Production Operations Lead

Group 1001 is a consumer-centric, technology-driven family of insurance companies on a mission to deliver outstanding value and operational performance by combining financial strength and stability with deep insurance expertise and a can-do culture. Group1001’s culture emphasizes the importance of collaboration, communication, core business focus, risk management, and striving for outcomes. This goal extends to how we hire and onboard our most valuable assets – our employees. Why This Role Matters The Production Operations Lead is responsible for the day-to-day operational leadership of a Prod Ops squad supporting the stability, availability, and reliability of Group 1001's production systems. This role serves as the primary escalation point within the team, coordinating incident response across multiple engineering teams, facilitating problem management to root cause resolution, and ensuring change management processes are followed consistently. The Production Operations Lead guides and mentors Production Operations Analysts, ensuring effective triage, ticketing, escalation, and stakeholder communication during service-impacting events. The Production Operations Lead is accountable for operational outcomes: SLA adherence, notification cadence, shift handoff quality, and process compliance. This role bridges the gap between technical engineering teams and business stakeholders — translating incident impact into clear executive communication while keeping technical responders focused on resolution. An effective Production Operations Lead will demonstrate the ability to manage high-severity incident bridges, enforce escalation timelines, drive post-incident root cause analysis to completion, and build trust with cross-functional teams through consistent process execution. How You'll Contribute The Production Operations Lead is expected to have deep familiarity with ITIL-aligned Incident, Problem, and Change Management processes in a highly SLA-driven environment. This role requires a solid understanding of monitoring and observability tools (Grafana, Datadog, CloudWatch, PagerDuty) with the ability to correlate alerts with potential service impacts and guide the team through rapid triage and escalation. The Production Operations Lead coordinates incident bridges for P0/P1/P2 events — facilitating the technical response, managing stakeholder notifications per defined cadence, and enforcing escalation SLAs (30-minute no-progress rule for P1, immediate executive notification for P0). Beyond incident response, this role owns the problem management lifecycle: creating problem tickets within 24–48 hours of incident resolution, facilitating Problem Review Board (PRB) meetings to produce root cause analysis documentation, coordinating After Action Reviews (AARs) within one week, and tracking corrective actions to closure through a 30-day monitoring period. The Production Operations Lead also represents Prod Ops at the Change Advisory Board (CAB), reviewing changes for risk, providing operability sign-off when changes affect monitoring or alerting, and ensuring customer-facing communication requirements are met. The Production Operations Lead works primarily during business hours but must be available for escalation during critical incidents and participates in on-call rotation as needed to support 24/7 operational coverage. Main Accountabilities Serve as Incident Manager for P0/P1/P2 production incidents — spin up bridges, coordinate technical responders, enforce escalation timelines, and deliver stakeholder notifications per defined cadence Assign, prioritize, and oversee BAU (day-to-day) operational work across the squad — including access requests, runbook updates, monitoring tuning, and operational maintenance Guide and mentor Production Operations Analysts (Level I and II), ensuring effective triage, documentation, escalation, and communication during incidents Facilitate Problem Review Board (PRB) meetings within 48 hours of incident resolution and drive root cause analysis to completion Coordinate After Action Reviews (AARs) within one week of significant incidents, ensuring corrective actions are assigned with owners and due dates Identify recurring incident patterns and proactively create problem tickets when thresholds are met (3+ incidents, same system, within 30 days) Represent Prod Ops at the Change Advisory Board (CAB) — review changes for risk, validate implementation plans, and provide operability sign-off for changes affecting monitoring, alerting, or escalation paths Enforce customer-facing communication requirements (2 business day stakeholder notice after approval) and year-end freeze policies Ensure shift handoff quality — incoming shifts receive full context on active incidents, ongoing changes, and outstanding action items Maintain squad-level KPIs: incident response times, notification compliance, change success rate, and problem RCA completion within SLA Serve as the primary Prod Ops liaison for assigned platform or business unit, building relationships with engineering leads, app owners, and business stakeholders Lead monthly proactive alert reviews with SRE to identify systemic issues before they escalate to major incidents Validate operational readiness for new services onboarding to production — ensuring monitoring, alerting, runbooks, and escalation paths exist before go-live Participate in post-incident reviews to improve response processes and update Method & Procedure documentation. Qualifications Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in a related technical discipline, or the equivalent combination of education, technical certifications or training, or work experience 5+ years of experience in IT operations, NOC, or production support environments 2+ years in a lead, senior, or supervisory capacity within an operations team Demonstrated experience coordinating incident response across multiple teams, including bridge facilitation and stakeholder communication Strong understanding of ITIL processes — specifically Incident, Problem, and Change Management Experience with ITSM/ticketing platforms (ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, or equivalent) Experience with monitoring and observability tools (Grafana, Datadog, CloudWatch, PagerDuty, or similar) Excellent written and verbal communication skills — able to produce concise executive-level status updates and facilitate focused technical bridges simultaneously Proven ability to work effectively under pressure, particularly during high-severity incidents requiring rapid decision-making and clear communication Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent incidents, problems, and operational tasks Ability to mentor and develop team members while maintaining operational accountability Preferred Qualifications ITIL v4 Foundation certification (or higher) Experience in financial services, insurance, or other regulated industries Familiarity with SLO/SLI frameworks, error budget policies, and reliability engineering principles Experience with Jira workflow configuration and operational reporting Background in cloud infrastructure environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) Experience onboarding new teams or platforms into operational support models Familiarity with SOC 2 compliance requirements as they relate to incident and change management Compensation Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $140,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $170,000/year plus bonus in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Benefits Highlights Employees who meet benefit eligibility guidelines and work 30 hours or more weekly, have the ability to enroll in Group 1001’s benefits package. Employees (and their families) are eligible to participate in the Company’s comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plan options. Employees are also eligible for Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance, Short and Long-Term Disability. All employees (regardless of hours worked) have immediate access to the Company’s Employee Assistance Program and wellness programs—no enrollment is required. Employees may also participate in the Company’s 401K plan, with matching contributions by the Company. Group 1001, and its affiliated companies, is strongly committed to providing a supportive work environment where employee differences are valued. Diversity is an essential ingredient in making Group 1001 a welcoming place to work and is fundamental in building a high-performance team. Diversity embodies all the differences that make us unique individuals. All employees share the responsibility for maintaining a workplace culture of dignity, respect, understanding and appreciation of individual and group differences. Grow Your Career at Group 1001 Insurance We are a company that aims to shape the world around us. We don’t simply talk about change, we create it – empowering people and communities through sports, education, innovation, and access to financial products and services. Group 1001 Insurance is an integrated, technology-driven financial services and insurance group that combines product innovation with digital accessibility. With annuity products and insurance that create and protect a strong future for all, we help individuals and businesses thrive. Through our education and sports partnerships, we empower communities. Because when we invest in growth for all, we invest in a better world. If you’re ready to make an impact and help us build a better future, you’re in the right place! Group 1001 Insurance Benefits Employees are our number one asset. We provide a comprehensive benefits package that goes beyond the basics to support employees through many of life’s personal and professional milestones. #J-18808-Ljbffr Gainbridge