Water-Network Telemetry Recovery Leader — Metropolitan Utility

The mandate

The network-technology director resigned after frozen pressure values and an incorrect sensor-health assumption delayed recognition of a main failure. Field crews protected water quality and restored service, but operators cannot reconstruct when the control view stopped representing physical conditions or which downstream models consumed the stale values. A public review now requires accountable telemetry remediation before winter readiness.

The interim must start within two weeks for nine months, leading forensic review, network qualification, winter exercise and successor transfer. A permanent search begins after the first sixty-day control position. Five weeks of overlap are reserved; extension is possible only if a severe live event interrupts scheduled qualification, not to complete optional analytics or broad sensor replacement.

Handover requires critical pressure, flow, level and valve states to expose instrument health, communication status, freshness and physical plausibility; two network exercises must detect and manage silent failure; and three monthly evidence reviews must close without unexplained stale data. The successor will command an unseen main-break scenario and accept residual device, radio and model limitations.

The interim may quarantine signals, disable dependent automation, change telemetry control, direct the approved CA$26 million recovery and appoint temporary incident leads. Physical isolation, public communication, water-quality decisions, permanent appointment and spending above budget require authorised Operations or executive approval. The platform authority cannot direct field crews or override licensed control-room and public-health personnel.

Treatment modernisation, replacement of the hydraulic model and broad asset-management reform are outside this assignment. The leader may require interfaces and evidence but does not own network capital planning, customer compensation or historic telemetry cleansing without active operational or review need. Work must restore trusted situational awareness and safe manual continuity.

Why this seat is open

The frozen-value event showed that communications uptime and plausible readings could both look normal while the physical network diverged. Resignation removed the cross-functional owner during public scrutiny. A temporary utility operator must qualify signals against field reality and leave permanent leadership able to detect silent failure before another high-demand period.

What you will own

• Reconstruct the event across sensor, controller, radio, historian, hydraulic model, operator display, alarm and field response.
• Define signal health through calibration, freshness, change expectation, communication, physical plausibility and independent corroboration.
• Decide which telemetry may support automation, requires warning, needs secondary confirmation or must be removed from operational view.
• Direct exercises covering frozen value, calibration drift, radio partition, power loss, implausible correlation and model disagreement.
• Establish manual continuity with field verification, decision thresholds, communication and evidence capture during degraded telemetry.
• Govern remediation against earlier detection, trusted operator response, reduced blind automation and independently reproducible incidents.
• Transfer authority through winter readiness, an unseen break scenario and successor acceptance of device and communications debt.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive operational-technology or telemetry authority in water, energy, transport or another geographically distributed essential-service utility.
• Investigated silent sensor failure where a plausible value and healthy communications concealed consequential physical network change for operators.
• Governed calibration, radio, historian, hydraulic-model and control-room evidence while preserving licensed operator and water-quality authority.
• Designed field-verification, dispatch and manual-continuity procedures for widespread telemetry degradation across dispersed operating zones.
• Presented technical incident evidence to public officials, regulators or community oversight while separating proven cause from unresolved uncertainty.
• Handed a recovered utility platform to permanent leadership after witnessed seasonal readiness and unannounced physical-network exercises.

Non-negotiables

• Available within two weeks for exclusive Vancouver service and out-of-hours command during network incidents.
• Has carried production telemetry authority for physical infrastructure; generic IoT or dashboard delivery is insufficient.
• No undisclosed interest in sensor, radio, SCADA, historian or hydraulic-modelling suppliers involved.
• Will preserve licensed operations and water-quality decision rights even where platform controls appear conclusive.

1. 49 words maximum. State your Vancouver availability and one plausible but frozen signal whose physical impact you reconstructed.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you qualify telemetry health beyond communications uptime and range checking?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen network event would you require a successor to manage before handover?