IT Service Reliability and Operational Excellence Manager

Vodafone New Zealand Limited; New Zealand; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Lifestyle leave

Employee discounts

Flexible work from home

Job summary

One NZ is seeking an IT Service Reliability & Operational Excellence Manager to lead the reliability, performance and AI‑enabled improvements of customer‑facing and business‑critical applications. You will oversee Application Operations and SRE, drive automation and AI/ML initiatives, and partner across Architecture, Security, Delivery and partners to uplift service outcomes.

This role focuses on moving from reactive support to proactive, value‑stream ownership with strong observability,

Qualifications

• ,
• Minimum 8–10 years in IT operations, reliability engineering or service management.
• Proven leadership of large Application Ops and SRE teams.
• Experience with onshore/offshore outsourcing governance.
• Strong knowledge of SLIs/SLOs and observability.

Responsibilities

• Own the reliability and performance of live IT services and platforms.
• Lead Application Operations & SRE for stronger service ownership and continuous improvement.
• Drive AI, AIOps and automation to predict issues earlier and reduce toil.
• Translate incidents into engineering, testing, environment, release, and platform improvements.
• Evolve operating model toward service and value‑stream ownership.
• Strengthen observability and reliability engineering to improve decisions and outcomes.

Skills

Leadership

SRE

Observability

Automation AI

Education

Tertiary qualification in Software Engineering/CS/IT

10+ years IT operations/reliability experience

Job description

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Title: IT Service Reliability and Operational Excellence Manager

At One NZ we’re not just imagining the future, we’re building it. Our purpose? A better-connected Aotearoa New Zealand. Kia renarena te taukaea i Aotearoa New Zealand.

Our ambition? To become the most AI-enabled telco on the planet. This isn’t just about our technology, It’s about you. We’re investing in our people like never before.... empowering them to grow, lead, and shape what’s next.

Through our AI School, access to world-class learning platforms, or career pathways that evolve with you, we create an environment where your curiosity thrives, and your skills accelerate.

Join us and be part of something extraordinary: connect with purpose and help redefine what’s possible.

Uia mai koe te pātai, he aha te mea nui o tēnei ao? Māku koe e ki atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
“If you asked me, what is the greatest thing in this world, I would say it is people, it is people, it is people.”

As our IT Service Reliability & Operational Excellence Manager, you’ll be accountable for the reliability and performance of customer-facing and business-critical applications and platforms, while helping transform how we operate technology at One NZ.

This isn’t a traditional IT Operations role. You’ll lead Application Operations and Site Reliability Engineering, working across Architecture, Engineering, Security, Delivery and our strategic partners to protect today’s services and improve AI enabled SDLC with focus on how we engineer, assure, release and run them for the future.

You’ll help move us towards stronger service and value-stream ownership, shifting reliability left and using engineering, automation and AI to improve service outcomes.

You’ll inherit an important operation — and we expect you to make it better.

Ko tō mahi – what you’ll do

• Own the reliability, resilience and performance of live IT services, with a clear focus on customer and business outcomes.
• Lead Application Operations and SRE, building stronger service ownership, engineering accountability and continuous improvement.
• Drive AI, AIOps and automation to predict issues earlier, reduce operational toil and increase self-healing.
• Making sure operational issues don't simply get resolved — they get translated into engineering, testing, environment, release and platform improvements.
• Evolve the operating model from reactive, application-based support towards service and value-stream ownership.
• Connect what is happening in live production back into Quality, Release, NPE, Service Desk, Architecture and Engineering, so the organisation continuously learns and improves
• Strengthen observability and reliability engineering, using service health, SLIs and SLOs to improve decisions and outcomes.
• Manage operational risk, service continuity and disaster recovery, ensuring issues are visible, owned and resolved
• Transform strategic partner performance from ticket and SLA management towards automation, engineering improvement and shared service outcomes.
• Improve operational readiness, problem management and resilience so change lands safely and recurring failure is systematically engineered out.
• For us, operational excellence means moving from reactive support to a more proactive, automated and Agentic AI-led model — with fewer incidents, faster recovery, stronger ownership and better customer outcomes

Na tōu rourou - what you’ll bring

• A tertiary qualification in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
• 8–10 years’ experience in IT operations, application support, reliability engineering or service management within a large, complex technology environment.
• Proven leadership of large-scale Application Operations and Site Reliability Engineering teams in an always-on service environment.
• Experience managing onshore and offshore outsourced service providers through strong commercial governance and continual service improvement.
• Strong practical knowledge of SRE and observability, including SLIs, SLOs, error budgets, service mapping, monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting, capacity and resilience engineering.
• Demonstrated experience transforming operations from reactive support to proactive, automated and value-stream-aligned service management.
• Demonstrated leadership across major incidents, problem management, service transition, operational risk, service continuity, disaster recovery and IT service management.
• Experience applying AIOps, automation and machine learning to reduce toil, detect anomalies, correlate events and improve remediation.
• Strong influencing skills across Architecture, Engineering, Delivery, Quality Assurance, Environment Management, Cyber Security, business stakeholders and strategic partners.
• Highly developed people leadership, commercial management, communication and data-driven problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate customer and business impact into clear reliability priorities.
• One New Zealand is leading the way by ensuring you can have a truly balanced life. Most roles allow flexibility to work from home and flex your hours to enjoy work & whānau commitments.
• A fully subsidised Southern Cross health insurance cover for you and your family.
• Lifestyle leave, giving you the option to purchase an extra week or two of annual leave.
• Discounts on One New Zealand products, services and much more!

We are proudly Rainbow Tick certified and champion diversity of thought, perspective and background. Joining our whānau is more than starting a new job - it’s the beginning of a journey that will challenge and inspire you to play a role in something bigger.