Head of infrastructure

Head of Infrastructure

Location: New York, NY (Hybrid)

This is a full time / direct hire role. No agencies please.

About the Position

The Head of IT Infrastructure of this small nonprofit is a key leadership role in enabling and maintaining a stable, scalable, and secure infrastructure ecosystem while ensuring that our business and customer data is protected and available. This position directly oversees Corporate Infrastructure, Cloud Services, Network and Telecom Services, Service Desk, Event Technology, and End User platforms ensuring reliable, scalable, and secure operations across the organization. The Head of IT Infrastructure is a hybrid role that will be a mixture of strategically focused infrastructure design and team leadership as well as hands-on technical knowledge, with the ability to step into all areas of infrastructure and assist the team with escalations. This position will also be responsible for the administration, implementation, and oversight of the IT Infrastructure strategies for the organization to align with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.

Job Responsibilities:

• Lead the company s IT Infrastructure and Operations teams, focusing on developing and delivering reliable services and strategies to support the company s business objectives.
• Accountable for the management and hands-on support for the implementation and maintenance of core IT systems/services, both on-premise and in 3rd party hosting locations / clouds. Services include but are not limited to compute, storage, endpoints as well as related data access and transformation platforms.
• Identify technical, performance and reliability gaps by ensuring the active monitoring of service performance. Where applicable, proactively recommend projects and tactics to remediate identified issues.
• Establish and maintain IT infrastructure strategy execution including standards, policies, and procedures.
• Establish goals and associated service / operational metrics within their department ensuring they are collected, reviewed, and reported on a regular basis.
• Ensure robust disaster recovery plans are in place to maintain operations and minimize disruptions during emergencies.
• Partner with Information Security function to ensure infrastructure and platforms are designed and operated in alignment with cybersecurity standards and risk management practices.
• Work with operational teams to ensure that strategies for Infrastructure and Operations align with the Organization and IT Department strategies.
• Ensure cost-effective design, development, integration, implementation, testing, and maintenance of new services, equipment, and systems in support of business objectives and requirements. Ensure third parties align with internal processes related to the above.
• Manage IT infrastructure projects supporting change management best practices and ensure they are appropriately resourced, delivered on time, in scope, and on budget.
• Actively manage relationships with third parties to ensure they cost-effectively meet the needs of the organization, meet established service level agreements (SLAs), and deliver on support / performance expectations as an extension of the IT Team.
• Support a collaborative culture that values technical depth, accountability, and customer service.

Experience:

• 10-15+ years of progressive IT experience supporting infrastructure, network, and end-user services, with at least 5 years in a leadership or management role is required.
• Deep technical expertise in modern hosting, computing, storage, and data delivery platforms is a must.
• Demonstrated experience defining and implementing IT control frameworks and security practices, including data privacy and access controls, is required.
• Proven ability to integrate and optimize solutions using SaaS platforms is essential.
• Strong hands-on technical knowledge of IT architecture, cloud engineering best practices (Azure), virtualization, and modern workplace technologies (e.g., Microsoft 365) is critical. A working knowledge of MS Azure is required.
• Experience with IT Service Management (ITSM) best practices including Service Desk, Incident, Problem, and Change Management is required.
• Demonstrated success in leading stability and resiliency programs, including incident response and root cause analysis (RCA).
• Required experience includes managing IT department budgets, overseeing vendor relationships, and recruiting staff.
• Experience with managed service providers and managing specific SaaS platforms (like SiteCore, Salesforce, or Wordpress) is a plus.
• Working experience with Azure Well Architected Framework, preferred.
• Demonstrated understanding of technological trends and developments in the areas of Infrastructure systems, network, end user services, distributed architectures, and cloud computing.
• Some experience with automation and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) deployment and support is a plus.
• The ability to communicate with leadership as well as team members is required.
• The ideal candidate must be able to dive deep with the team and provide hands-on guidance to ensure proper project delivery.

Skills and Attributes:

• Strong team building, organizational, and staff development skills.
• High degree of initiative and ability to make informed decisions based on industry best practices and standards.
• Ability to articulate IT issues and recommendations in non-technical terms.
• Excellent analytical, time management, prioritization, and problem-solving skills. Deep understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VPN, and firewalls required.
• Experience creating and maintaining system documentation.
• Working knowledge and support of Azure Environments is required. AWS experience is a plus.
• Technical experience with Network and Infrastructure Security Platforms such as Cisco, Meraki, Fortinet, Cloudflare, Zscaler or similar technologies is a plus.
• Experience with Hybrid Cloud storage solutions for Marketing and Content Management such as Nasuni and QNAP is a plus.
• Experience with running IT Service Desk functions and managing the development of platforms such Zendesk or ServiceNow to enhance ITSM processes, support, and KPI metrics and reporting.
• Expertise managing mixed PC and Mac environments required.
• Familiarity with running and supporting modern conferencing room systems such as Polycom / Crestron and integrating with hybrid meeting platforms (Teams, Zoom) is a plus.