VP, Reliability and Automation Engineering Manager

Role Summary/Purpose:

The VP, Reliability and Automation Engineering Manager leads the Reliability Engineering function responsible for keeping all applications within the Digital Servicing Engineering domain stable, observable, and operationally efficient. This role defines how reliability engineering is practiced across teams – setting standards for

service health, monitoring/alerting, incident response, problem management and operational readiness – while directly managing and developing a team of reliability engineers who execute those practices day to day.

This role requires strong people leadership plus deep hands-on expertise in reliability engineering, architecture, CI/CD, incident management and operational excellence. The manager leads by example, influences cross-functional engineering and product teams, and establishes repeatable engineering practices that reduce operational toil, improve system availability and accelerate safe delivery.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Ensure effective 24x7 operational coverage and on-call practices, including staff readiness, rotations, and escalation paths.

• Oversee production defect analysis, troubleshooting, and resolution; ensure fixes are implemented and validated to prevent recurrence.

• Use structured problem-solving to assess impact, mitigation options, and resolution timelines during service events.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Reliability Engineers; set clear goals, performance expectations, and career development plans.

• Build and maintain staffing plans, hiring strategy, onboarding approach, and succession planning for reliability and automation capabilities.

• Create a culture of operational ownership, blameless learning, high engineering standards, and continuous improvement.

• Define and drive reliability engineering strategy across Digital Servicing Engineering, including client SLAs, reliability goals, operational KPIs, and service health practices.

• Establish and govern practices for incident response, escalation, problem management, and root cause analysis (RCA), ensuring measurable reduction in repeat incidents.

• Partner with engineering, architecture, security, and product teams to embed reliability requirements into design, delivery, and release processes.

• Drive an automation-first roadmap to reduce manual operational work (toil), improve deployment safety, and increase operational consistency.

• Standardize and improve reliability engineering patterns, including monitoring, alerting, runbooks, and operational readiness criteria.

• Provide technical oversight and direction across the full stack, aligning reliability engineering with modern architecture practices.

• Ensure compliance with Synchrony architecture, security, and technology standards.

• Contribute to future-state technology strategy, modernization, migration roadmaps, and production support readiness.

• Collaborate with software engineers, product managers, architects, and customer application experts to deliver resilient customer communications applications.

• Partner with third-party vendors as needed to integrate software into Synchrony products while maintaining reliability and operational standards.

• Perform other duties and/or special projects as assigned

Qualifications/Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum 6 years of experience with solution architecture.

• Minimum of 10 years of application development experience.

• Ability and flexibility to travel for business as required

Desired Characteristics:

• Experience defining and managing SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, operational readiness reviews, and reliability KPIs

• Strong background in automation-first operations

• Experience establishing standards for monitoring/alerts quality

• Deep expertise with production telemetry and tooling like Splunk and New Relic

• Experience implementing log/metric/trace practices and dashboards that support fast triage and service recovery

• Strong understanding of modern application architecture and runtime environments like PCF, AWS, microservices, REST APIs, ReactJS applications, iOS/Android native applications

• Ability to influence design decisions to improve reliability, scalability and supportability

• Experience delivering automation that uses AI/ML techniques for reliability outcomes

• Excellent interpersonal skills and proven track record influencing across a matrixed organization

• Desire to work in a dynamic, fast paced environment

• Experience developing and supporting financial/banking applications

• Strong attention to detail in a team environment

Grade/Level: 14

The salary range for this position is 170,000.00 - 290,000.00 USD Annual and is eligible for an annual bonus based on individual and company performance.

Actual compensation offered within the posted salary range will be based upon work experience, skill level or knowledge.

Salaries are adjusted according to market in CA, NY Metro and Seattle.

Our Way of Working:

We’re proud to offer you flexibility. At Synchrony, our way of working allows you to have the option to work from home near one of our Hubs or come into one of our offices. You will be required to commute to your nearest Hub (either virtual or physical) for in-person engagement activities such as regular business or team meetings, training and culture events. 

*Field Sales and some Commercial team roles may have varied location requirements based upon partner obligations or preferences.

Eligibility Requirements:

• You must be 18 years or older

• You must have a high school diploma or equivalent

• You must be willing to take a drug test, submit to a background investigation and submit fingerprints as part of the onboarding process

• You must be able to satisfy the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.

• New hires (Level 4-7) must have 9 months of continuous service with the company before they are eligible to post on other roles.  Once this new hire time in position requirement is met, the associate will have a minimum 6 months’ time in position before they can post for future non-exempt roles.  Employees, level 8 or greater, must have at least 18 months’ time in position before they can post.  All internal employees must consistently meet performance expectations and have approval from your manager to post (or the approval of your manager and HR if you don’t meet the time in position or performance expectations).

Legal authorization to work in the U.S. is required.  We will not sponsor individuals for employment visas, now or in the future, for this job opening. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. 

Our Commitment:

When you join us, you’ll be part of an inclusive culture where your individual skills, experience, and voice are not only heard – but valued. Together, we’re building a future where we can all belong, connect, and turn ideals into action. More than 50% of our workforce is engaged in our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), where community and passion intersect to offer a safe space to learn and grow.

This starts when you choose to apply for a role at Synchrony. We ensure all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. We’re proud to have an award-winning culture for all. 

Reasonable Accommodation Notice:

• Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or to perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include making a change to the application process or work procedures, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

• If you need special accommodations, please call our Career Support Line so that we can discuss your specific situation. We can be reached at 1-866-301-5627.   Representatives are available from 8am – 5pm Monday to Friday, Central Standard Time

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