The Business

team.blue was created in June 2019 by the merger of regional leading hosting providers Combell Group, Register Group and TransIP Group and offers digital presence and enablement tools such as domains, hosting, email, VPS and applications to over 2.5 million SME, SoHo and developer customers across Europe. The group consists of several well-known and respected brands, spanning across 17 European countries and operating under several brand names for each jurisdiction – with a bloodline that represents total commitment to customers.

Your opportunity

The IT Infrastructure Director for team.blue in the Netherlands will be in charge of the maintenance and development of the technology platforms which are utilized across all of the brands within Netherlands. This is a hands-on role in a transforming organisation.

The IT Infrastructure Director is responsible for determining how the technology stack will be managed, upgraded and deployed to implement new components to drive team.blue’s growth strategy. They will report into the Group CTO
and manage a team of up to 8 direct reports (team leads) and around 60 indirect others including highly qualified operational, infrastructure, security, technical and software specialists. This executive must have a strong technology vision, along with the practical ability and experience to upgrade, design, build and run complex systems and manage multiple teams and separate functions whilst integrating these into one organisation.

The IT Infrastructure Director must have the ability to develop new strategies and move technologies forward rapidly, as well ensure the talent and infrastructure are in place to support these actions. This technology leader must effectively balance the investment of time, resources and capital of team.blue’s emerging, evolving and advanced operations, while satisfying the legacy and ongoing systems requirements.

Responsibilities

• Bringing the various technology teams closer together in a coherent structure with clear responsibilities.
• Determine and implement an integration and lifecycle management structure for our platforms.
• Help to accelerate product delivery to the customer by aligning technology resources.
• Concentrate on reducing legacy and customisation to move to more harmonisation of technology stacks and tooling.
• Provide vision and direction on a technology roadmap that is to inspire the technology teams deliver new platforms and opportunities for our customers and internal developers.
• Core KPIs around reliability, performance, scalability of the infrastructure. API first development, provisioning automation.
• Facilitate the delivery of products– tackle slow production problems through prioritization and resource allocation.
• Increase efficiency in product development & delivery – Align internal teams for rapid delivery across multiple units for the benefit of the customer first.
• Create and lead technology governance to prioritize and drive decision-making on technology, infrastructure, and related resource allocations.
• Modernize team skills – Re-calibrate teams for rapid results and commercial delivery; reduce dependency on high maintenance requirements and redeploy resources.

Candidate profile

The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate the following track record and set of experiences:

• Hands-on and problem-solving mindset with a direct and pragmatic approach.
• Experience of managing key customer infrastructure with overall responsibility for the operational performance, continuity and SLAs of those customers.
• Progressive technology leadership experience in mission-critical operating requirements with associated Service Management experience.
• Multiple years of recent experience as within IT infrastructure management (Infrastructure Manager or Director, (Group) IT Manager, Head of IT, …) with a market-leading and/or disruptive technology innovator, preferably providing solutions and services within the technology, ecommerce or hosting sectors.
• Experience with multitenancy/multibrand as well as strong knowledge around automation, large scale datacenter infrastructure ops and opensource technologies are required as well as Linux technologies (KVM).
• Software development methodology experience, recent experience with Agile methodology.
• Degree in computer sciences/software engineering, ideally combined with a Master’s degree in Business Administration.
• Professional level of Dutch is required, but not on a native level.
  

They will have the gravitas to be part of the senior executive team in NL and the wider team.blue technology organisation. The successful candidate must be comfortable in an entrepreneurial and rapidly growing organization. The candidate will possess maturity, strong communication skills and the ability to craft and deliver a consistent, logical and forthright messages. Candidates for this position will need to demonstrate the following critical competencies:

• Results Orientation; The successful individual is a proven innovator with a track record of developing creative enterprise-grade infrastructure and software solutions to enable delivery of new products to market. Has demonstrable success in technical and management leadership of a complex technology organization. Is an expert at developing and deploying scalable solutions, to drive leading-edge user experience and lower costs.
• Collaboration and Influencing; The successful candidate will foster mutual accountability within team settings in order to achieve group results. They will be able to quickly find common ground and enlist the support of others, both within and outside of Netherlands, to solve problems. This individual will create initiatives that foster communication, directness and a spirit of cooperation, and will represent his/her own interests while being fair to others and gaining their trust and support. They will forge close alliances across the organisation to bring to bear the best and brightest talents on each project – and in addition, do so in a manner that is mindful of the company’s overall goals and capabilities.
• Strategic and Innovative Perspective; The successful candidate can effectively balance the need for future innovation and new development with investing in modernizing the current architecture to most effectively drive competitive advantage and financial returns. They will actively participate in the formulation of the company’s strategy, business development activities, and will be a driver of innovation.
• Team Building Skills; The candidate will lead, mentor, recruit, and retain an exceptional team, providing opportunities for growth to ensure the continuity of the department’s leadership. The ideal candidate will develop a culture comfortable with challenging current market paradigms to achieve and exceed goals.

Style & Approach

Ideal candidates will be individuals with the ability to manage with a high degree of autonomy and authority and from an operational and commercial perspective. They will possess an energy and passion that motivates the geographically dispersed organization. 

Additionally, candidates will demonstrate an ability to attract and develop talent, creating a culture of collaboration and teamwork that fosters open communication and organizational flexibility, especially across cultural boundaries. Individuals will have an entrepreneurial mind-set that complements a strong operational
and technology background with particular emphasis on operational efficiency and world class delivery. 

They will be able to operate at C-suite level, advise the Netherlands organisation on Tech/Product areas along with managing the
delivery capability, able to run multi-dimensional teams and work in ambiguous situations with multiple stakeholders. They will have extremely high learning agility, be intellectually powerful, and be able to deal with highly complex
situations and derive solutions.