Disaster Recovery Testing Lead

Experience

10-14 years total IT experience, with 5+ years in DR / IT Resilience / BCP delivery leadership

Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future. Northern Trust will not sponsor applicants for U.S. work visa status for this opportunity (no sponsorship is available for H-1B, L-1, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, F-1, J-1, OPT, CPT or any other employment-based visa)

Role Summary

The DR Testing Delivery Lead is responsible for end-to-end ownership of Disaster Recovery testing strategy, planning, execution, governance, and stakeholder communication across business-critical applications and infrastructure. This role ensures organizational resilience by validating recoverability, meeting RTO/RPO objectives, and aligning DR capabilities with regulatory, audit, and business expectations.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own enterprise DR testing strategy, testing Plans, and operating model
• Ensure alignment with BCP, IT Risk, Cyber Resilience, and Regulatory requirements
• Establish standardized DR test frameworks, runbooks, success criteria, and reporting
• Drive continuous improvement based on test outcomes, incidents, and audits
• Lead DR simulation, failover, and failback testing (technology-led and business-led)
• Coordinate end-to-end DR exercises across applications, infrastructure, cloud, and third-party vendors
• Validate RTO, RPO, MTD, and data consistency across DR events
• Ensure testing coverage for planned, unplanned, and cyber-driven DR scenarios
• Act as single point of accountability for DR testing delivery
• Partner with Application, Infrastructure, Security, Network, Cloud, and Business teams
• Manage executive-level communications, dashboards, and risk escalations
• Support internal/external audits, regulatory reviews, and compliance attestations
• Identify DR gaps, risks, and dependencies; drive remediation plans
• Provide Automation and Do better plans to reduce manual work.
• Ensure audit-ready documentation and evidence management
• Support incident post-mortems and lessons learned integration

Mandatory Technical Skills

• Disaster Recovery & BCP
• DR strategies (Active-Active, Active-Passive, Pilot Light, Backup & Restore)
• RTO, RPO, MTD definitions and validation
• DR runbooks, playbooks, and recovery sequencing
• Infrastructure & Platforms
• Data Centers, Virtualization (VMware), Storage replication
• Network DR (DNS, load balancers, firewalls)
• Backup and recovery tools (Cohesity/Data Domain, Native Azure backup solutions & Cohesity for M365 in the cloud)
• Cloud & Hybrid DR
• DR for Azure workloads
• Cloud-native DR patterns (ASR, AWS Elastic DR, snapshots, multi-region)
• Hybrid DR integrations
• Application & Data
• DR for Tier-1 / Tier-2 applications
• Databases (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, NoSQL)
• Data integrity, consistency, and reconciliation validation

Good-to-Have Technical Skills

• Integration with SOC, IR, and Cyber teams
• DR test automation and orchestration tools
• Scripting (Python, PowerShell, Bash)
• CMDB, ITSM, ServiceNow DR modules

Soft & Leadership Skills

• Strong delivery ownership and decision-making
• Executive-level communication and stakeholder management
• Risk-based thinking and escalation judgment
• Ability to manage cross-functional, geographically distributed teams
• Structured problem-solving and incident leadership
• High attention to documentation, compliance, and governance
• Coaching and mentoring DR coordinators and junior leads
• Change management and organizational influence
• Vendor and third-party DR governance

Certifications (Preferred / Nice to Have)

• ISO 22301 / ISO 27001
• ITIL, COBIT
• Cloud certifications (Azure Solutions Architect, AWS Architect)
• BCP/DR certifications (CBCP, MBCI - preferred)

Salary Range

$95,600 - 162,400 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust's history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.