Senior Systems Engineer – Cloud FinOps and Automation

The Sr. Systems Engineer – Cloud FinOps & Automation will be a technical expert responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining cost-efficient cloud systems and applications that support core customer facing and enterprise facing products and platforms. In this role, the SSE will work closely with the Application, Infrastructure & Network teams to analyze the cloud infrastructure and identify opportunities for cost optimization. The role will help in identifying cost optimization opportunities by reviewing usage patterns, billing data, and cloud service utilization and will be responsible for developing and implementing cost optimization strategies to reduce the cost of cloud services while maintaining service quality and performance. In this role the SSE will collaborate with other technical teams, such as software engineering, data engineering, EA and DevOps, to ensure that cloud-based applications are designed with cost efficiency in mind. The role will implement an operating model of innovative cost savings and optimization solutions for Marriott across public cloud providers.

 

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Education and Experience

Required:

• Undergraduate degree in an engineering or computer science discipline and/or equivalent experience/certification 
• 7+ years experience in information technology including:
  • 5+ years’ experience in Cloud technologies including Iaas/Paas/Saas deployments on Public Cloud (AWS, AliCloud, Azure).
  • 3+ years of experience in developing and implementing FinOps/Cloud Cost Optimization strategies for AWS services.
  • 3+ years of experience in OS scripting and automation (e.g. Python, Bash)
• Experience with FinOps/Cloud Cost Management tools and be comfortable with data analysis and reporting
• Proven analytical skills and experience with cost optimization
• Experience managing multi-million-dollar accounts
• Deep understanding with cloud costs and the various alternatives
• Proven ability to drive efficiencies and cost savings with savings and cost optimization mindset

 

Preferred:

• 2+ years of experience in administering and implementing automation in public Cloud infrastructure with Terraform and Ansible following Infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts.
• 2+ years of experience in container operations (such as Docker, OpenShift Enterprise, GKE, ECS). and orchestration (such as Docker Swarm, Kubernetes)
• Experience in designing, analyzing, and engineering large-scale distributed systems
• Demonstrated experience delivering technology solutions in a fast-paced, deadline driven enterprise environment.
• Demonstrated experience learning and applying new technologies to solve business needs
• Excellent problem-solving skills by working independently and through leading outcomes for cross functional teams.
• Experience across many of the following platforms:
  • Operating Systems: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Linux, Windows, CentOS
  • Storage: Block Storage, Object Storage, Lifecycle Management and Data Replication, Backup & Recovery Best Practices.
  • Security: Compliance, Information Assurance, Data Protection using industry-best practices and tooling (Crowdstrike Falcon, Tenable.io, Splunk Phantom, HashiCorp Vault signers, SHA1 and SHA2 certificatemanagement).
  • Database: Relational (Oracle, DB2, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MSSQL Server), non-relational (Cassandra, Couchbase, MongoDB, DocumentDB).
• Strong knowledge of emerging tools, software, applications, and systems for attaining best-in-class IT across the enterprise.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills for a wide range of audiences including executives, business stakeholders and IT teams
• Understanding of automated ITCM/ITRM best practices

 

CORE WORK ACTIVITIES

• Key responsibilities include: 
  • Analyzing cloud usage - Monitoring cloud usage patterns, resource utilization, and spending to identify areas for improvement
  • Optimizing costs - Analyzing, optimizing, and implementing cost optimization actions across different cloud services
  • Automating tools - Implementing and managing automated tools to help identify cost trends and anomalies
  • Creating dashboards - Creating financial and usage dashboards
  • Collaborating with teams - Working with finance and business teams to align cloud spending with budgetary constraints
• Provides technical leadership, oversight, governance and direction for services related to Marriott solution delivery
• Provides technical expertise to project team for successful project and change implementations
• Determines customer requirements and works with sourced resources to develop solutions 
• Provides input into lifecycle, improvement, and standardization strategies
• Develops and generates periodic utilization reports to provide visibility to performance, capacity, availability and SLA management
• Utilize capacity data to model future state planning with overall strategy and goals
• Provides and presents status, analysis and reporting to internal stakeholders, Executive Management and Senior Leadership
• Trains and/or mentors other team members, and peers as appropriate 
• Leads analysis of current environment for deficiencies and provides solutions
• Develop implementation plans, test plans, and timelines for projects and tasks
• Responsible for project inception including requirements gathering and architecting, costs and chargeback modeling, infrastructure-as- code development and configuration management  
• Work with Enterprise Architecture to provide technology and cloud native service governance for technology steering committees, with cost and support directives 

 

Delivering Technology 

• Create and enhance administrative, operational and technical policies and procedures, adopting best practice guidelines, standards and procedures for employees, contractors and vendor engagements 
• Interfaces with stakeholders to establish requirements and formulate priorities for infrastructure projects
• Leads/assists in configuration management
• Works in a concerted effort with application development and engineering teams to resolve complex issues
• Provides oversight, collaboration, provisioning, management and maintenance of technology products and service alternatives that improve the production services environment 
• Responsible for the establishment and continuous development of monitoring and alerting for all production environments
• Develops internal processes and training to ensure team members have the needed skills and tools to support the production environments and deliver on project commitments
• Performs complex quantitative and qualitative analyses for operational availability to promote a zero-defect environment
• Leads/assists operational teams in system updates & upgrades
• Provides consultation for routine and complex systems development
• Maintains a proper balance between business and operational risk 
• Facilitates achievement of expected deliverables and obligations of Services Providers
• Ensures early warning to the business stakeholder executives regarding degraded or missed service levels
• Coordinates with Plan and Build teams for deployment and production support activities

 

IT Governance 

• Follows all defined IT standards and processes (i.e. IT Governance, SM&G, Architecture, etc.), and provides input for improvements to the appropriate process owners as needed 
• Execute infrastructure compliance monitors and auditing to ensure user and password security 
• Maintains a proper balance between business and operational risk 
• Follows the defined project management standards and processes 

 

Service Provider Management

• Ensures proper coordination with appropriate IT and vendor relations teams
• Manages Service Providers with a focus on continuous service improvement and service evolution
• Monitors, manages and leads Service Provider outcomes required to ensure operational availability and a zero-defect production environment
• Consults with internal Service Management & external Service Providers on performance, business reporting, analytics metrics and business value dashboards

 

The salary range for this position is $108,300 to $188,700 annually. Marriott offers a bonus program, comprehensive health care benefits, 401(k) plan with up to 5% company match, employee stock purchase plan at 15% discount, accrued paid time off (including sick leave where applicable), life insurance, group disability insurance, travel discounts, adoption assistance, paid parental leave, health savings account (except for positions based out of or performed in Hawaii), flexible spending accounts, tuition assistance, pre-tax commuter benefits, other life and work wellness benefits, and may include other incentives such as stock awards and deferred compensation plans. Benefits and incentive compensation may be subject to generally applicable eligibility, waiting period, contribution, and other requirements and conditions.  

The compensation and benefits information is provided as of the date of this posting. Marriott reserves the right to modify compensation and benefits at any time, with or without notice, subject to applicable law.

 

Marriott International is an equal opportunity employer. We believe in hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive, people-first culture. We are committed to non-discrimination on any protected basis, such as disability and veteran status, or any other basis covered under applicable law.

Marriott International is the world’s largest hotel company, with more brands, more hotels and more opportunities for associates to grow and succeed. Be where you can do your best work,​ begin your purpose, belong to an amazing global​ team, and become the best version of you.