About the roleWe are seeking an experienced, player-coach IT Operations Manager to lead the day-to-day delivery of IT services across our corporate office and growing data center portfolio. Reporting to the VP of IT & Cybersecurity, you will own run-the-business IT operations - service delivery, infrastructure health, patching, backups, and network availability - while leading and developing a team of systems, network, and helpdesk professionals.
This is a hands-on leadership role: you will remain technically engaged in the environment, act as the senior escalation point, and take an active on-site role in the design, installation, and commissioning of IT infrastructure for new data center sites, with additional sites expected in the future. You will be a key partner in scaling the IT organization as the company grows.
What you'll do- Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and develop the IT Operations team (systems administration, network administration, and helpdesk), including 1:1s, performance management, growth plans, and hiring against the approved phased headcount plan.
- Service Delivery & ITSM: Own IT service delivery outcomes in ITSM - SLA performance, queue health, escalation paths, customer satisfaction, and operational reporting to leadership.
- Player-Coach Engineering: Remain hands-on across the core stack - Windows / Linux Servers, Vritual Environments and Backup Servers, Microsoft 365 (Entra ID, Exchange Online, Intune, SharePoint Online. Etc.,), Grafana, and enterprise networking - serving as the team's senior technical escalation point.
- Site Deployment & Commissioning: Travel 30-40% to lead the IT scope of new data center site deployments: rack and network design coordination, structured cabling oversight, server and network commissioning, and go-live support in partnership with construction and critical operations teams.
- Infrastructure Lifecycle: Own the patching and vulnerability remediation program for servers and critical endpoints, backup integrity and restore testing, storage and NAS health, capacity planning, and hardware/software asset lifecycle and procurement.
- Monitoring & Observability: Partner with IT & Cybersecurity leadership on the Grafana observability build - consolidating logs and telemetry from critical IT systems and Building Management System (BMS) sources - and manage maintenance windows and on-call coverage.
- Security & Compliance Partnership: Enforce security baselines and configuration standards; support investigation workflows for alerts escalated by SOC Team; provide evidence and control support to the Compliance Manager for ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, and PCI DSS audits.
- Vendor & Budget Management: Manage IT vendors, service contracts, licensing, and renewals; provide input to annual opex/capex budgeting and track spend against plan.
- Process & Documentation: Establish and maintain runbooks, configuration standards, change management discipline, and documentation so the environment is supportable beyond any single individual.
QualificationsRequired - Experience: 5-8 years of progressive IT infrastructure and operations experience, including 2+ years directly managing or leading technical staff (systems administrators, network administrators, or support technicians).
- Technical Depth: Demonstrated hands-on depth in Windows & Linux Server administration, Microsoft 365 tenant administration, virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, or Proxmox VE), and backup/recovery operations.
- Networking: Solid enterprise networking fundamentals (routing, switching, VLANs, firewalls, wireless) with the ability to guide and quality-check network administration work.
- Service Management: Experience running or materially improving an ITSM practice - SLAs, escalation management, and service reporting (Service Now, Zendesk, or similar ITSM or comparable platforms).
- Multi-Site & Data Center: Experience supporting multi-site infrastructure; direct exposure to data center environments, site buildouts, commissioning, or construction-adjacent IT delivery strongly preferred.
- Security & Compliance: Working knowledge of security and compliance operations - patching and vulnerability management discipline, access reviews, and audit support for frameworks such as ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, or PCI DSS.
- Flexibility & Mobility: Ability and willingness to travel 30-40% to regional and new-build sites; valid driver's license required.
- Leadership & Communication: Clear communicator who can translate technical status into business terms for executive stakeholders, with strong organizational discipline and a coaching mindset.
Preferred - Certifications such as ITIL 4 Foundation, CompTIA Security+ or Network+, CCNA, Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert (MS-102), or PMP.
- Experience in mission-critical, colocation, hyperscale, or other 24/7 uptime-driven environments.
- Exposure to international or multi-entity IT operations.
Benefits- Competitive salary range of $110-130k along with an annual performance bonus program
- 401k fully vested upon enrollment, up to a 4% employer match
- 100% employee premiums paid by employer for medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability
- Paid Time Off + Sick time
Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis.
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