Director, IT Operations

This is a remote position.

Director of IT Operations 

About the Role 

The Director of IT Operations is responsible for the day-to-day delivery, reliability, and security of the company's IT environment. This leader owns the people, processes, and technology behind change management, the service desk, end-user support, infrastructure operations, and operational security. Reporting to the CIO/VP of  Technology, the Director of IT Operations sets the standard for operational discipline,  audit readiness, and service quality across the organization. 

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has built operational programs from  the ground up, who can sit equally well in a Change Advisory Board, an executive  readout, or a Sev 1 bridge call, and who measures success in uptime, audit findings,  ticket SLAs, and team development. 

Key Responsibilities 

Change Management & Governance 

• Own the enterprise change management program, including policies, workflows, and approval gates for all production changes. 
  
• Chair the Change Advisory Board (CAB), facilitating risk review, implementation readiness, rollback planning, and final approval of change requests. ∙ Ensure 100% compliance on deployment plans, test evidence, rollback  procedures, and post-change validation for every production change. ∙ Maintain complete audit trails and documentation in the ticketing system (e.g.,  Jira, ServiceNow) to support internal and external audits. 
  

Help Desk & End-User Support 

• Lead the IT service desk and end-user support function, setting SLA targets for  response, resolution, and customer satisfaction. 
  
• Oversee employee onboarding/offboarding, device provisioning, access management, and lifecycle support for laptops, peripherals, and software. ∙ Drive continuous improvement in ticket quality, first-contact resolution, knowledge  base coverage, and self-service capability. 
  
• Develop tiered support structure (Tier 1 through Tier 3) with clear escalation paths and ownership. 
  

Incident & Problem Management 

• Own the full incident lifecycle: detection, triage, escalation, communication,  resolution, and post-incident review. 
  
• Coordinate cross-functional response on Sev 1 and Sev 2 incidents, including  executive communication and bridge facilitation. 
  
• Drive root cause analysis (RCA), corrective action tracking, and closure for all high-severity events. 
  
• Establish and maintain monthly, quarterly, and annual availability, outage, and trend reporting for senior leadership. 
  

Infrastructure Operations & Monitoring 

• Oversee 24x7 monitoring, alerting, and operations functions across production and corporate environments. 
  
• Own the operational monitoring and observability stack (e.g., Splunk, Datadog,  PagerDuty, Site24x7), ensuring detection coverage, alert quality, and on-call  effectiveness.
  
• Partner with engineering and infrastructure teams to ensure operational readiness of new services before release. 
  

Security & Compliance 

• Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to maintain SOC, PCI, and  other applicable audit readiness across IT operations. 
  
• Enforce access controls, change controls, and operational security standards across systems and endpoints. 
  
• Serve as the operational point of contact for auditors, evidence gathering, and control attestation. 
  

Vendor & Asset Management 

• Manage relationships with hardware, software, and managed service vendors  (e.g., Dell, CDW, MSPs). 
  
• Oversee IT asset lifecycle, procurement forecasting, license management, and cost accountability. 
  

Team Leadership & Development 

• Build, lead, coach, and develop a multi-functional IT operations team across  change, service desk, support, and operations. 
  
• Set performance standards, mentor staff, and create career growth paths from Tier 1 through senior roles. 
  
• Foster a culture of accountability, documentation, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive IT experience, with at least 5 years in IT operations leadership or management. 
  
• Demonstrated ownership of a formal change management program, including CAB chairmanship and audit accountability. 
  
• Strong track record managing 24x7 operations, incident response, and SLA driven service delivery. 
  
• Experience supporting SOC, PCI, or comparable audit frameworks with measurable compliance outcomes. 
  
• Hands-on familiarity with modern monitoring, ticketing, and collaboration tooling (e.g., Splunk, Datadog, PagerDuty, Site24x7, Jira, Confluence). ∙ ITIL-aligned understanding of Incident, Change, and Problem Management. ∙ Proven ability to build process structure from the ground up and translate operational data into executive-level reporting. 
  
• Excellent written and verbal communication; equally effective with engineers, auditors, and senior leadership. 
  

Preferred Qualifications 

• ITIL v3/v4 Foundation (or higher) certification. 
  
• Experience in regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, fintech, payments). 
  
• Experience leading or supporting M&A integration, ERP transitions, or major platform migrations. 
  
• Background that spans hands-on technical work and senior leadership (e.g., progression from help desk through operations management). 
  

What Success Looks Like 

• Zero audit findings related to change management and operational controls.
  
• Sustained reduction in Sev 1 and Sev 2 incidents year over year.
  
• Service desk consistently meeting or exceeding SLA and CSAT targets.
  
• Clear, trusted operational reporting that leadership relies on to make decisions.
  
• A high-performing, well-developed IT operations team with low attrition and visible internal growth.