Principal Technology Lead

In brief

• As Principal Technology Lead, you are Schiphol's voice in technological decision-making. You advise at an executive level and are a trusted advisor to Schiphol's leadership regarding technology strategy, investments, risks, and digital transformation.
• Schiphol is part of the vital infrastructure of the Netherlands. The technological choices you help shape contribute to the availability, security, continuity, and innovation capacity of an organization that millions of travelers, thousands of employees, and chain partners rely on daily.
• You provide direction for Schiphol's technological development. You connect business objectives, technology, risks, and investments, ensuring a cohesive long-term technological course.

About the role

As Principal Technology Lead, you are responsible for the technological direction, standards, and coherence within Schiphol. You help shape strategic technology choices, governance, investments, and innovation, ensuring Schiphol has a future-proof, secure, and scalable technological foundation. Decisions you contribute to have a direct impact on the continuity, cyber resilience, scalability, and innovation capacity of one of the most complex technological environments in the Netherlands. You are responsible for technological coherence across the entire Enterprise Technology landscape: from connectivity, cloud and datacenter services to digital workplace, identity, automation, integration platforms, and observability. How you achieve this is up to you. You will use your talents to:

• act as the technological authority within Digital & Technology and provide direction for Schiphol's technological development.
• act as a trusted advisor on strategic technology investments, digital transformation, and enterprise risks.
• shape technological decision-making through principles, standards, reference architectures, and governance frameworks.
• develop Schiphol's technological vision and multi-year course in collaboration with your stakeholders in the Digital & Technology organization.
• lead and develop Schiphol's senior technology community and build an organization where architecture, engineering, and platform development work together from a single technological vision.
• represent Schiphol towards strategic suppliers, technology partners, and relevant external networks.
• hierarchically lead the Technology Architecture team, consisting of Technology Leads per domain and Solution Architects, and increase their impact within the organization.

What you bring

You are a technology leader who effortlessly bridges strategy and execution. You combine deep technological expertise with administrative sensitivity, commercial insight, and an excellent sense for risk and decision-making. You make a difference by:

• naturally and effectively influencing from C-level to engineers based on vision, persuasion, and substantive leadership.
• translating technology into business value, risks, investments, and strategic choices.
• reducing complex technology issues to clear decision-making with financial, operational, and risk considerations.
• connecting people, teams, and organizations around a shared technological vision.
• being an inspiring leader who creates buy-in from C-level to senior technology professionals.

Furthermore, you have:

• excellent communication skills in Dutch and English.
• at least 15 years of experience in complex enterprise IT environments.
• at least 7 years of experience in a senior technology leadership role such as CTO, Head of Technology, Technology Lead, Director Technology, Chief Architect, or equivalent.
• experience leading managers, technology leads, architecture teams, or similar expert organizations.
• demonstrable experience advising senior decision-makers within complex organizations.
• experience in organizations with a high degree of operational complexity, continuity requirements, and societal impact.

Technology and strategy:

• proven track record in developing and implementing technology strategies at corporate level.
• experience with large-scale technology transformations in areas such as cloud, infrastructure, platforms, workplace services, and cybersecurity.
• deep knowledge of technology governance, enterprise architecture, and strategic portfolio management.
• insight into technological trends and the ability to translate them into concrete strategic choices.
• broad and in-depth knowledge of mission-critical technology environments.

Governance, risk, and investments:

• demonstrable experience with enterprise governance and formal decision-making structures.
• experience with multi-year technology investments, business cases, and technology portfolios.
• experience with enterprise risk management, cyber resilience, and operational continuity.
• experience with strategic sourcing issues and managing relationships with technology partners and suppliers at a senior level.

Good enough is good enough

You combine strategic vision with execution power. You are capable of initiating complex changes, creating administrative buy-in, and successfully helping to realize them within an environment with high availability and continuity requirements. Additionally:

• you know when something is good enough to proceed and maintain the balance between quality, risk, and speed.
• you maintain an overview of major technological issues and ensure coherence between strategy, decision-making, and realization.
• you challenge organizations to think differently and utilize new possibilities.
• you bring together ambition, direction, and execution power to achieve sustainable change.

Sourcing and supplier management:

You advise on strategic sourcing choices and help determine technological starting points, architectural principles, and assessment criteria for external service provision. You contribute to sustainable collaborations with technology partners and suppliers and ensure that technological choices align with Schiphol's long-term objectives.

What you get

• € 8442 to € 12207 gross per month (outside CAO 4-D).
• Variable remuneration.
• Participation in the ABP pension fund.
• 200 vacation hours.
• A mobility allowance that offers you various options; this budget can be used for, among other things, a lease car.
• Expense allowance.
• 16 diversity hours. You can use these hours to have extra time off on a holiday of your choice.
• An NS-Business Card that fully reimburses travel by public transport to and from work.
• Room for professional and personal development. For example, there is a personal sustainable employability budget for training, coaching, sports, and leave, among other things.
• An iPhone.
• Possibility for a lease bicycle.
• To support your development and health, you receive a personal sustainable employability budget (DIB). This budget is 2% of your annual salary. If you start employment after January 1st, the amount will be calculated pro rata.

About the Team

Enterprise Technology

Enterprise Technology is the department where all generic IT is consolidated. The department provides standardized building blocks such as infrastructure, platform, connectivity, and workplace services that are used by the Business Platforms for the development and management of their domain-specific solutions. Enterprise Technology thus forms the technological foundation of Digital & Technology and enables the Business Platforms to focus on maximizing value creation for their business domain.

Want to know more?

What are your talents? What are your dreams? What is your story? We are curious about you and invite you to apply.
You can apply by sharing your motivation and CV with us via the apply button below.

• Do you have questions about the application process? Ask Lars Jongkind, Recruitment Business Partner, via [email protected] or at 06-1983406.
• An assessment may be part of the process.

About Schiphol Group

With 4,200 proud colleagues, we go the extra mile to connect the Netherlands to the rest of the world as well as possible. Innovation, safety, and collaboration are paramount. Together, we give more meaning to travel and contribute to the economy and society. For over 100 years. In the Netherlands and abroad. Did you know, by the way, that:

… Schiphol Group is the owner and operator of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rotterdam The Hague Airport, and Lelystad Airport? We also have a majority stake in Eindhoven Airport.
… in 2023 there were approximately 442,000 flight movements to and from Schiphol Airport?