Dynatrace Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Overview

We are seeking a Dynatrace Subject Matter Expert (SME) and Team Lead to oversee enterprise observability and application performance monitoring within a large financial services environment. This role is responsible for leading a team of six engineers while serving as the primary expert for the Dynatrace platform, including architecture, deployment, optimization, and governance. The individual will drive monitoring strategy, establish standards for alerting and instrumentation, and ensure full-stack visibility across complex hybrid environments (cloud and on-prem). They will also partner with development, DevOps, SRE, and infrastructure teams to proactively identify performance issues, support incident response, and deliver actionable insights that improve reliability and user experience.

The ideal candidate brings at least 6 years of hands-on Dynatrace experience in large enterprise environments, along with a strong background in observability, APM, or site reliability engineering. Proven leadership experience is required, including mentoring teams, managing priorities, and aligning technical initiatives with business outcomes. Deep knowledge of distributed tracing, real user monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, and AIOps capabilities is expected, along with familiarity with cloud platforms, containerized environments, and CI/CD pipelines. Experience in regulated industries such as financial services is highly preferred, along with strong communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Management:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of 6 Dynatrace engineers/analysts

• Set team priorities, manage workload distribution, and ensure delivery against SLAs and KPIs

• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and technical excellence

• Partner with senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to align observability initiatives with business goals

Dynatrace Expertise & Platform Ownership:

• Serve as the primary Dynatrace SME, owning the platform architecture, deployment, and optimization

• Design, implement, and maintain enterprise-scale Dynatrace environments (SaaS or Managed)

• Define and enforce monitoring standards, naming conventions, alerting strategies, and governance

• Implement advanced Dynatrace capabilities including:

◦ Distributed tracing

◦ Real User Monitoring (RUM)

◦ Synthetic monitoring

◦ Infrastructure monitoring

◦ AIOps and anomaly detection

• Optimize instrumentation for cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), on-prem, and hybrid environments

Observability Strategy & Execution:

• Develop and execute enterprise observability roadmap aligned to digital transformation initiatives

• Drive adoption of full-stack monitoring across application, infrastructure, and user experience layers

• Identify and eliminate observability gaps across critical systems

• Lead performance analysis, root cause investigations, and continuous improvement initiatives

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement:

• Work closely with application development, DevOps, SRE, infrastructure, and cybersecurity teams

• Act as a trusted advisor to engineering teams on performance engineering best practices

• Support incident management and post-incident reviews with actionable insights

• Provide executive-level reporting and dashboards on system health and performance trends

Governance & Compliance:

• Ensure monitoring solutions meet financial industry security, audit, and compliance requirements

• Maintain documentation, operational procedures, and platform standards

• Support audit and regulatory activities related to monitoring and observability

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years of hands-on experience with Dynatrace in large enterprise environments (required)

• 8+ years of overall experience in Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Observability, or SRE

• Proven experience leading or supervising technical teams

• Strong expertise in:

◦ Dynatrace OneAgent deployment and configuration

◦ Smartscape topology and service flow mapping

◦ Alerting, dashboards, and custom metrics/events

• Experience in financial services or other highly regulated industries preferred

• Solid understanding of:

◦ Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

◦ Microservices and containerized environments (Kubernetes, OpenShift)

◦ CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a proactive mindset

Preferred Qualifications:

• Dynatrace certifications (e.g., Dynatrace Professional or Associate Certification)

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, etc.)

• Knowledge of complementary tools (e.g., Splunk, AppDynamics, New Relic, Prometheus)

• Familiarity with scripting languages (Python, PowerShell, or Bash)

• Experience implementing AIOps or automation-driven monitoring strategies

Key Competencies:

• Leadership and team development

• Strategic thinking and execution

• Technical depth in observability platforms

• Communication and stakeholder management

• Problem-solving and decision-making under pressure

Additional Information

Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates. More information can be found at https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/benefits.