Incident Manager

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.
We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise. Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow. For more information, visit <WPP.com>. About Data & Technology Solutions
WPP's Data & Technology Solutions is WPP's unified global data products and technology team. We work with our agencies and clients to build data driven solutions and technology products to power marketing transformation.
WPP Open is our AI platform for marketing; it connects marketing professionals, data, tools, and AI in a single place. WPP Open is the simplest, safest, and fastest way to realize the benefits of scaled AI delivering better informed creative ideas faster, at scale, and at lower cost.
We're endlessly curious, and our team of thinkers, builders, creators, and problem solvers are over 2,000 strong, across 20 markets around the world.
Role Purpose
As Incident Manager for the WPP Open Platform, you will own the end to end incident management lifecycle from detection through resolution to post incident review ensuring platform stability, SLA compliance, and transparent communication across all stakeholders.
This is not a traditional incident management role. You will be expected to design, build, and continuously improve automated incident management workflows that connect our toolchain Jira, Confluence, Statuspage, Intercom, Zendesk, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp into a seamless, intelligent, and low friction incident response system.
You will serve as the central coordination point for all P1 and P2 incidents, driving rapid resolution, clear stakeholder communication, and proactive prevention. You will work closely with L1/L2 Support Engineers, the Team Lead, Platform Engineering, and Product teams to ensure WPP Open delivers a reliable, world class experience to our global agency users.
Incident Ownership & Response

Own the full incident lifecycle for all P1 and P2 incidents: detection, triage, escalation, coordination, resolution, and closure
Serve as the primary war room coordinator during major incidents, driving cross functional teams toward rapid resolution
Ensure timely and accurate stakeholder communication at every stage of an incident
Maintain a clear audit trail of all actions, decisions, and communications throughout each incident
Enforce and continuously improve escalation matrices, response time targets, and SLA commitments
Perform post incident reviews and drive root cause analysis (RCA) with actionable preventive measures
Track and report on incident metrics, SLA performance, MTTR, MTTD, and repeat incident trends

Incident Automation & Toolchain Integration

Design and implement automated incident workflows across the full toolchain: Jira, Confluence, Statuspage, Intercom, Zendesk, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp
Build and maintain ChatOps workflows in Slack and Teams automating incident channel creation, responder assignment, status updates, and escalation triggers
Automate Statuspage updates based on monitoring alerts and incident severity thresholds, ensuring real time public facing status communication with zero manual delay
Configure Jira automation rules for incident ticket creation, priority routing, SLA timers, escalation triggers, and post incident task generation
Automate customer facing communication through Intercom and Zendesk including incident acknowledgement messages, progress updates, and resolution notifications
Build WhatsApp and Teams notification workflows for executive and stakeholder briefings during critical incidents
Maintain and improve Confluence automation for RCA templates, incident documentation, and runbook generation triggered by incident closure
Integrate monitoring and alerting tools (Datadog, Statuspage, PagerDuty) with the communication stack to ensure zero gap detection to notification flows
Continuously evaluate and improve automation coverage reducing manual steps, improving response speed, and ensuring consistency across all incident communication channels

Process & Knowledge Management

Develop, maintain, and enforce incident management playbooks, runbooks, and escalation procedures
Build and maintain a centralized incident knowledge base in Confluence ensuring learnings from every major incident are captured and actioned
Define and own the post incident review process including templates, timelines, and accountability tracking for preventive actions
Identify recurring incident patterns and work proactively with engineering teams to eliminate root causes
Drive continuous improvement of incident detection, response, and communication processes

Stakeholder Communication & Reporting

Own all incident communications internal (engineering, product, leadership) and external (agency users via Intercom/Zendesk/Statuspage)
Produce regular incident reports, trend analyses, and SLA performance summaries for leadership and stakeholders
Present post incident reviews and improvement plans to the Support Manager and Platform leadership
Maintain stakeholder notification lists and communication templates across all channels

Collaboration

Work closely with L1/L2 Support Engineers and the Team Lead to ensure smooth ticket triage, escalation, and handover during incidents
Partner with DevOps and Platform Engineering to improve platform observability, alerting quality, and deployment safety
Collaborate with Product teams to communicate platform stability status and incident impact on feature delivery

Skill Requirements
Essential Skills
Incident Management:

Minimum 3+ years of hands on incident management experience in an enterprise SaaS or digital platform environment
Proven experience owning P1/P2 incident response end to end coordination, communication, escalation, and resolution
Deep understanding of ITIL Incident, Problem, and Change Management frameworks
Demonstrated experience in writing and maintaining incident runbooks, playbooks, and post incident reviews
Strong ability to manage multiple concurrent incidents calmly and effectively under pressure

Automation & Toolchain:

Jira / Jira Service Management: Advanced experience automation rules, workflow configuration, SLA management, dashboard creation
Confluence: Automation templates, structured documentation, RCA frameworks, space management
Statuspage: Configuring and automating incident pages, component management, subscriber notifications, API driven updates
Slack: Building incident workflows, channel automation, bot integration, ChatOps implementation
Microsoft Teams: Automated notifications, incident bridge coordination, webhook integrations
Intercom: Automated customer messaging, incident broadcast campaigns, user segmentation for notifications
Zendesk: Ticket automation, trigger configuration, macro management, SLA rules
WhatsApp Business API or equivalent: Automated stakeholder notification workflows (desirable)
Experience integrating monitoring tools (Datadog, PagerDuty, or similar) with communication platforms via webhooks, APIs, or native integrations

Communication & Soft Skills:

Exceptional written and verbal communication ability to deliver clear, concise updates to both technical and non technical audiences simultaneously
Proven ability to remain composed and authoritative under pressure during major incidents
Strong stakeholder management skills comfortable presenting to senior leadership during and after incidents
Ability to write structured, jargon free incident communications for agency/end users

Desirable Skills

ITIL Foundation or higher certification
Familiarity with Datadog or similar APM tools for monitoring to incident integration
Knowledge of SLO/SLI/Error Budget frameworks
Experience building incident management programs from scratch in a fast scaling platform environment

Behaviours
You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures for our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with confidence: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
You're extraordinary: We are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we deliver extraordinary every day.We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.
WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.
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