About The Job
Our computing team supports ~10,000 devices deployed to individuals and spaces throughout LSA. Approximately 7000 are in the hands of our world-class faculty, researchers, staff, and students, and another 3000 are deployed to classrooms, conference rooms, classlabs, and a loaner pool spread across 28 LSA facilities.
Together, the Assistant Director and five managers collectively lead ~50 IT services and products, ranging from Windows, Mac, and Linux Operating Systems, software, printing, peripherals, basic networking, account management, inventory, upgrades, instructional systems, device loan, and other core IT functions. They partner to prioritize strategic investments, enhancements, projects, and operational efforts annually.
With the industry-wide attention to security best practices and mitigating device, system, and data risks, a critical function of the role is to partner with our five managers and 36 contributing staff members to keep these devices upgraded, updated, patched, and secured. This includes ensuring the team keeps inventory maintained, operating system upgrade / update efforts are completed promptly, and vulnerabilities are mitigated. It also requires strong partnership with our Assistant Director for Security & Infrastructure to ensure devices (and users) adhere to U-M and
LSA policies, and appropriate security education is provided as needed.
To maintain a fleet of this magnitude, an operational imperative of the role is to monitor a wide range of team data (e.g., reports, dashboards, and systems) to ensure we are meeting ticketing service level agreements, and workload is equitably distributed across individuals, leaders, and teams. It also requires a leader capable of identifying gaps, collaborating to improve processes, innovating to automate repetitive tasks, and challenging supervisors and individuals to stay accountable.
To be successful in the role, this leader develops a comprehensive list of team projects, ensuring each has clear goals, deliverables, and deadlines. They monitor progress, ensuring project managers send status reports up, out, and across the organization, as well as identify and mitigate risks to deliver efforts on time and within scope.
Through those projects, you interact widely with the larger Technology Services and LSA organization, building positive and professional relationships with 25+ other IT managers / leaders and 100+ departmental Chief Administrators / Directors.
Your leadership, team, and peers will have your back as you present your solutions for knowledge sharing and feedback. You will build your professional network and enjoy working with a fantastic team of individuals who share and support you in your success in this role.
About You
You are professional, practical, and persistent in your approach to balancing daily work, operational projects, and strategic goals. You are calm and thoughtful when IT challenges arise. You effectively lead highly technical teams and provide support, recognition, and coaching. You've built a career on getting things done and improving processes, policies, and practices through automation, efficiencies, data, and teamwork.
You build strong teams, helping a large group understand the bigger picture and align to it. You can clearly articulate the 'why' connecting work or decisions to the larger mission, strategy, or policies. You lean into challenging conversations, providing actionable and data-driven feedback to team members. You model kind and collaborative (but firm) communications with our faculty, research, and administrative end users, even when they are out of compliance. You apply a 'start with yes' approach when presented with unusual research / teaching IT challenges, working to find solutions that work within our policies.
You build community through meaningful interactions with Chief Administrators / Directors, addressing gaps and ensuring excellent customer service. You listen well, take ownership of problems, delegate action items, and work issues through to completion, even if they span multiple teams. When building new policies, processes, or best practices, you take all computing teams into account, ensuring consistency through well socialized changes, clear documentation, regular communication, and monitoring.
You have a high attention to detail. You are capable of ensuring a complex inventory is maintained, ticketing standards are met, gaps are resolved, root causes are identified, processes are followed, and accountability is maintained across teams / individuals. You have excellent follow through.
You work well with people from many different cultures and backgrounds, some more technical than others, and each requiring you to develop relationships. You thrive in an environment that celebrates education, exploration, and knowledge.
You might have a four year degree. You might not. That's not what we're looking for. We care about what you can do and how you do it. We understand that there are many possible paths for how you got here. A record of conscientious, thoughtful work speaks volumes.