Data Platform Operations Service Manager

Role Purpose 

The Data & AI Platform Operations Service Manager is responsible for the technical operational management, stability, continuous improvement & compliance adherence of the entire Data & AI landscape being deployed and consumed in Haleon.  

This role is accountable for ensuring operational readiness, service reliability and performance of Data Platform Infrastructure viz Azure Data Lakes, Datafactory, Snowflake, DataBricks, and ETL/ELT pipelies. The Data Platforms Operations Service Manager manages and coaches a mid-sized, globally distributed operations team, while remaining hands‑on in Data & AI Platform configuration and technical problem‑solving. 

The role plays a critical part in meeting the organisation’s Data & AI Platform Operations, Governance, Risk, Compliance, and Data Lifecycle objectives, working closely with Architecture, Engineering, Data Governance, Sustainability Data Product teams and enterprise stakeholders. 

Data Platform Service Manager acts as the bridge between Engineering and Business Stakeholders to ensure trusted accessible data.  

Key responsibilities:  

Platform Operations & Service Management 

• Own the day‑to‑day tech operation of Data Platforms, including Data Lakes, Databricks, Unity Catalogues, ETL Data Ingestion Pipelines Azure AI platforms, Enterprise Data Foundations along with related Data Platform Technologies. 

• Lead and Manager L2/ L3 Operations of Data Platforms 

• Ensure 24X7 Monitoring, Alerting and Response 

• Ensure high availability, performance, and stability of Data Platform landscape.  

• Define and Track SLAs, SLOs and KPIs for Platform Operations.  

• Oversee incident, problem, change, and release management, applying ITIL best practices. 

• Own Problem Management and Root Cause Analysis of Critical and Recurring incidents.  

• Drive Operational Excellence and continuous improvement 

• Maintain SOPs, Runbooks and Knowledge Repositories. 

• Ensure compliance with security, regulatory, and validation requirements across all Data Platforms.  

• Plan, Lead and Execute OPEX cost optimization initiatives.  

Technical Leadership & Hands‑On Contribution 

• Provide technical leadership and direction across Data Platform Technologies.  

• Contribute directly in a hands‑on capacity to Data  platform troubleshooting, and optimisation. 

• Lead platform administration activities, including:  

• Environment management and monitoring 

• Patching and upgrades 

• Disaster recovery and resilience planning 

• Own the end-to-end onboarding of Data Pipelines. 

• Define standardized onboarding frameworks, checklists and Runbooks.  

• Identify and drive opportunities to reuse and standardise platform capabilities.  

• Strong focus on Service Improvement Initiatives, Quality of Service, Compliance adherence, Security of data and IT resources. 

Release & Environment Management 

• Define and execute release management processes for Data Engineering Products.  

• Coordinate with development and operations teams to plan, test, and deploy releases with minimal disruption. 

• Support CI/CD pipelines, automation, and controlled promotion across DEV, QA, and PROD environments. 

People & Vendor Management 

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Data Platform Operations, including permanent staff, contractors, and strategic partners. 

• Ensure appropriate capability, capacity, and skills are in place to meet operational and delivery commitments. 

• Manage agency resources and external vendors to ensure high-quality outcomes. 

• Foster a performance‑driven, collaborative culture across globally distributed teams. 

Risk, Governance & Stakeholder Engagement 

• Ensure risks and issues related to owned platforms, programmes, and projects are identified, recorded, and actively managed. 

• Escalate and remove blockers in a complex, matrix organisation, engaging senior stakeholders as required. 

• Ensure Timely Communication to stakeholders during outages, High Impact Incidents and Changes.  

• Collaborate closely with Data Product & Enterprise Architecture teams including but not limited to Data Architecture, Data Engineering, Sustainability Reporting, BI, Cloud Platform Engineering, Power BI, Fabric Administration etc) and related business owners.  

• Support governance processes through engagement with Architecture Review Boards and Data Architects across the data platform area.  

• Ensuring close alignment to internal & external regulatory and compliance requirements, Quality, Governance & Data Lifecycle Audits with no critical or high findings or violation against them. 

 Qualifications & Skills: 

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals: 

Strong experience in deployment, implementation, operations and service delivery of Azure Data Platforms 

Strong Hands-on expertise in: 

• Azure Data & AI platforms (Azure Data Lakes, DataBricks, Data Factory, Synapse, Purview, Data Ingestion Pipelines (Must) 

• Excellent understanding of Cloud Operations such as Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service preferably Azure (Must)  

• Strong experience managing ETL / ELT pipelines and orchestration tools.  

• Strong knowledge of Monitoring and Observability Tools.  

• Strong understanding of Data Security, Privacy, Governance and Compliance 

• Strong Experience in Incident, Change and Problem Management with ITIL best practices.  

• Disaster recovery and resilience  

• Quality and compliance adherence 

CI/CD implementation using:  

• Git‑based source control 

• Azure DevOps or GitHub 

• Proven people leadership and team management capabilities.  

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influen