Incident Response Manager

The primary purpose of the Incident Response Manager is to lead a cross-functional group of engineers, internal and external, to restore normal service operation and resolve disruption to service as quickly as possible, minimising any adverse effects on business operations.

This ensures that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are returned and maintained.

The successful candidate must be able to attend the office in Dublin at least once a week.

Key responsibilities & duties include: 

Team Leadership:

• Establish and maintain the incident response plan and policy with the incident team
• Lead the incident management process and oversee team members involved in managing incidents, facilitating the decision-making and problem-solving process

Incident Assessment:

• Gather information about the incident, including its nature, scope, and potential impact
• Determine the severity of the incident and activate appropriate response procedures

Incident Team Assembly:

• Assemble a team of experts from various departments (e.g., IT, security, legal, public relations) to handle the incident
• Assign roles and responsibilities to team members

Communication:

• Establish an effective communications plan for incident
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders, including senior management and consumers of the service
• Provide regular updates on the incident's status and actions being taken

Decision-Making:

• Make timely and informed decisions to contain the incident and minimise its impact
• Consider the potential consequences of different actions and choose the best course of action

Resource Allocation:

• Allocate resources (e.g., personnel, equipment, budget) as needed to address the incident
• Ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently

Coordination:

• Coordinate the activities of various teams involved in the incident response
• Ensure that everyone is working towards a common goal

Post-Incident Analysis:

• Conduct a thorough review of the incident to identify root causes and lessons learned
• Develop recommendations for preventing similar incidents in the future

Knowledge Management:

• Establish and maintain the incident response plan and policy
• Captures and shares knowledge about incidents to prevent future occurrences
• Creates knowledge base articles and best practices

Continuous Improvement:

• • Update incident response plans and procedures based on the findings of post-incident reviews
  • Ensure that the organization is prepared to handle future incidents effectively

Required Skills: 

• At least 5 or more years’ practical experience of Incident Management Frameworks in methodologies like ITIL, COBIT or DevOps-style incident and problem management processes
• Knowledge of configuration management processes
• Experience using incident and problem management tools, including ServiceNow and monitoring tools such as Cloudwatch, and alerting tools like OpsGenie, PagerDuty or similar
• Strong Experience with knowledge supporting tools including SharePoint, JIRA and Confluence or similar, with the ability to learn new skills quickly
• Data analysis and reporting skills, with experience in tools such as PowerBI an advantage
• Broad experience of modern IT infrastructure and applications
• 5 or more years’ experience developing and implementing a comprehensive team-building strategy
• Analytical and critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and strong stress management, necessary for assessing a situation, making informed decisions, and handling the pressure of incidents
• The ability to make informed decisions, using the data and information available, under pressure
• Strong conflict resolution skills, to resolve disagreements efficiently without damaging relationships
• Experience in stakeholder management, with an ability to communicate across levels of an organisation
• Good understanding of the purpose and function of SLAs, to allow you to evaluate a team's performance and identify areas for improvement
• Proactive and adaptable to changing scenarios and requirements, and responsible and accountable for their actions and results
• Past experience in building Incident and Problem training processes for consumption of both tech and non tech teams
• The ability to lead and motivate the incident team during stressful situations, provide guidance, and ensure that the team is working towards a common goal