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 certificate management).
  • 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

California Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $96,038 to $209,169 annually.

Colorado Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $96,038 to $190,154 annually.

Hawaii Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $116,205 to $209,169 annually.

New York Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $96,038 to $209,169 annually.

Washington, D.C. Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $105,641 to $190,154 annually.

Washington Applicants Only: The salary range for this position is $96,038 to $209,169 annually. In addition to the annual salary, the position will be eligible to receive an annual bonus. Employees will accrue 0.04616 PTO balance for every hour worked and eligible to receive minimum of 7 holidays annually.

All locations offer coverage for medical, dental, vision, health care flexible spending account, dependent care flexible spending account, life insurance, disability insurance, accident insurance, adoption expense reimbursements, paid parental leave, educational assistance, 401(k) plan, stock purchase plan, discounts at Marriott properties, commuter benefits, employee assistance plan, and childcare discounts. Benefits are subject to terms and conditions, which may include rules regarding eligibility, enrollment, waiting period, contribution, benefit limits, election changes, benefit exclusions, and others.

Marriott HQ is committed to a hybrid work environment that enables associates to Be connected. Headquarters-based positions are considered hybrid, for candidates within a commuting distance to Bethesda, MD; candidates outside of commuting distance to Bethesda, MD will be considered for Remote positions.

The application deadline for this position is 28 days after the date of this posting, July 16, 2024.

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.