Application Observability Lead

Application Observability Lead

Zurich IT Services is looking for an Application Observability Lead who is organised, committed and technically focused individual to support the notion of “Always On” IT services; fully reflecting the strategic needs of our business partners globally. Working within the Enterprise Command Center, the Application Observability Lead will part of a dynamic team consisting of other platform technology engineers and technicians, and the broader Enterprise Command Center which focuses on IT Stability (Incident and problem Management), Change Management, and Configuration Management   

The role incorporates technical, organisational, and management skills to lead a small team which provides technical services to support the application monitoring and observability goals of Zurich’s Group IT function, working with application teams within the business units to help drive expanded and more mature application monitoring and observability across Europe. The primary focus is to ensure the continued improvement, maturity, and reliability of the Dynatrace SaaS services, and the monitoring / alerting ECC and the application teams rely on to track application health and functionality.  In addition, the Application Observability Lead will be expected to work proactively to identify and strengthen service capabilities, both at the technical and process levels.   

This opportunity provides the ideal springboard for a motivated quick starter who can develop within the role, taking their career to the next level. 

Your Job

As an Application Observability Lead your main responsibilities will include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following:

• Guide a small team to manage the day-to-day workings to run, maintain, and improve an application observability service based on the Dynatrace SaaS platform.    
• Work closely with our business units and application teams to review services, make recommendations on improvements / maturity of the service, expand application monitoring to additional critical applications, and mature the types of monitoring currently in place in order to ensure end to end visibility
• Drive adoption of native Dynatrace AI capabilities to align with Zurich’s strategy of advanced operations and self-healing
• Providing subject matter expertise of the Dynatrace platform to a broad range of colleagues, across multiple technologies.
• Ensuring high levels of observability are implemented and maintained in accordance with defined strategy and within appropriate governance
• Improve Dynatrace dashboards, alerting, and capabilities based on personal experience and feedback from the ECC Stability, and application teams 
• Experience of implementing application performance, real-user and synthetic transaction monitoring
• Regularly review existing application monitoring performance (alerting thresholds, false positives, system integration health, etc) and recommend / implement improvements to promote standardisation and more optimal usage of the platform  
• Drive a continuous service improvement culture across the company and external partner community.
• Collaborate on ECC processes ensuring day to day operational capabilities are effective 
• Provide support and consultancy as needed in response to major operational incidents; supporting technical work-streams as needed
• Drive service delivery improvements with external partners 

Your Skills and Experience

As an Application Observability Lead your skills and qualifications will include: 

• 5 or more years working in an IT Operations/engineering role or comparable application operations/engineering roles
• 4 or more years’ experience using, building, or deploying Dynatrace capabilities
• Demonstrable, deep and certified knowledge of Dynatrace observability platform
• Ability to lead a small team and align with larger organizations on shared strategy 
• Exposure to REST APIs, Webhooks and developing monitoring as code
• Ability to understand complex infrastructures and interpret observability requirements
• Experience of implementing application performance, real-user and synthetic transaction monitoring
• Experience of working within a large global or regional organisation within a multi-national company would be a distinct bonus 
• Experienced in building and managing stakeholder relationships, removing obstacles towards win/win 
• Demonstrate a good understanding and ability to follow ITIL standards and SRE principles
• Experience of core infrastructure technologies, e.g. Azure, AWS, Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, Databases (SQL, DB2, Oracle), Storage technologies, IP Networking, Web hosting

Additional Experience

• Strong problem-solving skills
• Effective communication skills, including high quality written procedures, roadmaps, diagrams
• Professional and consistent work habits, strong work ethic, motivated to achieve goals 
• Proven ability to succeed in both collaborative and independent work environments 
• Experience with containers (e.g. Kubernetes, Docker, ECS)
• Experience with CI/CD and automation tools (e.g. Jenkins, Ansible, GitHub workflow, Terraform, Rundeck)
• Experience of developing code using Python, Perl, PHP or JavaScript
• Experience of automated notification platforms (Splunk On Call)

More Information

If you value an exciting and varied working environment and meet the above requirements, then we are looking forward to receiving your application. This role may be available both part or full-time. Please discuss with us the flexibility you may require.

Closing date for applications is Friday, 30 August 2024. Early applications are encouraged as interviews may take place before closing date. 

In order to deliver our services, we offer our employees flexible working models and interesting opportunities for further training & development. As a Zurich Ireland employee you will benefit from a multitude of advantages as well as a strong culture, characterized by acceptance, diversity and team spirit.

At Zurich Ireland, we foster a culture of diversity and inclusion. Our purpose and values are designed to protect, inspire confidence and help our employees reach their full potential. We value and defend what is right and promote opportunities for equity among our professionals, regardless of gender, disability, LGBTQ+, race, ethnicity, generations, belief, etc. Together we are committed to delivering on our purpose - Let’s Create a Brighter Future Together!