Space Ground System Solutions, a Parsons company, has an immediate full-time opening for a Director of IT & DevOps Operations located on-site at our customer facility in Southern Maryland. In this role, you will serve as the primary on site lead and single point of accountability, acting as the principal liaison between customer leadership, program stakeholders, and technical delivery teams. You will steer the strategic, budgetary, and customer-facing operations of the IT environment while partnering with the established Service Desk Manager (who leads user-facing ticket resolution) and the IT Technical Lead (who oversees hands on infrastructure engineering). Crucially, this role will also serve as the centralized operational manager for our DevOps teams-unifying and organizing what are currently independent technical leads and contributors into a disciplined, high-performing DevSecOps delivery engine. Additionally, you will implement practical IT service management frameworks (such as FitSM or ITIL) to establish and govern the complete SGSS IT Service Portfolio, ensuring all operational capabilities align with mission requirements and program funding.
JOB RESPONSIBILITIES- Serve as the primary on site leadership lead at the customer facility, establishing strong working relationships with government sponsors, facility leadership, and program managers.
- Lead customer facing technical and requirements intake meetings, translating mission and sponsor objectives into clear, actionable IT and software engineering roadmaps.
- Define, implement, and maintain the comprehensive SGSS IT Service Portfolio, managing services across their entire lifecycle (service pipeline, active service catalog, and retired services) to maximize mission value.
- Apply practical, lightweight IT Service Management (ITSM) principles-leveraging FitSM or ITIL-to standardize service delivery, change management, and configuration tracking without creating cumbersome bureaucracy.
- Serve as the operational manager for the DevOps workgroup; unify independent leads and technical contributors into a cohesive team, organizing sprint cadences, standardizing work-tracking frameworks, and driving CI/CD maturation.
- Formulate, track, and manage the full IT and infrastructure services budget, overseeing CapEx/OpEx, enterprise software licenses (e.g., Okta, Slack, GitLab), cloud resources, and third-party vendor contracts.
- Partner with the onsite Service Desk Manager to review service delivery metrics, establish escalation pathways, and ensure tier-level customer support meets operational SLAs.
- Work closely with the IT Technical Lead to ensure infrastructure investments directly support the uptime, storage, and networking needs of the satellite ground software engineering teams.
- Evaluate equipment and services selection through disciplined cost, performance, and risk trade off analyses.
- Ensure administrative compliance and audit-readiness across the environment in alignment with NIST SP 800-171, CMMC, and DoD cloud computing guidelines.
- Establish, monitor, and brief performance data and operational metrics to executive stakeholders and customer leadership.
REQUIRED SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS- Active DoD Secret security clearance with the eligibility to attain a DoD TS/SCI
- Must be a U.S. citizen
- Bachelor's Degree in relevant field (i.e., Computer Science, Software Engineer, Information Technology) or equivalent combination of military service, professional IT/cybersecurity certification, and program management experience, plus 15 years of related experience
- At least 15 years of relevant experience in delivering IT and software engineering solutions in heterogeneous hardware and platform environments
- Demonstrated experience managing budgets, tracking program expenditures, and negotiating vendor software subscriptions and Enterprise Agreements
- Experience establishing and governing an enterprise IT Service Portfolio and Service Catalog
- Working knowledge of IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks, with specific experience implementing or operating under FitSM, ITIL, or ISO/IEC 20000 standards
- Familiarity and experience with industry best practices for disciplined IT support prioritization, backlog management, and work tracking (e.g., Agile, Scrum, Kanban)
- Ability to translate customer requirements and performance metrics into operational actions that improve service quality and system availability
- Ability to document, analyze and report performance data and metrics and to translate that information into actions that improve the quality of end user support services
- Familiarity with developing and implementing a Configuration management for IT services
- Implementation of IT system active monitoring and response
- Ability to direct quality customer service activities and to be a model of customer-service performance to assigned staff
PREFERRED SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS- Current, active DoD TS/SCI security clearance
- Direct experience supporting space ground architectures, satellite operations, or aerospace defense tracking facility programs
- FitSM Foundation / Advanced or ITIL v3/v4 Foundation certification
- Experience managing DevSecOps pipelines and tools (e.g., GitLab CI/CD, containerized deployments, Kubernetes)
- Project Management Professional (PMP) or Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
- CISSP - Certified Information Systems Security Professional
SGSS believes in taking care of their employees by offering:
- ALL benefits fully funded, for your entire family
- this includes Medical/Dental/Vision/Group Life/STD/LTD - no employee premiums
- SGSS funded HSA (Health Savings Account) provided
- with SGSS funding the maximum amount allowed by the IRS
- Retirement Savings Plan (RSP/401k) with a 20% annual company contribution - no employee contribution required
