Research Services Manager

A cover letter detailing your interest in the position and research, and leadership skills that would make you uniquely qualified should be included with your resume.

The University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts is hiring a Research Computing Services Manager to join a diverse team of professionals dedicated to successful research. You will report to the Director for Research, Computing, & Infrastructure in the Technology Services department.

Salary Range - $115,000-$133,000.

About The Job

Your time will be spent developing and implementing LSA research technology service strategy and providing IT Service Management while leading a team of 15 talented analysts and programmers. You will directly supervise a team of 8 talented high-performance computing, research storage, and geographical information systems analysts, and a supervisor who leads a team of research software engineers and digital scholarship experts.

The team's mission is to bring world-class technology tools into researchers' labs, classrooms, and grants to enable their individual research vision. We deliver training and support as research faculty, staff, and graduate students on board with the university and college, ensuring they adopt critical campus services. We partner with researchers to make critical software work on U-M's computing cluster. We assist with the management of research datasets in alignment with lifecycle best practices, ensuring compliance with federal laws and frameworks. We train and consult on the use of geographical information systems to assist researchers, faculty, and students in visually telling their stories with maps and other geospatial tools. We build custom research applications and websites, using stable and repeatable software development and project management techniques that persist through research lab staff turnover. Finally, together with the U-M Libraries, we enable humanities and qualitative social scientists in the creation of digital scholarship, online exhibits, and storytelling. All of these teams use a wide portfolio of tools, solutions, resources, and professional skills. They learn new academic and scientific subject areas with each effort, and form relationships with researchers who are the Leaders and Best in their field.

Your role will be to lead this remarkable team and their services. Together with the Director of Research, Computing, and Infrastructure, the LSA CIO, and research leadership in the Dean's Office, you'll be building a strategic vision for these services and tactical projects that help the team achieve that vision over time. You'll assist in building sustainable funding models for all services, define how limited staffing resources are equitably allocated to interested faculty, and potentially assist in growing the team as researcher demand and college support for the research mission align. You'll also help own the relationship between the college and campus to ensure that enterprise research technology services meet the needs of the LSA community.

The majority of your time in a typical week will be spent leading people, providing effective coaching to hire, orient, grow, and support staff, and completing all college and university administrative processes for your team. Another major component of each week will be managing research services in partnership with IT and Research leadership, including service vision, operational metrics, assisting with unique research agreements, or facilitating programming. A smaller but essential part of your role will be managing team and service projects, ensuring continuous progress and accountability for delivering commitments on time, on budget, and within scope. And within that busy schedule, we expect that you'll continue to invest in YOUR professional development and development for your team, staying abreast of national technology developments and trends.

About You

You are a self-motivated, team builder who brings creativity, analytical thinking, and communication to the LSA Technology Services Management team. You will bring to our team relationship building, strategic thinking, coaching, delegation, adaptability to change, follow-through, excellent customer service, and strong administration skills. If you have experience with research activities, it will help you hit the ground running (or at least walking), but it isn't required.

You lead with respect, build resilient teams and relationships across the college. You can lead up, across, and down to serve the research mission. You have experience coaching, delegating, providing feedback, and creating accountability. You can employ your network to consult with a wide range of faculty and researchers from many different disciplines, some more technical than others, and each requiring you to use your verbal and written communication skills to build and maintain positive relationships.

You might have a CS degree. You might not. That's not what we're looking for. We care about what you can do and how you do it, not about how you got here. A track record of conscientious, thoughtful work speaks volumes.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, business administration, communications, or a related field, and/or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience translating technically complex information for non-specialists.
• 8 years of experience in serving in progressively responsible technical and administrative roles in a large/complex technical organization.
• 2 years of management experience with proven ability to build and lead a team to exceed customer expectations and promote staff development.
• Demonstrated strong, effective communication abilities and proven ability to lead project teams and meet customer expectations.
• Demonstrated experience recruiting, hiring, and engaging technical staff.
• Ability to implement process improvement and drive towards process adoption.
• Proficient in utilizing word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications.

• Experience supporting research computing technologies.
• Experience conducting research projects or other significant scholarly work with some use of relevant computing services.
• Experience leading automation initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience with budget planning and conformance.
• Grant writing experience.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Why Work at LSA?

In addition to a career filled with purpose and opportunity, the University of Michigan offers comprehensive benefits and wellness programs and a generous benefits package to help you stay well and support you as you plan for a secure future.

As one of the world's great liberal arts colleges, LSA pushes the boundaries of what is understood about the human experience and the natural world, and we foster the next generation of rigorous and empathetic thinkers, creators, and contributors to the state of Michigan, the nation, and the world.

To learn more about LSA's Mission, Vision and Values, please visit lsa.umich.edu/strategicvision.

Mission Statement

The mission of the University of Michigan is to serve the people of Michigan and the world through preeminence in creating, communicating, preserving and applying knowledge, art, and academic values, and in developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future.

The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks.  Background checks are performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days.  The review and selection process may begin as early as the eighth day after posting. This opening may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

The University of Michigan is an equal employment opportunity employer.