Vice President of Technology

at  Space Needle

The Space Needle, LLC is looking for a Vice President of Technology to join their team. As VP of Technology, you will be responsible for all technology innovation, return on investment, and securing new investment for Space Needle’s technology platform. The platform includes a combination of proprietary systems, cloud based and hosted 3rd party systems, and a tremendous amount of hardware. From digital signage to POS handhelds and kiosks - we have it all. The technology team includes product managers, software engineers, network engineers, and support technicians. The team supports 5 sites, 15+ systems, and is responsible for guest experience innovation which includes ideating, designing, and launching 2-3 new experiences each year. In addition to the Space Needle, the team supports other properties in this growing hospitality organization including Chihuly Garden and Glass.
At the Space Needle, Innovation is a primary theme of the current and newly proposed capital projects, so technology is not seen as a support function; it is seen as a growth and innovation function. As such, the Space Needle has made bold strategic investments like developing its own ticketing and media management platforms. The system is a comprehensive hospitality and big data platform used by the Space Needle and a growing list of partners. It enables a wide range of Consumer and Business Applications including timed ticketing, eCommerce sales, and integration with the customer photo system, customer database, and customer-facing Applications.
This role reports to the COO responsible for all Consumer Digital Experiences and works closely with the Senior Leadership team of the Space Needle.

EXPERIENCE

We are looking for someone with a technical bent to communicate with our internal IT team and development partners and vendors, as well as our internal marketing and operational departments.
1. You are a person who thrives in a fast environment with a heavy dose of ambiguity.
2. You should have experience shipping/implementing software products in a fast-paced environment.
3. You should have experience with the Software Development Life Cycle and iterative methodologies like SCRUM, Kanban, or Lean.
4. You have experience working and managing technology vendor relationships.
5. You are hands on, passionate, and collaborative.
6. You have experience writing code – for fun, college, or work - is a plus.
7. You should be ok with being a tech, doing tech, in a non-tech environment (e.g. at the end of the day, we’re in the tourism and hospitality business).
8. You have experience managing technical and creative resources from design to development and support.
9. You have experience working for an operating company with onsite technology uptime and business support during seasonally busy periods.
10. You have a hospitality mindset and continually seek to innovate experiences to delight Guests and improve business processes to better enable and empower Team Members and departments.

1. Optimize technology planning and investments. Help achieve future goals of the organization through in-depth assessment of business goals and challenges, technology trends, environmental factors, and current technology capabilities. Create resource-feasible roadmaps and investment decisions—prioritizing IT spending and allocating resources based on business needs and future returns (especially for capital projects, such as Century Project and Thomas Street).
2. Translate vision into technology. Be able to translate the vision of the leadership team into a comprehensive set of technologies that together can realize the vision and maximize the chances of success.
3. Manage the investment. Be able to translate the technical design into an investment plan and a business case. Make the tough decisions necessary to keep the investment grounded.
4. Own the roadmap. Be able to communicate both the business and technical rationale behind your product decisions. Manage a comprehensive roadmap of revenue generating, retention, and acquisition features that supports the case for investment. Understand how we improve the platform and to unlock new uses.
5. Own the technology ecosystem. Be responsible for the selection and ongoing management of internal and external technology partners contributing to the platform’s development. Foster the ecosystem and grow it as needed.
6. Design as needed. Mockup concepts, write functional specs, cut tickets, write copy, and do whatever it takes to express your ideas internally and with the ecosystem.
7. Deliver and integrate. Be responsible for the overall integration of all existing and modern technologies and the implementation of new projects related to the platform (e.g. innovative technologies, new features, or major changes).
8. Cybersecurity chief. These days, everyone is at risk. A critical part of the role is to maintain and continue evolving Space Needle’s cybersecurity program and monitoring.