IT Manager, Store System Hardware

Company: Ulta Beauty
Location: Bolingbrook
Posted on: July 18, 2021

Job Description:

OVERVIEW

Live the experience. From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are.

We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty.

THE IMPACT YOU CAN HAVE:

Ulta Beauty is looking for IT Manager Hardware to lead and direct all efforts related to strategy, design, Implementation, and maintenance/support of store hardware solutions. Areas of responsibilities include physical registers, mobile devices, productivity equipment and all technical equipment within the stores.  This leader is expected to influence our vendor’s R&D and innovation roadmaps based on Ulta’s needs. The IT Manager Hardware will have a branch of engineering and will drive and co-own the In-Store Hardware Technology strategy and will be responsible for executing proof of concepts, while working with business partners, procurement, architecture and IT towards the implementation and final decision of new hardware components introduced to the enterprise.  This leader will also partner with the support/release/deployment organizations to identify and prove out as well as improve our deployment efficiencies, defect trends and root cause analysis to provide in depth insights to the applications development team. 

YOU'LL ACCOMPLISH ALL OF THIS BY:

• Accountability/Relationship Management: Collaborate with executives, business partners, peers, and delivery teams to plan aligned roadmaps, delivery ownership and operational excellencies. Develop strategic relationships with stakeholders and customers by understanding their needs and aligning the capabilities of the team accordingly. Ability to “take charge” and be accountable for capabilities evolution across all phases from Strategy, Execution, Maintenance and Support

• Innovation/Strategic Thinking: Drive a holistic vision and strategy for Hardware choices for Store Systems across the enterprise. Seek new opportunities, methods, trends, capabilities, and products for the advancement of the Store Systems and align those to business benefits. Ability to objectively evaluate and challenge the status quo and leverage the right methodologies to accelerate progress. Maintain a strong understanding of industry and business, assisting the broader IT organization in the formation of strategy and approach to exploit technology, skills, and methods to drive significant impact to the bottom line.

• Quality and Performance Management: Drive high quality standards for all hardware builds and maintain quality standards consistently through established KPI measures on regular basis. Define and adopt quality standards and hold the team accountable for meeting the standard through quantitative measures. Drive effective retrospectives and root cause analysis to learn from failures and drive a culture of continuous improvement. Leverages the right level of technology, QA, automation, procedures, and resources to support quality. Builds and establishes measurements around operational methods, procedures, and tools, and validates that they are reviewed and maintained   

• Organizational Development: Lead the Store Systems team through resource planning, up-skilling, career development and recruitment of future talent to drive business results and provide outstanding opportunities for our people. Coach, support, and delegate to empower the team. Get “hands on” when appropriate to both serve as model for expected performance and to remove obstacles impeding the team.

• Hardware Technology: Proven track record in Hardware architecture, Hardware Virtualizations, Point of Sale and Payments as well as Store Systems in retail domain is essential requirement for this very critical leadership role.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develops hardware/device strategy utilizing industry standards.  Creates roadmap and executes the roadmap based on business requirements and strategy. Define and implement life cycle management best practices and approach for all store systems hardware assets including mobile.
• Leads scoping and business priority setting for strategic business initiatives involving business policymakers and direction setters.
• Manage depot services that takes care of repair and break fixes for store systems hardware assets.
• Defines a strategy, builds the partnerships, and implements the operations in partnership with the support organization to recover assets by creating processes to help liquidate and redeploy obsolete equipment based on aging / inventory turn reports while reducing expensive monthly storage costs
• Ownership and management for hardware refresh lifecycle including budget management
• Define and manage project schedules and workflows to drive opportunity intake, prioritization, and delivery to keep all stakeholders informed throughout and measure the results
• Creates and/or leads the creation of SOPs, KPIs, and overall operationalization of assigned services or application. Maintain 24/7 availability to support production services.
• Provides input for departmental budget and forecasting, and manages expenses associated with initiatives within scope of responsibility
• Ensure vendors with whom we partner to provide software, hardware or services to our retail stores are held to a high standard, and that grow and manage these relationships to ensure our retail stores are always properly supported.
• Shared responsibility to achieve and maintain compliance to PCI-DSS security standard.  Shared responsibility in the protection of our customer’s Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

ESSENTIALS FOR SUCCESS:

Qualified candidates will have Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or applicable work experience and 8+ years of overall technology experiences in Store Hardware Systems that includes registers, payment, and mobile devices. Experience with hypervisors/remote desktops and “golden image” creation/management. Additional responsibilities include: 

• 3+ years of experience leading technical teams with or without formal direct report responsibility; this includes experience providing technical direction, thought leadership, coaching, and mentoring to team members
• Preferred to have recent experience with hardware virtualizations aspects including cloud edge computing with POS and back-office system
• Knowledge of Payment Card Industry Data Security (PCI DSS) is a plus.

• Ability to manage through conflicting priorities and tight deadlines
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills
• Highly proficient in articulating technology strategy and benefits to a non-technical audience of stakeholders and executives
• Driver of results across teams, peers, stakeholders, and senior leaders through persuasion and articulating a vision of what is possible
• Work with teams across onshore / offshore, remote work and staff augmentation models
• Flexibility to be available after hours, on weekends, and during peak season (holiday) as necessary to support the team and business operations

• Minimal travel required (training/conferences)

#LI-CH1*

At Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), the possibilities are beautiful. Ulta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and the premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, hair care products and salon services. We bring possibilities to life through the power of beauty each and every day in our stores and online with more than 25,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including Ulta Beauty’s own private label. Ulta Beauty also offers a full-service salon in every store featuring—hair, skin, brow, and make-up services.

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York City Fair Chance Act.

Keywords: Ulta Beauty, Bolingbrook , IT Manager, Store System Hardware, Other , Bolingbrook, Illinois