Overview

As part of the Enterprise Technology & Security organisation, The Automation Lead is a senior leadership role accountable for maximising enterprise value & stakeholder Peace of Mind, through automation. This role defines and executes the network automation technology strategy, leads the Automation team, and ensures the delivery, performance, and continuous evolution of our network automation platforms and capabilities.
The Automation Lead holds decision rights across strategy, platform direction, and team execution, ensuring automation delivers measurable business outcomes while building scalable, long-term organisational capability.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Strategy, Ownership & Decision-Making

• Define and own the automation technology strategy and roadmap, aligned to business priorities and value outcomes.

• Establish the target-state architecture and platform ecosystem, including tool selection, integration, and lifecycle decisions.

• In collaboration with Product Owner, ensure all automation initiatives are prioritised and executed based on clear value, cost, and risk trade-offs.

Platform Performance & Delivery

• Own the end-to-end performance, stability, and supportability of automation platforms.

• Ensure effective maintenance, support, and lifecycle management across all automation technologies.

• Drive consistent standards for engineering quality, security, and operational excellence.

• Enable scalable, reusable solutions that improve reliability and reduce operational complexity.

Engineering & Delivery Leadership

• Lead a high-performing software engineering focused automation team.

• Embed best practices across the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) including DevOps, CI/CD, testing, and release management.

• Ensure solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned to architectural standards.

• Drive continuous improvement in engineering practices and delivery outcomes.

People Leadership & Capability Building

• Provide clear direction, coaching, and performance management for the Automation team.

• Own resource allocation, capacity planning, and hiring aligned to strategic priorities.

• Build a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous development aligned to PBM principles and the Agile philosophy.

• Develop long-term capability in automation, DevOps, and platform engineering.

Enterprise Alignment & Influence

• Act as the primary advocate for automation across the organisation but specifically into each of our 4 LOBs.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Operations, and Security teams to align priorities and outcomes

• Translate technical capability into clear business value and delivery outcomes

Guiding Principles (PBM-Aligned)

• Value First: Prioritise automation initiatives that maximise long-term business value. 3Hours Saved4 is a key quantitative metric that we should connect with either directly or indirectly as a 2nd/3rd order measured impact. I

• Ownership & Accountability: Maintain clear ownership of platforms, decisions, and outcomes.

• Principled Decision-Making: Make transparent, data-driven trade-offs balancing value, cost, and risk using the PBM DMF.

• Comparative Advantage: Focus on scalable, reusable capabilities that enable us to create competitive advantage for TNS in each of our markets.

• Continuous Improvement: Evolve platforms, practices, and team capability based on experimentation, iterative delivery, feedback and outcomes.

• Empowered Teams: Enable individuals to take ownership, lead, collaborate across functions and experiment while providing the support and coaching they need to operate with the safety of our network front of mind.

Decision Rights

• Automation strategy, roadmap, and platform direction

• Tooling, architecture, and integration approach

• Prioritisation of automation initiatives and backlog 6 In collaboration with Product Ownership

• Allocation of team resources and delivery focus

• Definition of engineering standards, governance, and practices 6 In collaboration with technical SMEs across TNS

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Extensive experience in software engineering leadership and SDLC delivery.

• Proven ability to define and execute technology strategy and platform roadmaps.

• Strong experience leading automation, DevOps, or platform engineering teams.

• Demonstrated capability in people leadership and organisational capability building.

Desirable

• Experience in network or infrastructure automation

• Familiarity with tools such as Nautobot, Ansible, AWX, Rundeck, GitLab CI/CD, or similar ecosystems

• Experience operating within complex, matrixed enterprise environments that foster cross functional, higher performing teams.

Success Measures

• Measurable business value delivered through automation.

• High availability, scalability, and adoption of automation platforms.

• Reduction in manual effort, cost, and operational risk as measured in hours saved.

• Strong team engagement, performance, and capability growth

• Clear execution of a value-aligned automation strategy

For this role, we anticipate paying a salary range of $157,000-$190,000. This role is eligible for variable pay, issued as a monetary bonus or in another form. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidates knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. TNS offers a competitive benefit package including medical and dental coverage, life insurance, paid holidays and vacations, and a 401K plan with company match.

Qualifications

If you are passionate about technology, love personal growth and opportunity, come see what TNS is all about!