MINIMUM QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

Education and Experience:

• Ddegree in information technology or a related discipline supplemented by technical courses related to the work or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.
• Minimum 6 years working in a technical position within Information Technology and computer support services.
• Considerable related experience supervising technical support staff, working with collective agreements and dealing effectively with labour relations issues.
• Training and experience with IT best practice frameworks (Enterprise Architecture, ITIL, MCSE, etc.) is an asset.
• Project Management training, experience, or certification is an asset.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Thorough understanding of business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning
• Proven skills in managing cross-functional teams, where some or all team members have no reporting relationship to you; ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a variety of internal and external contacts
• Knowledge in how to develop and conduct failover tests and exercises in a technology environment
• Thorough knowledge of ITIL Change Management processes, and ITIL risk management practices
• Strong incident response management skills
• Effective communication and documentation skills: excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills for business-focused and project documents, including the ability to prepare and maintain a variety of records and documentation
• Experience incorporating post-incident reviews and lessons learned to improve processes
• Considerable knowledge of information technology components, processes and developments, including local and wide area networks, cloud and cloud-hybrid architectures, data centre server and storage, cooling and power infrastructure, database and applications architecture
• Ability to determine priorities and structure work activities to achieve goals in a timely manner; ability to work effectively in a multi-task dynamic environment punctuated by frequent interruptions
• Ability to develop and communicate strategic direction in the technology resiliency space, providing leadership to operational and project resources, as well as providing advice, guidance, and recommendations to the Technology Services leadership
• Ability to exercise independent judgment in emergencies and non-routine matters which meets City priorities and obligations
• Ability to establish and implement service standards, set work priorities, and schedule and lead assigned projects
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively within a team environment and promote a supportive, respectful and safe work environment in an economically and culturally diverse workplace and community
• Proven skills in supervising staff, including providing feedback, dealing with conflict, corrective discipline, managing performance, and coaching
• Effective planning, organization and work management skills
• Demonstrated ability to keep up with evolving technology use and trends
• Understanding of City human resources practices and principles, collective agreements and BC legislation related to safety and labour standards and practices is an asset
• Knowledge of industry standard technology and security frameworks would be considered an asset (NIST 2.0, ISO, PCI DSS)

Where operationally appropriate and subject to change, the City of Vancouver has a Flexible Work Program. This program allows staff to work a hybrid work week from locations that are a daily commutable distance from their work at a City worksite. At this time this position is eligible to be part of the Flexible Work Program.
Business Unit/Department: IT, Digital Strategy & 311 (1070)
Affiliation: Exempt
Employment Type: Regular Full Time
Position Start Date: August, 2025
Salary Information: Pay Grade RNG-091: $114,465 to $143,092 per annum

MAIN PURPOSE AND FUNCTION

The Manager, Incident Response plays a pivotal role in safeguarding the City’s technology infrastructure by leading the development, testing and management of comprehensive incident recovery processes. This strategic position ensures the resilience of Technology Services (TS) through disaster recovery planning, rigorous failover capability testing, as well as managing the interdepartmental Change Advisory Board that reviews all planned modifications to TS production environments. Additionally, in the event of data centre, network, or application failures this position is relied upon to manage and coordinate TS response.

OTHER DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The above four sections define the primary responsibilities of this position, but the duties and responsibilities also include:

• Reviews all TS groups systems and infrastructure, and advocates work that improves City resiliency; evaluates and recommends improvements in incident response strategies and tools
• Occupies the role of major incident manager within the City’s enterprise service management (ESM) platform, ensures the platform’s major incident management module is prepared to be used to its full capabilities, and TS teams and individuals understand how to use it and understand their responsibilities when needed
• In coordination with TS leadership and Risk Management, develops and documents a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) that leverages the City’s geo-remote data centre, to be used in the event of major disaster (e.g. major earthquake that compromises both local data centres)
• Oversees and monitors daily data backups to the City’s geo-remote data centre
• Ensures the DRP aligns with and complements the TS BCP, including an annual tabletop exercise of the DRP
• In coordination with Enterprise Architecture and TS leadership, ensures long term technology strategy takes into account resiliency, prioritizing the ability for the City to deliver critical services in the event of failures or disasters
• Management of the Incident Response team, including hiring, assigning work, setting goals and standards, approving absences, and planning training and other work-related activities
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned

This position is responsible for developing and maintaining the TS department’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP). This work entails:

• Ensures currency, relevance, and actionability of TS BCP
• Ensures TS BCP addresses response activities for multiple scenarios of varying scale and duration, e.g. major systems or data centre failures, network cuts, earthquakes, floods, fire, pandemic, major public disturbances, extreme weather, staffing and facilities impacts
• Coordinates regular review by managers and staff for TS BCP procedures applicable to them, updating as necessary
• Liaises with Risk Management and ensures TS’ business continuity planning aligns with and complements other department’s BCP processes
• Incorporates post-incident reviews and lessons learned into TS BCP
• Establishes distinct but complementary relationship of TS’s BCP with TS’s Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan (CSIRP)
• In coordination with Applications Services, Database Solutions, Digital Services and Enterprise Architecture, establishes definition of critical applications and services; ensures BCP processes prioritize their recovery
• Schedules and manages periodic tabletop exercises to ensure TS has organizational familiarity with BCP procedures (readiness