Disaster Recovery

General Description We are looking for an experienced Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Exercise Specialist (DBCM SME 2) with strong expertise in IT Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity Management (BCM), DR exercise planning, tabletop simulations, technical recovery testing, cyber recovery, and operational resilience. The successful candidate will be responsible for planning, coordinating, facilitating, and evaluating DR drills, backup/restore testing, failover/failback exercises, and tabletop simulations across critical business applications, IT infrastructure, and enterprise technology services. The role requires hands-on experience validating recovery capabilities against Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), Maximum Acceptable Outage (MAO), and predefined exercise success criteria. Candidates must be comfortable coordinating with IT Infrastructure, Applications, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Network, and Business Continuity teams to execute recovery exercises, document results, identify gaps, and ensure corrective actions are completed. Experience within energy, oil and gas, government, banking, utilities, or other critical infrastructure environments would be highly advantageous.

Key Responsibilities
• Establish and manage an annual Disaster Recovery drill and exercise program, including exercise schedules, scenario libraries, testing procedures, and success criteria.
• Plan, coordinate, and support technical DR drills covering backup/restore, failover/failback, component recovery, and partial/full recovery simulations.
• Validate recovery performance against RTO, RPO, MAO, criticality tiers, and service restoration requirements.
• Design and facilitate tabletop exercises, including cyber recovery scenarios, ransomware incidents, technology outages, and infrastructure failures.
• Configure and facilitate exercises using the client's Tabletop platform or equivalent tools, managing scenarios, injects, decision points, and evidence requirements.
• Coordinate cross-functional exercises involving IT, Infrastructure, Applications, Cybersecurity, Network, Cloud, and BCM teams.
• Capture exercise decisions, actions, timestamps, recovery milestones, technical evidence, and lessons learned.
• Develop and maintain DR exercise governance frameworks, testing standards, approval workflows, and assurance documentation.
• Prepare post-drill / After-Action Reports (AARs) covering test results, recovery timelines, RTO/RPO performance, identified gaps, and recommendations.
• Maintain audit evidence packs, findings registers, corrective action trackers, and remediation closure records.
• Support internal/external audits, regulatory assessments, and operational resilience assurance activities.
• Present exercise results, recovery risks, remediation progress, and improvement recommendations to senior stakeholders. Required Experience
• 8+ years of relevant experience, or client-approved equivalent, in IT Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, IT Operations, service restoration, or resilience testing.
• Strong hands-on experience planning, coordinating, and facilitating technical DR drills and tabletop exercises.
• Experience with backup/restore testing, failover/failback coordination, recovery simulations, and DR testing methodologies.
• Strong understanding of RTO, RPO, MAO, BIA, criticality classifications, and recovery dependencies.
• Experience developing DR exercise scenarios, injects, measurable success criteria, and testing schedules.
• Experience coordinating technical recovery activities across IT Infrastructure, Applications, Cybersecurity, and related teams.
• Knowledge of cyber recovery testing, including ransomware and major technology disruption scenarios.
• Experience producing structured exercise reports, technical evidence, recovery timelines, and lessons-learned documentation.
• Strong understanding of DR/BC governance, assurance frameworks, audits, evidence requirements, and remediation tracking.
• Experience managing findings registers, corrective actions, and validation of remediation closure.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, analytical, and documentation skills.
• Comfortable working independently within complex, regulated, and business-critical environments.
• Must be available for a full-onsite engagement in the UAE. Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Strong practical experience in Disaster Recovery testing, Business Continuity exercises, and operational readiness validation. Preferred Experience & Certifications
• ITIL, CBCP, ISO 22301, CBCI/MBCI, or equivalent DR/BC certifications.
• Cybersecurity Incident Response or Cyber Recovery certifications.
• Experience with Tabletop platform or similar exercise management tools.
• Knowledge of ISO 22301, ISO 27031, NIST SP 800-34, and relevant resilience frameworks.
• Experience with enterprise BCM/GRC tools such as ServiceNow, Archer, MetricStream, or Riskonnect.
• Experience supporting cloud/hybrid infrastructure recovery, backup systems, and enterprise applications.
• Experience within energy, oil and gas, government, banking, utilities, or critical infrastructure.
• Previous UAE/GCC experience and exposure to highly regulated enterprise environments. Work Setup
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Location:
UAE
• Work Setup: Full Onsite
• Engagement: Contract / Freelance