Director, Systems Engineering

JOB TITLE Director, Systems Engineering LOCATION Worcester DEPARTMENT NAME Infrastructure Services and Architecture DIVISION NAME Worcester Polytechnic Institute - WPI JOB DESCRIPTION SUMMARY Reporting to the Assistant Chief Technology Officer, Infrastructure Services and Architecture, the Director of Systems Engineering will oversee the operation, administration, and engineering of the university's systems environment, including servers, storage, cloud computing, and virtualization, along with infrastructure Dev Ops, application system and security support, and Campus Safety Services.

Information technology plays a vital and ever-expanding role in the institutional mission. The institution's information technology environment is highly distributed and diverse, and the Director of Systems Engineering must be an adept and informed leader who can offer strategic vision, comprehensive planning, and direct technical involvement alongside the engineers who report to the role. This senior leadership role is responsible for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the systems that support the university's educational and operational objectives, and for the reliability of the physical access control, video surveillance, emergency radio, and emergency phone systems that support campus safety.

Develop and implement a comprehensive systems strategy aligned with the university's goals and objectives. Provide strategic direction for systems operations and administration, storage, cloud computing and virtualization, application system and security support, and Campus Safety Services. Collaborate with the Assistant CTO and other senior leaders to prioritize systems initiatives and align them with institutional priorities. Develop staff, set clear performance expectations, and manage workload and operational tasks across the systems team.

Work with other groups within IT and other business units as needed to develop solutions for unique system requirements, including technical and regulatory requirements.

Systems, Storage, Virtualization, and Cloud Engineering Working directly with the Systems Engineers who report to this role, direct the design, implementation, and management of the university's physical and virtual server infrastructure, enterprise storage and backup platforms, and AWS and Azure cloud environments. Participate actively in solution design, technical review, and implementation planning alongside the engineering team. Ensure efficient utilization of resources through effective virtualization, capacity planning, and lifecycle management.

Lead the evaluation, selection, and adoption of new platform technologies to enhance systems capabilities. Ensure new implementations are documented, supportable, and aligned with institutional standards and architecture.

Systems Operations and Administration Oversee the team that performs the day-to-day operation and administration of the university's systems environment, ensuring the stability, availability, and performance of all system components. Ensure all key services, systems, and components are under appropriate monitoring and alerting. Ensure operating system patching, firmware maintenance, and lifecycle activities are performed on a defined and predictable cadence. Ensure that all documentation and databases are up to date and accurate, including asset inventory and configuration records.

Serve as the senior escalation point for the team during major incidents, directing the response, restoring service, and driving root cause analysis and preventive action to completion. Ensure all systems incidents and service requests are fully resolved within the applicable SLA and maintain open lines of communication with other ITS teams, including the Service Desk.

Dev Ops, Automation, and Process Improvement Manage the Dev Ops resource supporting the infrastructure organization, receiving strategic Dev Ops and automation requirements from the Assistant CTO and directing the work accordingly. Identify commonly performed actions, repeated requests, and recurring requirements across every area reporting to this role, including systems operations, storage, virtualization, cloud, application system support, and Campus Safety Services. Define, document, and standardize the processes behind that work so it can be measured and performed consistently by both full-time employees and the managed service provider.

Identify and prioritize the automation opportunities with the greatest return on team efficiency, and direct their design, build, and adoption. Measure the effect of automation and process improvement on toil, cycle time, and error rates, and adjust priorities based on results. Promote the adoption of automation and consistent operating practice across the teams reporting to this role.

Application System and Security Support Own the systems and middleware layer beneath the university's enterprise and departmental…