DescriptionThe Infrastructure Manager is a people leader responsible for directing the day-to-day work, development, and performance of the Helpdesk and Systems Administration teams. The position establishes operational priorities, strengthens service delivery, promotes consistent infrastructure practices, and ensures that team activities align with business, security, compliance, and availability requirements.
This role maintains sufficient technical knowledge across server, cloud, identity, endpoint, virtualization, backup, and networking technologies to guide decisions, assess risk, support escalations, and communicate effectively with technical specialists. The manager is not expected to serve as the organization's primary senior engineer or to personally own every complex technical implementation.
The Infrastructure Manager reports to the Director of IT and works in partnership with systems engineering and cybersecurity-related roles. These specialist roles report directly to the Director of IT and are key collaborators rather than direct reports of the Infrastructure Manager.
Essential Duties & ResponsibilitiesReasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
People Leadership & Team Development- Provide direct supervision, coaching, performance management, and professional development for Helpdesk Technicians and Senior Systems Administrators.
- Establish clear expectations, individual objectives, development plans, and accountability for assigned staff.
- Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, team meetings, performance reviews, and constructive feedback discussions.
- Assess staffing capacity, skills, workload, and coverage needs; recommend hiring, training, succession, or organizational changes to the Director of IT.
- Lead recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and role-specific training for positions within the manager's reporting structure.
- Promote cross-training, knowledge sharing, documentation, and dependable backup coverage across the Helpdesk and Systems Administration functions.
- Build a service-oriented culture focused on ownership, communication, collaboration, continuous improvement, and timely follow-through.
Operational Management & Service Delivery- Plan, assign, prioritize, and monitor operational work, support queues, maintenance activities, and infrastructure projects performed by direct reports.
- Oversee Helpdesk service delivery, incident escalation, request fulfillment, user communications, and resolution quality; use service metrics and recurring issue trends to improve performance.
- Coordinate Systems Administration activities supporting servers, identity, Microsoft 365, Azure, endpoints, virtualization, storage, backup, and related enterprise platforms.
- Establish and maintain practical operating procedures, support standards, escalation paths, on-call or after-hours coverage expectations, and handoff practices.
- Ensure infrastructure work is planned and executed with appropriate change management, configuration management, testing, documentation, rollback planning, and stakeholder communication.
- Monitor operational risk, aging work, service interruptions, resource constraints, and unresolved dependencies; escalate material concerns to the Director of IT.
- Coordinate response and recovery activities during infrastructure incidents while ensuring that technical specialists and business stakeholders are engaged appropriately.
Infrastructure Governance, Planning & Compliance- Provide management oversight for the availability, performance, lifecycle, standardization, and supportability of on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
- Contribute to infrastructure roadmaps, capacity planning, hardware and software lifecycle planning, disaster recovery, business continuity, and technology standardization.
- Ensure direct reports follow approved security policies, access control requirements, change controls, documentation standards, and compliance obligations, including applicable CMMC and NIST requirements.
- Support audits and assessments by ensuring infrastructure records, procedures, approvals, inventories, configurations, and evidence are complete and maintained.
- Oversee asset management and standardization activities for supported equipment and software.
- Assist the Director of IT with infrastructure budget planning, forecasting, purchasing priorities, vendor performance, licensing, support agreements, and service delivery.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Technical Collaboration- Partner with the systems engineering and cybersecurity teams on architecture, complex incidents, security requirements, technical standards, and major changes without assuming direct supervisory authority over those roles.
- Collaborate with business leaders and other departments to clarify requirements, set realistic priorities, communicate risk, and coordinate infrastructure-related work.
- Serve as a management escalation point for service, prioritization, resource, and customer-impact concerns, while engaging the appropriate technical specialist for deep engineering decisions.
- Translate technical issues, operational risk, dependencies, and recommended actions into clear business language for leadership and stakeholders.
- Lead or oversee infrastructure-related projects, including deployments, migrations, upgrades, integrations, and process improvements.
- Perform other IT-related duties as required.
Supervisory ResponsibilityThis position has direct reports.
Required Education and Experience- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Systems Management, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
- 5-8+ years of progressive experience in IT infrastructure, systems administration, service delivery, or related IT operations
- 3+ years of formal supervisory or people-management experience, preferably leading both support and infrastructure personnel
- Demonstrated experience managing employee performance, coaching technical staff, assigning work, resolving priority conflicts, and developing team capability
- Experience overseeing operational processes such as incident management, request fulfillment, escalation, change management, documentation, maintenance planning, and project delivery
Required Technical KnowledgeCandidates should possess broad working knowledge sufficient to supervise technical teams, evaluate recommendations, recognize operational risk, and participate effectively in escalations. Deep hands-on engineering expertise in every area is not required.
- Windows Server and Active Directory environments, including identity, authentication, permissions, Group Policy, and related administration concepts
- Microsoft 365 and Azure services, cloud infrastructure, and cloud security fundamentals
- Virtualization, server, storage, endpoint, and systems monitoring concepts
- Networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs, and wireless services
- Backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, high availability, and recovery testing concepts
- Cybersecurity and compliance fundamentals, including least privilege, vulnerability management, logging, patching, access control, change control, CMMC, and NIST frameworks
- IT service management principles, ticketing and escalation workflows, asset management, lifecycle planning, and operational metrics
Additional Qualifications- Strong leadership presence with the ability to set expectations, make decisions, hold staff accountable, and maintain trust
- Ability to balance operational urgency, project commitments, security and compliance requirements, staff workload, and business impact
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical issues to nontechnical stakeholders
- Approachable, teachable, and collaborative leadership style with a commitment to employee development and organizational improvement
- Strong planning, organization, delegation, prioritization, analytical thinking, and follow-through
- Ability to influence stakeholders, manage conflict, and drive decisions across teams where direct authority may not exist
- Experience working with vendors and service providers for procurement, support, renewals, and service delivery
- Knowledge of general ERP business procedures and practices
- Competency in the Microsoft Office application suite
Work EnvironmentThis job operates in a remote environment with occasional on-site requirements.
Physical DemandsThe physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear. The employee frequently is required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms.
Position Type/Expected Hours of WorkThis position typically works Monday-Friday during day shift hours. Business needs may sometimes require long hours and weekend work.
TravelAt least 10% out-of-the-area and overnight travel may be required for training or project work.
Benefits:- Competitive salary and bonus structure
- Comprehensive health, dental, and retirement plans
- Ongoing professional development opportunities
- A dynamic and collaborative work environment
Other DutiesPlease note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
