GM, Operational Automation Engineering (Melbourne, Australia)

Every day, millions of Australians connect, work, stream, and stay in touch on the Optus network. When it works seamlessly, it's easy to take for granted. But behind it is a team making thousands of decisions every day - decisions that keep people, businesses and communities connected.

Right now, Optus is passionate about getting the fundamentals right - simplifying how we work, lifting standards, and building a more reliable, resilient experience for our customers. It's not about surface-level change. It's about how we make decisions, how we work together, and how we deliver.

The Senior Director, Operational Automation Engineering leads the automation, orchestration and AI platform capabilities that enable Optus Network Operations to evolve from manual processes to governed, autonomous operations. The role is responsible for ensuring automation is scalable, secure, auditable and commercially sustainable while delivering improved operational efficiency, faster service restoration and better customer outcomes through collaboration across technology, operations and strategic partners.

What You’ll Do

- Own and deliver the automation, orchestration and AI platform strategy, roadmap and maturity journey for Network Operations.

- Define the target operating model and drive the transition from assisted operations to closed-loop and autonomous execution.

- Lead the engineering of scalable automation frameworks, workflows, APIs and standards to improve efficiency, reliability and governance.

- Develop cross-domain orchestration and autonomous operational capabilities with appropriate controls, oversight, escalation and risk management.

- Oversee AI platform engineering, governance and FinOps to ensure secure, resilient, cost-effective and scalable AI services.

- Establish performance metrics, governance frameworks and value-realisation measures, including automation adoption, MTTR reduction and cost efficiency.

- Lead senior stakeholders, strategic partners and multidisciplinary teams while building a culture of engineering excellence, accountability and continuous improvement.

What You’ll Bring

Extensive executive leadership experience across telecommunications, Network Operations, automation, orchestration, AI platforms or large-scale technology environments.

• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale automation, orchestration, closed-loop operations, autonomous systems or AI platform capabilities.

• Strong understanding of automation engineering, event-driven architectures, workflow orchestration, AI-assisted decisioning, control loops and AI runtime platforms.

• Proven ability to define automation and autonomy strategy, governance, engineering standards and maturity pathways for production environments.

• Strong understanding of operational risk, production assurance, cyber security, resilience, AI governance and FinOps for highly automated systems.

• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and influence senior stakeholders across Operations, Engineering, Architecture, Security and Technology.

• Strong commercial, financial and vendor management capability, including investment prioritisation, platform economics and value realisation.

• Relevant tertiary qualifications in Engineering, Telecommunications, Computer Science, AI, Technology or equivalent significant industry experience.

The good stuff …

- Competitive remuneration and employee discounts. Make life easier (and more affordable) with $80 monthly credit and 25% off Optus products and unique shopping discounts with our retail partners.

- Flexible working arrangements with opportunities to work three days in the office, two days remote or home.

- Competitive leave policies, including additional 'Connected’ days to focus on culture, family, health, community, or whatever’s important to you.

- We support growing families with inclusive, carer-neutral paid Parental Leave of up to 16 weeks.

- Direct your own development and build future-ready skills with Optus U’s industry-focused micro-credentials, developed with La Trobe and Macquarie Universities.

- Build meaningful connections through employee-led networks and diversity initiatives including Culture Connect, Elevate Women, Disability Network and Express Yourself (LGBTQIA+).

- Put your wellbeing first with free access to counselling and support services, 24/7 — in-person, by phone, SMS, or video.

At Optus, we are strengthened by others and that means valuing diversity and saying ‘yes’ to embracing individual differences. We are committed to ensuring that our application process provides an equal employment opportunity to all job seekers, including individuals from diverse gender, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, individuals with a disability, individuals identifying as being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, individuals who may have served in the armed forces or who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

We also want to do our best to make our recruitment process inclusive. If you require any adjustments or accessibility support, please email  AccessibleRecruitment@optus.com.au  or call 1800 309 170. We’re here to help. When you contact us, please advise your preferred method of contact and we will be in touch within 48 hours. For more information on Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Optus, please visit  https://www.optus.com.au/about/inclusion-diversity .