Disaster Recovery Principal Systems Engineer; Remote

Resp & Qualifications

PURPOSE:

The Disaster Recovery Principal is responsible for the overall management, strategy, and execution of Care First's Disaster Recovery (DR) program. This individual contributor role works closely with a managed services provider and internal stakeholders to ensure the resilience and recoverability of Care First’s critical and non‑critical business applications and infrastructure. The position oversees the development, maintenance, and execution of DR policies, standards, procedures, and exercises, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and alignment with organizational objectives.

The role is expected to drive innovation by leveraging AI, automation, and cloud‑native technologies to enhance disaster recovery capabilities and future‑prove the organization’s resilience strategies.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Establish and maintain core DR program policies, standards, and procedures.
• Set program strategies and publish program metrics, leveraging AI‑driven analytics for predictive risk assessment and continuous improvement.
• Complete program assessment responses for internal and external audits.
• Document new standards for program, plans, and exercises, incorporating emerging technologies and best practices.
• Update and maintain current policies, procedures, strategy, and work instruction documents.
• Publish monthly DR metrics and respond to program assessments and audits, utilizing automated dashboarding and reporting tools.
• Evaluate and implement AI‑powered solutions for automated failover, incident response, and predictive modeling.

• Provide consultation and direction to application and infrastructure owners for DR strategy and planning, with a focus on cloud‑native and hybrid environments.
• Maintain oversight of critical and non‑critical enterprise business application DR plans.
• Conduct annual review and update of enterprise environment DR plan documents, integrating lessons learned from automated and scenario‑based exercises.
• Facilitate plan reviews and feedback sessions with owners.
• Collaborate and coordinate with core teams (e.g., Enterprise Architecture, Change Advisory Board, Enterprise Risk, IT Quality, IT Service Readiness, Technology Operations Center).
• Support real‑time dashboarding of environmental changes affecting DR strategies.
• Align DR program with industry standards such as NIST SP 800‑34, ISO 22301, and FFIEC guidelines.

• Coordinate, plan, execute, and close large‑scale DR exercises, including automated and chaos engineering‑based tests.
• Collaborate and consult with application owners for single system and business application DR exercises.
• Drive automation and orchestration to conduct complex exercises with multiple interdependencies.
• Provide exercise consulting and assistance as required.
• Ensure continuous validation of DR plans through frequent, automated testing and scenario‑based exercises.

• Develop and maintain advanced dashboards for real‑time DR metrics using business intelligence and AI tools.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for DR readiness, recovery time objectives (RTO), and recovery point objectives (RPO).
• Analyze DR program data to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.

• Collaborate with cybersecurity, cloud architecture, and Dev Ops teams to ensure DR plans are integrated with broader enterprise resilience strategies.
• Manage relationships with third‑party DR service providers, including contract negotiation and performance monitoring.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education Level: Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or related field OR in lieu of a Bachelor's degree, an additional 4 years of relevant work experience is required.

Licenses/Certifications:

• ITIL Foundations v3 within 180 Days Preferred

Experience: 10 years of relevant IT systems engineering experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience managing DR programs and exercises in large enterprise environments.
• Strong understanding of disaster recovery planning, policy development, and…