Associate Director, IT Development

Every year, we help hundreds of thousands of people find rewarding jobs in the ever-changing world of work. We understand the importance of a job in peoples lifes and we want to help them find work that feels good. And we’ll help them continue to grow as their needs and ambitions change. At Randstad, our value comes from our people and that is why we put them first. We are proud of our learning culture and career architecture framework that encourages ours team to develop both personally and professionally. We believe that talent grows when presented with opportunity and this is why we encourage our people to think beyond their role. We have created a culture that enables talent to flourish, encouraging entrepreneurship, fostering team spirit, and continually building mutual trust. purpose of the job The role is the operational backbone of the Global Automation CoE. This role bridges the gap between high-level architectural design and execution reality, turning designed solutions into scalable, production-ready systems. Reporting directly to the Global Head of Automation, you will lead a multidisciplinary team of developers and support specialists to manage a delivery pipeline of AI and automation projects. You will also oversee the maintenance and support of a rapidly expanding portfolio of live automations, ensuring strict SLA compliance. Beyond managing standard pipelines, you will be expected to continuously optimize internal delivery and support processes. In addition, you will be responsible for designing, building, and deploying specialized AI and automation solutions directly into our own operating model to accelerate delivery. Additionally, you will serve as the cultural anchor for the team to build a psychologically safe, high-performing, and agile engineering organization. responsibilities Lead the automation delivery team and end-to-end execution of the CoE’s delivery pipeline ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope, and aligned with defined value metrics. Translate high-level solution architectures designed by Solution Architects into structured, sprint-based delivery backlogs. Coordinate cross-functional contributions from core developers and regional business partners to ensure predictable and transparent release cycles. Implement robust Agile, Scrum, and DevSecOps execution practices, establishing clear quality gates, CI/CD promotion paths (Staging to Production), and rollback thresholds. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Interface with tech senior leadership, product leaders, AI Engineers, and Innovation Consultants to deploy secure, scalable automation solutions. Compliance & Security Safeguards: Engage with security, risk, and IT functions to ensure all designed AI and automation solutions comply with enterprise infrastructure, AI policies, data protection, GDPR, and SOC 1 standards. Own the post-production support lifecycle for over 200+ live enterprise-grade automations, guaranteeing system stability, high availability, and performance continuity. Manage, mentor, and scale the support desk team, including the Senior Support Specialist, ensuring rapid triage and resolution of all incoming incidents. Manage incident queues and ticket backlogs, ensuring strict compliance with contractual Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Oversee escalation management protocols, performing in-depth root cause analysis (RCA) on repeating incident patterns to eliminate technical debt. Partner with the development team to design, train, and deploy the CoE’s internal AI agents to automate internal delivery and support tasks. Provide empathetic, performance-driven leadership to a geographically distributed team of developers and support specialists. Is this the job for you? We would love to hear from you! Please apply directly to the role and we will get in touch with you.