Location: This is a hybrid remote/in-office role.
About the Team:
We are seeking a transformational leader to establish and lead a newly formed Customer Modernization team within the CS3 Operations organization. This strategic team will focus on proactively identifying, planning, and executing initiatives to reduce long-standing technical debt across customer environments.
The leader will drive programs focused on modernizing customer ecosystems, including upgrades to the company's Medidata platform, surrounding infrastructure, integrations, middleware, databases, operating systems, and other ancillary technologies that impact platform stability, scalability, security, and customer outcomes.
This role requires a blend of operational leadership, customer engagement, technical strategy, program execution, and cross-functional influence. The ideal candidate is highly collaborative, data-driven, customer-focused, and experienced leading large-scale initiatives in complex environments.
Responsibilities:
Team Leadership & Strategy- Build and lead a high-performing modernization and technical debt remediation organization.
- Define the operating model, processes, governance, KPIs, and engagement framework for the team.
- Establish a scalable strategy to proactively identify and prioritize customer environments requiring modernization.
- Develop multi-year remediation and modernization roadmaps aligned to customer success and operational risk reduction objectives.
- Foster a culture of accountability, operational excellence, customer partnership, and continuous improvement.
Customer Environment Modernization- Oversee initiatives focused on upgrading outdated customer environments, including:
- Medidata platform versions and configurations
- Integrations and APIs
- Middleware and supporting applications
- Databases and operating systems
- Infrastructure dependencies
- Compliance-related components
- Drive standardization and modernization strategies that improve customer stability, performance, scalability, and supportability.
- Partner with Product Management, Strategy, Engineering, Support, and Professional Services team members to align modernization efforts with product roadmaps and customer priorities.
Customer Engagement & Communication- Develop executive-level customer engagement strategies around technical debt reduction and modernization planning.
- Communicate modernization risks, business impacts, and remediation strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Serve as an escalation point for strategic modernization initiatives and complex customer situations.
- Build trusted relationships with customer executives, IT leadership, and operational stakeholders.
Program & Operational Management- Establish operational processes for identifying at-risk or outdated customer environments using telemetry, lifecycle management data, support trends, and operational metrics.
- Create governance frameworks for modernization tracking, prioritization, risk management, and reporting.
- Develop dashboards and executive reporting for modernization progress, customer adoption, operational risk reduction, and program outcomes.
- Drive execution discipline across large portfolios of concurrent modernization initiatives.
Cross-Functional Collaboration- Partner closely with:
- Product Management on lifecycle strategy and end-of-support planning
- Engineering on upgrade paths and technical dependencies
- Support organizations on recurring customer issues tied to technical debt
- Professional Services on execution delivery models
- Strategy on adoption and customer engagement frameworks
- Sales and Account Management on customer planning and commercial alignment
- Influence enterprise-wide operational strategy related to platform currency and customer ecosystem health.
Qualifications:
Required Experience- 10+ years of leadership experience in SaaS operations, customer success, professional services, technical operations, or enterprise technology modernization.
- Proven experience leading large-scale software implementation/modernization efforts, upgrade, transformation, or technical debt remediation programs.
- Strong understanding of enterprise architectures and supporting technologies.
- Experience managing complex cross-functional initiatives involving enterprise customers.
- Demonstrated ability to build and scale operational teams and processes.
- Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
Technical & Operational Expertise- Deep understanding of:
- Enterprise software lifecycle management
- Cloud/SaaS operating models
- Systems integrations and APIs
- Infrastructure and platform dependencies
- Security and compliance considerations
- Operational risk management
- Experience leveraging operational data and analytics to drive prioritization and decision making.
Leadership Competencies- Strategic thinker with strong operational execution capabilities.
- Ability to influence across organizational boundaries without direct authority.
- Customer-first mindset with strong commercial awareness.
- Strong problem-solving and organizational change management skills.
- Ability to operate effectively in fast-paced, highly matrixed environments.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience leading initiatives for large enterprise customer bases.
- Familiarity with ITIL, SaaS service management, or enterprise governance frameworks.
- Experience with customer lifecycle management and adoption strategies.
((Insert Pay Transparency Language Here))Base pay is one part of the Total Rewards that Medidata provides to compensate and recognize employees for their work. Most sales positions are eligible for a commission on the terms of applicable plan documents, and many of Medidata's non-sales positions are eligible for annual bonuses. Medidata believes that benefits should connect you to the support you need when it matters most and provides benefits, including medical, dental, life and disability insurance, 401(k) matching, family leave, flexible paid time off; and 10 paid holidays per year.
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Salary Pay Transparency
Compensation for the role will be commensurate with experience. The total expected compensation range will be between $141000 and $188000, representing the base salary (or annualized salary based on estimated hourly compensation) and target bonus.
