Practice Manager - Automation and Operations

About the role

Datacom is seeking a senior technology leader to transform manual operations into an automated, AI‑driven Platform Engineering model for its 24x7 Reliability Operations Hub. The role combines strategic vision, technical expertise, people leadership and commercial acumen to deliver measurable outcomes such as toil reduction, faster incident resolution and increased automation.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and scale regional 24x7 technical operations, ensuring follow‑the‑sun support, triage and operational excellence.
• Own and continuously optimise the ROH Front Door operating model, applying Lean principles to reduce queue times and bottlenecks.
• Drive SRE and automation excellence by leading Automation Swarms, championing SLOs, error budgets and self‑service golden paths.
• Act as escalation leader for major incidents, overseeing root‑cause analysis and converting learnings into preventative automation.
• Govern operational standards, runbooks and AI‑ready documentation, promoting standardisation and knowledge sharing.
• Shape commercial service growth by productising operational capabilities and partnering with product teams.

Required profile

• 15+ years in large‑scale technology operations, with at least 3 years leading SRE or Platform Engineering teams.
• Proven experience delivering transformational operating model change and automation‑first ways of working.
• Commercial leadership experience with service‑based delivery models and margin optimisation.
• Strong incident management and enterprise resilience background.

Required skills

• Deep understanding of Site Reliability Engineering principles and platform reliability.
• Experience with Ansible Automation Platform and AI‑assisted operational workflows.
• Hands‑on knowledge of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Windows and Linux platforms.
• Familiarity with databases, middleware, containers, virtualization and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with enterprise observability platforms, ITSM tools and API‑based integrations.

What we offer

• Dynamic, agile culture with social events, chill‑out spaces and flexible working options.
• Remote working, flexi‑hours and professional development courses.
• Opportunities to learn, develop your career and be recognised in a flat‑structured environment.