Director, Operations Platform, Business Transformation

Description

FirstService Residential is simplifying property management. Its hospitality-minded teams serve 9,000 residential communities across the United States and Canada. The organization partners with boards, owners, and developers to enhance the value of every property and the life of every resident.

 

Our dedication to associate satisfaction and growth is recognized by our Great Place to Work certification, exemplifying our commitment to fostering a positive and inclusive workplace culture. Our 19,000 associates can count on competitive salaries, top-tier medical, dental, and retirement benefits, career training, and support for continued professional development.  

 

Experience being part of a high-performing team with a fulfilling career in property management with FirstService Residential. 

 

Job Overview

 

The Director, Operations Platform, Business Transformation (“Director”) holds a strategic and consequential position within the organization. As FirstService Residential consolidates its estate onto a new financial and operations platform as the single system of record, this role provides the dedicated, expert ownership of the platform’s integrity — holding the platform to one coherent standard so it is configured consistently, behaves predictably, and delivers a unified experience for the associates who work in it every day. This role is the authoritative financial and operations platform expertise the transformation program is built around, ensuring that every decision touching the platform produces a sound, durable result.

Platform Integrity and Consistency: The Director owns the single configuration standard that every migrated community’s platform instance conforms to — including the chart of accounts structure as instantiated in the environment, security and role configuration, and workflow configuration. A unified, predictable platform across every migration wave is this role’s to protect and enforce; the wave-over-wave configuration drift that quietly fragments a platform is the primary failure mode this role exists to prevent.

Change Governance: Platform-significant changes are gated through this role. The Director classifies each proposed change by severity, approves conforming changes, and blocks or routes non-conforming and structurally significant changes to an executive adjudication body. The Director owns severity classification; the adjudication body may overrule on appeal. Where a change is both a product decision and a master-data change, the master-data gate takes precedence.

Platform Support — Internal and Vendor: The Director owns the internal support function for the platform, including the triage, resolution, and escalation of platform issues for the associates who work in it. This individual owns the relationship with vendor’s support as the company’s single point into the vendor’s support organization, holding to committed response and resolution service levels. This run-state support relationship is distinct from the platform’s Professional Services implementation engagement, which is owned elsewhere in the program.

Migration Enablement: The Director drives platform-side configuration and template decisions that gate the data migration program to closure, so migration teams are never idle against an open question.

Vendor Delivery Assurance: The Director is the company’s authoritative, independent platform expertise on the Professional Services engagement — reviewing the vendor’s configuration, data loads, and recommendations with an expert eye so the company validates rather than rubber-stamps vendor work.

Decision Quality: On platform-significant decisions the role does not operate — including the chart of accounts structural approach, database topology, and identity integration — the Director supplies the authoritative technical position and carries a recommendation-of-record: expert judgment documented and weighed before the decision is finalized.

Job Responsibilities

 

• Platform Configuration Standards: 
• Own the configuration baseline for the new financial and operations platform as the company’s consolidated system of record, maintained as a documented, versioned, change-managed asset.
• Enforce one configuration standard across every migration wave, preventing configuration drift between waves and markets.
• Platform Change Governance: 
• Operate the platform-change gate: classify platform-significant changes by severity tier, approve conforming changes, and block or route non-conforming changes to the executive adjudication body.
• Disposition changes within tiered service levels: Tier 1 (migration or financial-integrity blockers) within one business day; Tier 2 (operational impacts) within three business days; Tier 3 (non-structural changes) in weekly batch review.
• Apply the precedence rule: where a change is both a product decision and a master-data change, the master-data gate governs and the matter routes to adjudication.
• Platform Support Operations: 
• Establish and own the internal platform support function — intake, triage, resolution, and escalation of platform issues (application/platform support, distinct from infrastructure operations).
• Own the vendor support relationship with the specialized support team, including escalation management and accountability to committed response and resolution SLAs.
• Migration Enablement: 
• Drive vendor-side dependencies that gate the data migration program — pending import templates, vendor-side configuration and storage decisions — to timely closure.
• Own the vendor-side review of each migration wave’s load, conference-room pilot, user acceptance testing, and cutover.
• Vendor Delivery Assurance: 
• Review vendor Professional Services deliverables — configuration, data loads, testing design — as the company’s independent expert check, surfacing risk before it reaches production.
• Provide an expert line of sight into whether the vendor is delivering the platform quality and behavior that was committed.
• Platform Decision Quality: 
• Serve as the required technical voice on platform-significant decisions, carrying a documented recommendation-of-record before decisions are finalized.
• Provide the authoritative technical position on open structural decisions, including the chart of accounts structural approach and database topology, grounded in evidence such as vendor load-modeling and contention analysis rather than hardware sizing alone.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: 
• Partner closely with the program’s data engineering, data products, architecture, and business tower leadership — including Client Accounting, Resident Operations, and Property Operations — to align platform decisions with business and program goals.
• Maintain clean role boundaries: gate conformance to the enterprise data model without authoring it, escalating structural master-data decisions to the appropriate executive owners.
• Team Leadership: 
• Build the platform support capability, adding and developing direct support staff as the first migration wave approaches go-live.
• Foster a culture of platform stewardship, quality, and consistency across the teams and vendors who touch the new platform.

Additional Duties & Responsibilities

 

• Practice and adhere to FirstService Residential Global Service Standards.
• Conduct business always with the highest personal, professional, and ethical standards.
• Perform or assist with any operations required to maintain workflow and meet schedules. Notify supervision of unusual equipment or operating problems and the need for additional material and supplies.
• May participate in various meetings and work groups to integrate activities, communicate issues, obtain approvals, resolve problems, and maintain a specified level of knowledge about new developments, requirements, policies, and regulatory guidelines.
• Ensure all safety precautions are followed while performing the work.
• Follow all policies and Standard Operating Procedures as instructed by Management.
• Perform any special projects, tasks, and other related duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibility

 

Initially an individual leadership role. A platform support position will be added under this role as the first migration wave approaches go-live, with the support team expected to grow as subsequent waves are migrated.

Education & Experience

 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of experience with the established financial and operations platform, including hands-on configuration and administration.
• Demonstrated experience operating a platform estate as a system of record — not merely consuming it — including security model, workflow configuration, and platform standards.
• Experience managing enterprise vendor relationships, including support escalation and SLA accountability.

Knowledge, Skills & Proficiencies

 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below represent the knowledge, skill, and ability required.

• Deep, hands-on financial and operations platform expertise — configuration, chart of accounts structures, security model, and platform operations at scale.
• The judgment to run a change-control gate: distinguishing a conforming change from a structurally significant one, and holding the line under delivery pressure.
• The credibility to make decisions stick where the role has authority, and to carry weight where it advises — the expert voice decisions are not finalized without.
• Understanding of large-scale data migration lifecycles, including data loads, conference-room pilots, user acceptance testing, and production cutover.
• Ability to operate as a trusted peer to data engineering, data products, and architecture leadership while maintaining clean role boundaries.
• Experience standing up or running a platform/application support function.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to document a clear technical recommendation for executive audiences.
• Highly analytical and detail-oriented, with strong problem-solving skills.
• Must be a team player and demonstrate the ability to follow processes, work effectively in a team, maintain a positive attitude, and adjust to changing priorities or processes.

Tools & Equipment Used

 

Financial and operations platform (to be announced) and its associated modules; vendor support and service-request tooling; Microsoft Office suite; enterprise collaboration, ticketing, and program-management tools as assigned.

Physical Requirements / Working Environment

 

The physical demands described here represent those that an associate must meet to perform this job’s essential functions successfully. Reasonable accommodations may enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Reasonable accommodations may enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Hours over and above regular office hours will occur, including evenings, holidays, and some weekends, particularly surrounding migration wave cutovers. The schedule is subject to change based on business needs.

Travel

 

Occasional travel may be required to regional market offices and vendor engagements in support of migration waves.

Disclaimer

 

The above information in this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. This is not an all-inclusive job description; therefore, management has the right to assign or reassign schedules, duties, and responsibilities to this job at any time.

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Job Qualifications and Characteristics Assessed: The AEDT evaluates candidates based on job qualifications and characteristics pertinent to the role, including skills, experience, and competencies relevant to the position requirements. These qualifications are determined by the unique needs of each role within our company.

Alternative Selection Process or Reasonable Accommodations: Candidates who require an alternative selection process or a “reasonable accommodation,” as defined under applicable disability laws, may make a request through our designated contact channel

national_recruiting@fsresidential.com

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national_recruiting@fsresidential.com

; we will respond in accordance with Local Law 144, within 30 days.