IT Availability Management Lead

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

The Opportunity

As a dedicated IT Availability Management Lead you will play a critical role for ensuring the continuous availability of IT services and systems to meet business demands. This lead position focuses on maximizing system uptime, enhancing service performance, and minimizing the potential for service disruptions. The lead will be instrumental in developing and implementing comprehensive strategies, frameworks, and processes for proactively managing the availability of critical IT services and underlying infrastructure. This role demands a seasoned professional capable of directing and optimizing the technical contributions of global teams, including both Full-Time Employees (FTEs) and contractors. Additionally, the IT Availability Management Lead will provide high-level oversight and strategic direction during critical incident management. The ideal candidate will possess a strong blend of technical expertise, process-oriented thinking, and leadership capabilities to drive improvements in the resilience, responsiveness, and overall reliability of enterprise services.

Provides SME liaising services between business and IT delivery functions for the purpose of enabling the on-boarding, enhancement and support of systems, applications and other technology solutions. Assesses evolving business requirements to include n establishing, evaluating and validating technical requirements. Recommends alternatives and/or enhancements to existing technology solutions. Researches and helps resolve production issues and defects.

This role is remote eligible in the continental U.S. with occasional business travel. However, individuals residing within a 60-mile radius of a USAA office will be expected to work on-site 4 days a week. Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

What you'll do:

• Serves as the primary conduit between IT delivery functions and the business functions through which their technical requirements flow.

• Actively contributes to successful delivery by partnering with Program Management to understand and drive plans for strategy, transformation and operations.

• Accountable for ensuring readiness of scope, business goals and objectives prior to project initiation.

• Delivers coaching, mentoring and just-in-time training to team members through quality reviews and observation.

• Collaborates with IT function Architects on road maps and upgrade strategies.

• Performs high-level analyses on technical topics for pre-project and project topics.

• Supports Project Management and Practice leads with policy, procedures, and governance.

• Participates in process improvement initiatives in support of project strategy efforts.

• Serves as Voice of the Customer for Analyst community.

• Leads innovative opportunities to improve efficiency and productivity for the Analyst role.

• Identifies gaps and provides technical expertise in business requirements for system functional specifications and scales new and current systems, processes and procedures in a cost-effective manner.

• Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

ACC Major Incident Management Commander :

Serve as escalation leader for high-priority or overflow Major Incidents, ensuring rapid service restoration. Provide command and control leadership during critical incidents, coordinating with technical teams, vendors, and business stakeholders. Mentor and support global incident managers, ensuring consistent adherence to ITIL-aligned practices. Partner with Problem Management to drive post-incident reviews and root cause analysis. Collaborate with incident management and major incident management teams in identifying opportunities for improve process, tooling, in the end-to-end flows Work with problem management to drive process improvement and synergy between the two critical ITIL functions. Provide leadership on Major Incident Calls as needed defined by staff shortages on high profile outages requiring greater command and control. 

Availability Management (AM):

Oversee design and execution of strategies to ensure services meet agreed availability targets. Partner with engineering and operations teams to proactively identify risks, implement redundancy, and strengthen resilience. Establish and maintain an Availability Plan, with metrics tied to business outcomes. Drive adoption of automation and predictive analytics to minimize downtime.

What you have:

• Bachelor’s Degree; OR 4 years of related experience (in addition to the minimum years of experience required) may be substituted in lieu of degree.

• 8 years of experience in business and/or project management, business/system requirements and technical analysis.

• Expert knowledge of multiple solution delivery life cycles and Business Management methodologies (Waterfall and Agile)

• Expert working knowledge of business productivity products, tools and applications.

• Subject matter expert understanding of system architecture and knowledge of solution development concepts.

• Extensive experience in requirements management, from conception definition to implementation.

• Extensive experience with modeling techniques (e.g. UML) and use case development as well as experience with one or more software development frameworks.

What sets you apart:

• ITIL certification (ITIL v3 or ITIL 4).

• Experience with service monitoring tools (e.g., ServiceNow, BigPanda).

• Knowledge of cloud technologies and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

• Experience with risk management and business continuity planning.

• Experience with data visualization tools (e.g, Excel, Tableau, ServiceNow Reporting)

• Strong problem-solving skills with a strategic mindset with a focus on continuous improvement and optimization.

• Experience with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) best practices, particularly in ITIL Availability Management.

• Strong technical knowledge of IT infrastructure, networks, and systems.

Compensation range: The salary range for this position is: $114,080- $218,030.

• USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Please do not apply for this role if at any time (now or in the future) you will need immigration support (i.e., H-1B, TN, STEM OPT Training Plans, etc.).

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position. The actual salary for this role may vary by location.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.