Senior Technical Program Manager ( Data Platforms & Operations)

Why PlayStation

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The Senior Technical Program Manager for Data Platforms & Operations will drive the planning coordination and delivery of complex initiatives across our cloud-based data platforms and their operations.

In this role the successful candidate will work closely with engineering managers SRE/operations teams and data/AI engineering teams who own the data products and data services which rely on the efficient running and delivery of data platforms. Your role is to:

• Coordinate cross-team work so platform and operational changes land predictably and safely.
• Structure delivery (roadmaps plans dependencies risks) for data platform programs.
• Improve operational performance by assisting engineering managers ensuring metrics and runbooks are part of the delivery process.
• Provide transparency to leadership via clear metric-led reporting on status risk and outcomes.

This is a senior individual contributor role suited to someone who is highly organised data-driven and comfortable working with technical stakeholders across a varied data ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

Program & Delivery Management

• Plan and run cross-platform programs for data platform and operational initiatives (e.g. major upgrades reliability improvements cost optimisation new platform capabilities).
• Build and maintain integrated program plans (scope milestones dependencies risks decision points) across multiple engineering and operations teams.
• Facilitate regular delivery cadences (stand-ups status reviews) with engineering managers and leads; ensure actions are owned and tracked to completion.
• Ensure that program objectives are clearly defined measurable and aligned with business outcomes such as:
  • Improved platform availability and reliability.
  • Reduced incident frequency and MTTR targets.
  • Improved data freshness latency and throughput for key workloads.

Operational Coordination & Readiness

• Partner with engineering managers SREs and operations teams to assist them in coordinating operational activities are delivered by data platform teams:
  • Change calendars release planning and operational readiness reviews.
  • Operational playbooks and runbook readiness for new features or platform changes.
  • Coordinated communication during planned maintenance and impactful changes.
• Align with service owners (engineering managers) on operational priorities and schedules helping sequence work in a way that balances reliability feature delivery and cost.

Measurement Metrics & Reporting

• Work with engineering managers and service owners to ensure platform and operational KPIs are part of the end delivery:
  • SLA/SLO/SLI for data platforms and pipelines (e.g. uptime data freshness query performance).
  • Operational metrics such as incident rate MTTR change success rate and capacity utilisation.
• Ensure consistent measurement and reporting of delivery metrics across programs and operational areas:
  • Curate and maintain dashboards and status reports for leadership.
  • Highlight trends risks and trade-offs in a clear and concise way.
• Use analytics to prioritise improvements identify systemic issues and quantify impact of program work.

Cross-Team Alignment & Communication

• Facilitate coordination across:
  • Data platform engineering (cloud infrastructure Kubernetes data platform services).
  • Data engineering and ETL/ELT teams.
  • AI/ML engineering teams consuming data platform capabilities.
  • Operations SRE and service desk teams.
• Align teams on priorities sequencing and dependencies for shared initiatives ensuring upstream and downstream impacts are understood.
• Communicate program status to stakeholders at multiple levels:
  • Concise executive summaries of progress risk and impact.
  • Detailed views for engineering teams on dependencies decisions and next steps.

Continuous Improvement & Governance

• Support governance initiatives for data platforms are part of the delivery process:
  • - Align teams on documenting and delivering templates/checklists for change reviews and operational readiness.
• Promote continuous improvement initiatives focused on:
  • Increasing automation in operations and delivery processes.
  • Reducing toil and manual coordination where possible.
  • Strengthening platform resilience and reducing operational risk.
• Capture and socialise lessons learned across programs to improve future planning estimation and operational practices.

Experience required

• Technical Program / Project Management
  • Significant experience (typically 7 years) in technical program management or project management in a software data or cloud engineering context.
  • Proven track record of driving cross-team programs from planning through delivery with demonstrable impact on reliability performance or efficiency.
• Operational & Reliability Focus
  • Experience working closely with operations SRE or platform teams on production services.
• Delivery Excellence
  • Strong skills in planning dependency management and risk management across multiple teams.
  • Comfortable operating in an agile environment coordinating between different teams and methodologies.
  • Able to break down ambiguous objectives into clear sequenced workstreams.
• Communication & Stakeholder Management
  • Excellent written and verbal communication; able to tailor information for engineers managers and senior leaders.
  • Effective at influencing without authority building trust with engineering managers and cross-functional partners.
  • Comfortable facilitating workshops retrospectives and decision-making forums.
• Tools & Ways of Working
  • Proficient with tools such as JIRA Confluence and similar project tracking and documentation systems.

Experience (desirable)

• Cloud & Data Platform Familiarity
• • Working familiarity (conceptual and conversational) with AWS cloud services Snowflake or similar cloud data warehouses Kubernetes and ETL/ELT data pipelines.
  • Some awareness of ITIL best practices for service management
  • Able to understand and discuss system architectures operational constraints and trade-offs with technical leads (youre not expected to write production code).
• Operational & Reliability Focus
  • Strong understanding of SLA SLO and SLI concepts and how they relate to reliability customer experience and business value.
  • Experience in incident management post-incident reviews and operational readiness.
• Tools & Ways of Working
  • Familiar with dashboards and monitoring tools (e.g. DataDog CloudWatch Grafana) from a program/metrics perspective.
  • Experience working globally with a variety of cultures including Japan India Ireland and the U.S.
• Qualifications
• • A bachelors degree in Computer Science Engineering Information Systems or a related field; or equivalent practical experience.
  • Advanced degrees (e.g. MS MBA) are a plus but not required.
  • Industry certifications (e.g. AWS PMP Agile/PMI-ACP) are beneficial but not required.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender (including gender identity gender expression and gender reassignment) race (including colour nationality ethnic or national origin) religion or belief marital or civil partnership status disability age sexual orientation pregnancy maternity or parental status trade union membership or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond.

PlayStation is a Fair Chance employer and qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for employment.