Director Network Observability Jobs in Chicago, IL

Job Title: Senior Director, Network Operations

Department: Technical

Reporting To: Senior Vice President, IT Operations

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Philadelphia, Chicago or Denver - On-Site

The anticipated salary for individuals expressing interest in this position is $160,000.00/Yr.

Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities and location of the applicant, as well as internal and external equity.

Audacy offers employees who are eligible for benefits with a comprehensive benefits package which includes a health care coordinator, medical, dental, vision, mental health, telemedicine, flexible spending accounts, health savings account, disability, life insurance, critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, paid time off (sick, flex-time away/vacation days, personal, parental, volunteer), 401(k) retirement plan, legal assistance, life assistance program, identity theft protection, discounted home and auto insurance, and pet insurance.

Overview:

The Senior Director, Network Operations is a technology leader responsible for overseeing enterprise‑scale operational excellence, service continuity, and reliability across broadcast, audio, streaming, and IT infrastructure on a national scale. This role leads two distinct teams under the same NOC umbrella; Streaming Operations and Broadcast NOC engineering in a 24/7 mission‑critical observability environment, and ensures the performance and integrity of platforms that support $1B+ in annual revenue and millions of daily listeners.

This role carries a 24/7 operational accountability and requires active participation in an on‑call rotation. The Senior Director is expected to be available and responsive to critical incidents at any time, including nights, weekends, and holidays, and to provide hands‑on leadership during high‑severity events to ensure rapid resolution and minimal business impact.

The ideal candidate combines deep operational expertise, modern architectural thinking, and outstanding leadership skills to align technology initiatives with business objectives, accelerate innovation, and scale systems to support next‑generation broadcast and digital experiences.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead a technical operations department that oversees technology health across 47 U.S. markets, ensuring uptime, service quality, and alignment with company‑wide technology and business strategy.
• Oversee Streaming Ops team that owns infrastructure, delivery pipelines, and monitoring systems that support high‑availability platforms with 99.999% uptime.
• Drive operational excellence, defining cross‑functional standards, SLOs, incident response practices, and long‑term service strategies.
• Oversee a multi‑time‑zone 24/7 NOC responsible for proactive monitoring, rapid incident response, and executive‑level communications.
• Develop new NOC service offerings, operational dashboards, and proactive maintenance workflows to enhance reliability and prevent outages.
• Design and implement technical dashboards and telemetry pipelines across GCP, AWS, corporate infrastructure, and 300+ on‑prem broadcast facilities.
• Transform raw operational data into actionable insights for budget planning, resource allocation, and executive decision‑making.

• Architect and implement scalable solutions for content distribution, observability, automation, and real‑time operations.
• Guide innovation initiatives including edge computing and AI‑driven operational workflows.
• Integrate generative AI tools and APIs to streamline processes, reduce manual workloads, and enhance cross‑team collaboration across IT, infrastructure, and non‑technical departments.
• Support on‑prem technical infrastructure across 300+ broadcast facilities, including broadcast transmitters, remote control systems, STLs, Air Chains, AOIP Networks, Mission Critical Servers, ISPs, etc.

• Participate in internal technical advisory boards through the NOC’s observability lens, providing guidance and advice on strategy and feasibility.
• Establish enterprise documentation standards and oversee a knowledge ecosystem of 1,000+ pages and 200+ training videos.
• Promote best practices for operational sustainability, security, and modernization across broadcast engineering, IT, and business teams.

• Provide direction, mentorship, and career development to engineers, managers, and technical leads.
• Strengthen alignment between technical and non‑technical stakeholders, including Sales, Revenue Operations, IT, Programming, and Executive teams.
• Cultivate a culture of transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated success aligning technology with business outcomes in high‑revenue, consumer‑facing environments.
• Strong communication, executive stakeholder management, and cross‑functional leadership skills.

More About You:

Required:

• 10+ years of experience in broadcast technology operations, enterprise IT infrastructure, or large‑scale digital platforms.
• Proven leadership of multi‑disciplinary teams, including NOC operations and distributed engineering groups.
• Experience with broadcast remote control systems such as Burk Technology for transmitter site monitoring and management.
• Knowledge of RF broadcast transmission systems, including Nautel and Gates Air transmitters.
• Familiarity with Audio over IP networks, particularly Telos Axia platforms.
• Experience with broadcast automation and traffic systems such as Wide Orbit Automation.
• Understanding of Nielsen audience measurement systems and methodologies.
• Knowledge of Emergency Alert System (EAS) requirements and compliance.
• Familiarity with FCC licensing regulations, responsibilities, and compliance standards.
• Background in observability, monitoring tools, automation, cloud systems, and incident management.
• Strong communication, executive stakeholder management, and cross‑functional leadership skills.

• Familiarity with AI tools and emerging technologies, including platforms such as Claude, Gemini, and OpenAI.
• Hands‑on experience with Grafana, Cisco, GCP/AWS, and enterprise integration tools.
• Proficiency with Python, API integrations, and scripting for operational automation.
• Experience with enterprise platforms including Active Directory, Windows Server, Google Workspace, Jira, Confluence, Slack, and Zendesk.
• Expertise in process optimization, DR/BCP planning, and operational strategy.

Audacy will never ask you to send money at any point during the hiring process. Communication from legitimate Audacy representatives will only come from email addresses ending in @audacy.com. If you receive any suspicious requests or communications, please verify their authenticity before responding.

Audacy is a leading audio content and entertainment company. As champions of audio, we connect with people in the moments that matter — delivering trusted local news, passionate sports and your favorite music across 220+ radio stations, premium podcasts, live events and digital experiences that reach more than 200 million listeners every month. We create compelling content, foster deeply engaged audiences and deliver outcomes that matter for advertisers. Learn more at www.audacyinc.com and join the conversation on LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram.

Audacy is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Audacy affords equal employment opportunity to qualified individuals regardless of their race, color, religion or religious creed, sex/gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, age (over 40), physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or other classification protected by applicable federal, state, or local law, and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Consistent with our commitment to equal employment opportunity, we provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities who need assistance in applying electronically for a position with Audacy, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship. To request a reasonable accommodation for this purpose, please call 1-610-660-5614. Please note that this phone number is to be used solely to request an accommodation with respect to the online application process. Calls for any other reason will not be returned. Reasonable accommodation requests are considered on a case‑by‑case basis.