Senior Technical Manager, Observability Architecture

The Hong Kong Jockey Club

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club (“the Club”) is a world-class racing club that acts continuously for the betterment of our society. The Club has a unique integrated business model, comprising racing and racecourse entertainment, a membership club, responsible sports wagering and lottery, and charities and community contribution. Through this model, the Club generates economic and social value for the community and supports the HKSAR Government in combatting illegal gambling.

Who are we?

We are the IT Division of HKJC, a vibrant community of over 1,500 dedicated professionals working collaboratively across Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Our team is a diverse mix of individuals from various backgrounds, from all across the world. We embrace our humanity, recognizing that each of us brings unique strengths and perspectives. This diversity not only enriches our work environment but also drives our innovation and creativity as we strive to achieve our collective goals. 

What do we do?

We design, build, and operate the technology that powers the Club. Our primary focus is on delivering the service that supports our hospitality, racing and wagering operations, to ensure that our customers and members enjoy exceptional experiences.

We also deliver the changes necessary to drive business growth through new products and services. And, we are committed to safeguarding the Club by protecting it from external threats, providing a secure and resilient technological environment. 

The Department

The IT Infrastructure and Platform Operations Department is responsible for the design, implementation, and management of the infrastructure that supports the Club’s IT systems, and leads the Service Management capabilities that ensure the smooth running of these systems.

This department ensures that all technological resources operate efficiently and effectively to support business objectives. Key responsibilities include:

• Design and operate processes and controls that ensure IT service availability, performance, and resilience are aligned with business expectations.
• Manage the 24x7 IT Operations Centre.
• Manage the Club’s exploitation of the public cloud.
• Manage the complete lifecycle of the Club’s IT network and the technology within our data centres.
• Provide the roadmaps, standards, and capabilities that enable our IT infrastructure to remain current (eligible for vendor support) and secure (patched and remediated against CVEs).
• Provide the Club’s colleague collaboration technology suite, including desktop and laptop computers, mobile devices, collaboration tools, carrier contracts, and associated support functions. 

The Job

• Create and maintain comprehensive observability architecture documentation, including reference architectures, design patterns, vendor integration guidelines, cloud integration blueprints, automation frameworks, self-service delivery models, and technical standards for monitoring, logging, tracing, metrics, and management systems across multi-vendor and hybrid environments. This includes full stack observability across infrastructure, applications, and user experience.
• Establish observability architecture governance processes in coordination with the Deputy Executive Manager, Infrastructure Architecture, and review observability designs to ensure compliance with architectural standards and principles. Optimise multi-vendor integration strategies, automation capabilities, and agile delivery models across cloud and on-premise observability platforms.
• Provide cost-effective, high-quality, high-performance and robust observability solutions and services across monitoring, logging, tracing, metrics, and automation domains to meet the Club's business needs while balancing complexity, standardisation, agility, and TCO. Maintain alignment of observability services with business strategies and objectives, including application performance monitoring and digital experience monitoring.
• Drive the adoption of best practice frameworks and industry standards, including TOGAF, ITIL, DevOps, and Observability as Code principles, to ensure best-in-class delivery of observability solutions, automation capabilities, and self-service models across all observability domains.
• Collaborate with vendors and other external service providers, including Datadog, Cisco, Splunk, ThousandEyes, RedGate, BMC Helix, OpenTelemetry, and SolarWinds, as well as underlying infrastructure platform vendors, to design, plan, install, configure and upgrade observability tools and platforms across infrastructure, application, and user experience layers. This includes real user monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring, distributed tracing, and cloud-native observability services. Manage suppliers to ensure compliance with agreed service levels and architectural standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including IT, security, operations, development, business and management, to ensure observability solutions are effective and cover all stakeholder needs across infrastructure, application, and digital experience domains. Ensure the overall architecture for observability standards for Enterprise Architecture and development lifecycle activities are maintained, including agile delivery methods and continuous improvement.
• Establish and enforce observability-related security measures across monitoring, logging, tracing, and cloud platforms to protect the HKJC's systems and data. Work in cooperation with the Information Security Department to ensure observability technology solutions and services comply with established information security standards and practices.
• Provide guidance, coaching and mentoring for the necessary resources required to attain and maintain zero major system outage during prime business hours against defined availability targets of core betting systems through robust observability architecture, automation, and monitoring capabilities.
• Create and foster a diverse and inclusive culture with trust and respect to attract, develop and retain talents. Serve as a role model to support cross-team/division/department efforts and model collaborative behaviours. Inspire the team to bring forward ideas and solutions to empower the people to accelerate business success.

About You

• A university degree with a strong technical background, particularly in Information Technology/Computer Science or related systems architecture disciplines
• 12+ years of hands-on experience with enterprise observability architecture and design across infrastructure, application performance, and digital experience domains
• 8+ years of experience with observability platforms and tools from multiple vendors (Datadog, Splunk, BMC Helix, OpenTelemetry, SolarWinds, Cisco ThousandEyes)
• 8+ years of experience with monitoring and telemetry systems, including real user monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring, distributed tracing, and metrics collection across hybrid environments
• 8+ years of experience with application performance monitoring (APM) technologies and integration with enterprise systems and services
• 5+ years of experience with observability automation tools and platforms (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD-integrated observability pipelines)
• 5+ years of experience with self-service observability portal design and implementation (e.g., dashboards, alerting workflows, and visualization tools)
• 5+ years of experience with cloud-native observability services from AWS, Azure, and Tencent Cloud
• 3+ years of experience with container platforms and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift), including observability integration and telemetry collection
• 3+ years of experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipeline integration, and agile delivery of observability capabilities
• Holder of TOGAF certification, or equivalent enterprise architecture certification preferred
• Professional certifications from observability and cloud vendors (e.g., Datadog, Splunk, AWS, Azure, BMC, Cisco) are preferred
• Experience in designing enterprise observability architecture frameworks and standards for multi-vendor and hybrid cloud environments
• Proven experience in architecture governance and review processes across observability domains
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with senior management and cross-functional teams
• Experience collaborating with observability architects and enterprise architects in matrix organisations
• Highly self-motivated and directed with strong leadership capabilities
• Excellent attention to detail and ability to think strategically across observability domains
• Ability to effectively prioritise and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment

Technical Skills

• Experience with enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman)
• Observability Technologies: Deep knowledge of Datadog, Cisco Splunk, ThousandEyes, BMC Helix, OpenTelemetry, SolarWinds, and RedGate for full stack monitoring, logging, tracing, and metrics collection
• Application Performance Monitoring: Experience with APM tools and techniques for monitoring distributed applications, microservices, and cloud-native workloads
• Digital Experience Monitoring: Proficiency in real user monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring, and user journey tracking across web and mobile platforms
• Observability Automation: Deep knowledge of Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell DSC, Chef, Puppet, and observability-as-code methodologies
• Self-Service Platforms: Experience with dashboard and alerting portal design using tools such as Datadog, Splunk, BMC Helix IT Operations Management, and custom observability interfaces
• Container Observability: Understanding of observability integration with Docker, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, and container orchestration strategies
• DevOps and CI/CD: Understanding of Jenkins, GitHub, workflows, and automation pipeline integration for observability instrumentation
• AWS Cloud Services: Experience with observability integration for EC2, Lambda, CloudWatch, CloudFormation, and hybrid connectivity
• Azure Cloud Services: Knowledge of Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Azure Automation, Azure Arc, and ExpressRoute observability capabilities
• Tencent Cloud Services: Understanding of Tencent Cloud observability tools and hybrid cloud monitoring solutions
• Monitoring and Management: Experience with full stack observability platforms and enterprise monitoring tools including Datadog, Splunk, BMC Helix, OpenTelemetry, SolarWinds, and Cisco ThousandEyes
• High Availability and Incident Response: Knowledge of observability-driven incident detection, root cause analysis, and business continuity planning
• Security Integration: Understanding of observability-related security best practices, compliance frameworks, vulnerability detection, and automated security telemetry
• Network Observability: Knowledge of network telemetry, protocol monitoring, synthetic testing, and integration with network infrastructure including Cisco and Huawei
• Capacity Planning: Experience with observability-driven capacity planning, performance analysis, growth forecasting, and predictive analytics across infrastructure and application domains
• Cost Optimisation: Understanding of observability cost management, cloud cost optimisation, TCO analysis, and automated resource efficiency tracking
• API Integration: Experience with RESTful APIs, PowerShell, Python scripting, and integration frameworks for observability automation and self-service capabilities
• Workflow Orchestration: Knowledge of workflow engines, business process automation, and approval mechanisms for observability alerting and remediation
• ITSM Integration: Experience integrating observability platforms with BMC Helix or other ITSM systems for incident and change management
• Knowledge and experience with enterprise observability platforms and telemetry systems across hybrid environments
• Experience with the design of observability architecture for data centre and cloud environments, including integration with physical and virtual infrastructure

Apply Now!

We offer competitive salary and benefits packages, a dynamic working environment and development opportunities.

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Equal Opportunity and Inclusive Hiring

We are an equal opportunity employer and strive to create an inclusive workplace for all. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are welcomed to apply. If you have any special needs or require accommodations during the interview process, please e-mail us via careers@hkjc.org.hk. Personal data provided by job applicants will be used strictly in accordance with the Club's notice to employees and job applicants relating to the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. A copy of which will be provided immediately upon request.