Associate Observability Engineer - Information Technology (Kansas City)

Description The Associate Observability Engineer will lead the strategy and execution of our enterprise-wide observability practice. This is a senior leadership role within the operations function of the Enterprise Technology & Security Services (ETSS) team, responsible for ensuring the reliability, performance, and health of our critical systems across on‑premise infrastructure and multi‑cloud environments (AWS, GCP, and Azure). As a leader in this space, you will drive the principle that "Observability is Greater than Monitoring," focusing on building systems that are inherently transparent and accountable. You will be instrumental in maturing our practice from reactive monitoring to proactive, data‑driven observability, enabling teams to innovate with confidence and speed. This role requires a blend of deep technical expertise, strategic thinking, and proven team leadership to implement and operate observability capabilities at enterprise scale. Key Responsibilities Define and implement the vision and strategy for observability across the enterprise, aligning with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps principles. Lead the design, implementation, and management of a unified observability platform, leveraging tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and the ELK Stack to process logs, metrics, traces, and events. Manage and mentor a team of engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, continuous improvement, and operational ownership. Partner with application development, platform engineering, and cybersecurity teams to establish Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and error budgets for critical services. Drive efforts to reduce Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Recover (MTTR) by enhancing alerting, automating incident response, and creating standardized runbooks. Serve as the subject matter expert on observability for multi‑cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), on‑premises infrastructure, and networking, providing guidance and establishing best practices. Champion and implement automation for monitoring, alerting, and compliance reporting to reduce manual effort and ensure consistency. Develop and enforce standards for logging, metrics, and tracing to ensure high‑quality, actionable telemetry data across all systems. Required Qualifications Bachelor's degree in technology, business, or related field and 14 years of relevant experience. Applicable years of experience may be substituted for the degree requirement. Expert knowledge in cloud technologies, automation scripts and infrastructure management. Expert knowledge of security systems and policies and experience in vulnerability management and remediation. Expert knowledge in Python and React software development. Advanced computer skills (e.g., Microsoft Office Suite). Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to lead projects and delegate work tasks to team members. Ability to oversee the execution of work and resolve issues in a team environment. Demonstrated critical thinking skills and ability to work methodically and analytically in a problem‑solving environment. Strong attention to detail, facilitation, team building and collaboration. Strongly Preferred Qualifications Minimum of ten years of professional experience in an infrastructure engineering, SRE, or a similar role. Proven experience managing technical teams, including hiring, performance management, and career development. Expertise in designing, implementing, and operating observability and monitoring solutions at scale. Deep technical knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and experience with multi‑cloud environments. Strong understanding of on‑premise infrastructure, including virtualization, storage, and networking. Excellent communication skills with the ability to present complex technical information to all levels of management and staff. Preferred Qualifications Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Ansible. Hands‑on experience with modern observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Splunk). Familiarity with containerization technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker. Demonstrated ability in scripting or software development (e.g., Python, Go, Bash). Experience in a large enterprise environment with complex, hybrid infrastructure. Professional certifications in cloud platforms or networking. This job posting will remain open a minimum of 72 hours and on an ongoing basis until filled. EEO/Disabled/Veterans #J-18808-Ljbffr Burns & McDonnell