Senior Manager, Gaming Technology

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Royal Caribbean Group’s Information Technology Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Senior Manager, Technical Product, Gaming Technology reporting to the Director, IT Shipboard Guest Experience.

Position Summary:

Based in Miramar, FL and reporting to the Director, Shipboard Technology for Guest Experience & Gaming, the Sr. Manager, Technical Product, Gaming Technology will be responsible for providing leadership and execute the strategic plan of specifically migrating our casino department into the future with a true Gaming Loyalty Platform.

This role will be responsible in driving the strategic path forward to move us to a real time gaming experience. The overall gaming strategy has been written, now we need to deliver on it. This Sr. Manager will be responsible to help focus on the right levers to pull at the right time and building the gameplan to get us onto the newest and greatest technology. This will be a role which will go across all 3 brands and ultimately work closely with the Director of Guest Experience & Gaming to ensure all capabilities are mapping back to the larger brand/enterprise strategic promises/goals.

The Senior Manager will lead several team members, in close collaboration with business stakeholders from across the corporation, to define the vision for the entire end-to-end Guest and casino ops crew, across all guest and crew touch points for their specific capability needs. In addition, this leader and her/his teams will be accountable for the successful launch of their capabilities from ideation through implementation, as well as ongoing level 4 support and product optimization. This role will also manage at least 2 managers (1 product and 1 tech product) who are responsible for the day-to-day continuity of our existing legacy platforms while continuing to push us forward in parallel as find new technology solutions to meet the strong goals ahead of us.

The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding and proven track record of product management strategy and user experience design with respect to gaming technology, as well as the ability to provide leadership towards the development of new onboard experiences in collaboration with multiple organizations. The ideal candidate will also have an eye toward the rapidly evolving technology landscape and provide leadership over advanced and emerging concepts, such as the impact and role of artificial intelligence in product development, to help both educate leaders across the company, as well as inform our forward-looking roadmap. S/he must be able to work with multiple product and project teams simultaneously, thrive in a fast-paced and dynamic environment and connect unexpected threads across disparate delivery teams.

The role will provide direct leadership over the individual contributors who bring our products to life, leading a team of employees, contractors, and vendors as new products and initiatives are ideated, designed, developed and executed. This leader requires the ability to direct teams that ideate and deliver high quality technology products for amazing guest experiences, by both fostering and demonstrating a culture of data-driven and end-user focused product thinking, innovation and engineering.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

At a high-level, responsibilities for this role will include:

• Casino Platform Technology strategy: Provides leadership over the strategic direction of a specifically our onboard real time platform needs across all brands and all touch points. Partner and collaborate closely with operational stakeholders from the various brands and across the corporation to understand how to adapt and evolve the strategy of our technology products based on the key specific platform needs of each of the brands.
• Product definition: Leads the team(s) responsible for the development of the casino real time platform vision and definition of a technology product or set of products by connecting multiple complex Guest and/or employee touch points (e.g., research, feedback, etc.), technology strategy (e.g., ship/shore standardization), business drivers and business value, with a Guest- and employee-first focus. Provide direct leadership to ensure that the product specifications that are created enable a desirable, feasible and viable product for the relevant end-user. In addition, the sr. manager must foster a highly collaborative team, where cross-discipline dynamic communication is paramount to the successful delivery of the product.
• Product delivery: The sr. manager is ultimately accountable for the technology product(s) that are created and developed, and is ultimately responsible for the on-time, on-budget and on-strategy delivery of our products and projects through careful prioritization and review
• Product standards: Leads the team(s) in setting the corporation-wide technology standards and practices (across product definition, product design and product engineering) and is ultimately responsible for a) ensuring that all delivery teams within her/his product set apply those practices to their various work products and b) continually aid in the active validation and evolution of those practices.
• Personnel management: Responsible for all aspects of personnel management (e.g., hiring, training and development, etc.) of direct reports and overall team

Key Technical Requirements:

• Experience with Integrated Casino Management Systems: Deep knowledge of casino floor tracking, customer management, and real-time data analytics. Familiarity with RFID, digital wallets, and personalized offer generation technologies is essential.
• Cloud and API-Based Architectures: Proficiency in implementing scalable, cloud-based solutions that allow seamless integration with third-party platforms, such as iGaming, sportsbooks, and social gaming systems.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Expertise in deploying AI and machine learning tools to optimize player experiences, forecast behaviors, and drive business intelligence for operational efficiency.
• Cybersecurity and Compliance: A strong understanding of security protocols and regulatory compliance (e.g., PCI-DSS, GDPR) to ensure secure transactions and player data protection.
• Project Management in High-Pressure Environments: Proven ability to manage large-scale modernization projects, vendor relations, and cross-functional teams, while delivering on time and within budget.

The candidate should be ready to lead a fast-paced transformation to elevate technology capabilities, positioning the business as an industry leader.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 10 years in a gaming / casino product, design or engineering senior leadership role
• Bachelor’s degree required, with a MS/MBA or other relevant advanced degree preferred
• Significant experience in leading teams/organizations in bringing high quality technology products to market

Knowledge and Skills:

The ideal candidate will possess a combination of strategy and execution skills at the enterprise level. This role requires that the candidate have a proven track record of leading large teams through ideation, design and delivery of complex Guest- and employee-facing products. 

Product & delivery depth:

• Deep knowledge and extensive track record in leading teams in the delivery of technology products, with a deep understanding of how to get consumer-centric solutions to market with a high degree of success.
• Experience leading casino platform products, design and engineering teams through a software development lifecycle that leverages agile principles yet recognizes constraints necessary in an environment that has both legacy systems and a construction lifecycle (such as New Build) with a long lead time.
• Ability to effectively provide overall leadership across a large and diverse delivery system, that spans product definition, design and engineering across front-end UI, services and back-end systems
• Exceptional verbal and written communication and project/program leadership skills, including the ability to communicate effectively at the senior most executive levels of a company.

Results oriented:

• Proven ability to collaborate with and achieve actionable results through others, plus the ability to build strong and sustainable relationships, and the capability to interact with all levels of the organization
• Ability to grasp the complexities of the business, Guest and employee and effectively translate that into a strategy that drives measurable results
• Ability to think of gaming strategically and drive ideas into action, with a positive outlook and willingness to take personal initiative and ensure platform decisions are made based on data

Work Environment:

Candidate will require to travel up to 25%.

Key Relationships:

The position will own the business relationships with all key stakeholders in the business, Director level and above.  The job holder is expected to chair regular stakeholder meetings and host customer advisory board updates to ensure the business is kept up to date with product roadmaps and to obtain stakeholder input into the roadmap. 

Financial Responsibilities:

The Job holder will provide input into Opex budget which is ultimately set by CIO.  Once set the job holder is held accountable for managing to the set budget for his/her cost center.  The job holder will provide budget estimates required to execute capital projects.  Once Capex projects are approved by Capital Committee the job holder is accountable for ensuring projects are delivered on or under budget.

• Responsible for the execution of the technology capex and opex products, assumed to be more than $5M - $10M per year
• Responsible for the product delivery budget, including vendor management, more than $5M per year
• May own Capital Appropriation Requests (CAR) of up to $50M

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon! 

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment. 

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