Location: Austin, United States of America
This is a hybrid position in Austin, TX
Position Summary
The Data Center Operations Lead is responsible for leading day-to-day data center and infrastructure operations, ensuring the availability, reliability, and security of critical production environments. This role provides technical leadership, operational oversight, incident coordination, and continuous service improvement while supporting global infrastructure with dedicated coverage during U.S. business hours. The position works closely with engineering, cloud, security, and cross-functional teams to maintain high service availability and operational excellence.
Essential Functions
- Lead daily operations of production data center and cloud infrastructure supporting global services.
- Coordinate and manage major incidents, problem management, and operational escalations during U.S. business hours.
- Ensure infrastructure availability, performance, security, and compliance with operational standards.
- Develop and maintain operational procedures, documentation, and runbooks.
- Drive automation and continuous improvement initiatives to increase operational efficiency.
- Coordinate maintenance activities, upgrades, and change implementations with engineering teams.
- Monitor infrastructure health and proactively identify operational risks.
- Mentor and provide technical guidance to operations engineers.
- Collaborate with Security, Network, Cloud, and Product Engineering teams to resolve complex infrastructure issues.
- Participate in on-call rotations and operational leadership as required.
- Track operational metrics, service levels, and capacity planning.
Minimum Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in field with a minimum of 5-8+ years of relevant work experience or Master’s degree in field with 4+ years of relevant work experience
- 7+ years of IT infrastructure or data center operations experience.
- 2+ years leading technical or operational teams.
- Strong knowledge of Windows and Linux server administration.
- Experience supporting VMware or other virtualization platforms.
- Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure.
- Experience with enterprise monitoring and incident management tools.
- Knowledge of networking fundamentals, storage, DNS, load balancing, and firewalls.
- Experience with scripting or automation (PowerShell, Python, Bash, or similar).
- Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work effectively across global teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience leading global infrastructure operations.
- Experience supporting cybersecurity products or SaaS platforms.
- ITIL Foundation certification.
- Microsoft, VMware, AWS, or Azure certifications.
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation frameworks.
- Experience managing major incidents in a 24x7 production environment.
Travel: Up to 10% travel for team meetings, data center activities, and operational planning.
If you’re excited about working with Thales, but not meeting the requirements for this position, we encourage you to join our Talent Community! https://careers.thalesgroup.com/global/en/jointalentcommunity. You can upload your CV and our recruiters can get in touch with any new opportunities that may be of interest to you.
Why Join Us?
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This position will require successfully completing a post-offer background check. Qualified candidates with [a] criminal history will be considered and are not automatically disqualified, consistent with federal law, state law, and local ordinances.
