure roles, with at least 5 years in a leadership or directorial capacity.
Proven experience managing 24/7 mission-critical environments, ideally within a global or "follow-the-sun" operational model.
Demonstrated success in building and leading high-performing technical teams.
Experience with ITIL best practices including Incident, Problem, Release, and Change Management.
Experience in AI, Automation, and system reliability engineering principles.
Knowledge of all infrastructure disciplines
Education:
BA or BS degree in an IT related field or an equivalent combination of formal education and applicable experience required.
Relevant industry certifications (e.g., ITIL Expert, PMP, AWS/Azure/GCP certifications).
Just So You Know…
The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.