Director of IT

Placer.ai•Austin, TX

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

Placer.ai is transforming how organizations understand the physical world. Our location analytics platform provides unprecedented visibility into locations, markets, and consumer behavior. Placer empowers thousands of customers—from Fortune 500 companies, to local governments and nonprofits— to make smarter, data-driven decisions. What sets us apart? We've built the most advanced location intelligence platform in the market while maintaining an uncompromising commitment to privacy, proving that powerful analytics and responsible data practices can coexist. Our growth reflects the market's demand: we reached $100M in annual recurring revenue within just 6 years of launching, achieved unicorn status with a $1B+ valuation in 2022, and continue to expand rapidly as one of North America's fastest-growing tech companies. We're creating a $100B+ market opportunity, and we're just getting started. Named one of Forbes America's Best Startup Employers and a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company, we're building a culture where innovation thrives, collaboration is the norm, and every team member contributes to reshaping how the world understands location. We are seeking an innovative, hands-on and strategic technology leader to serve as our global Director of IT, based in Austin, TX. This role owns the entire Enterprise Technology function for Placer.ai — across all regions, including the U.S. and Israel — and is responsible for the systems, identity, endpoints, and IT services that ~500 employees depend on every day. This role requires balancing hands-on execution with strategic leadership in a lean, fast-scaling environment. The Director of IT is both a builder and an operator. You will lead a globally distributed IT team, own our identity and endpoint stack (Okta, Google Workspace, JumpCloud, Intune/JAMF), and play a leading role in Placer's AI-centric reinvention — using AI to make our IT operation faster and leaner, and putting in place the security, governance, and risk frameworks needed for the rest of the company to adopt AI safely. You will set the global IT roadmap, own the budget, and report directly into senior leadership. This role oversees five primary pillars of Corporate IT: Help Desk, Applications, Endpoint Management, Identity & Access Management, and Procurement. Ensuring these functions are aligned to deliver a secure, scalable and high-performing employee technology experience.

Requirements

Minimum 7 years of progressive IT experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership or management role.
Proven track record of owning IT for companies with 200+ employees (ideally 500+); experience scaling IT through high-growth phases is strongly preferred.
Hands-on experience in a fast-paced SaaS, cloud, or AI-first technology company.
Experience leading globally distributed teams and operating across multiple regions and time zones is strongly preferred.
Deep, hands-on expertise with Okta — SAML (SSO), Groups, Rules, Workflows, SCIM provisioning, lifecycle automation and SaaS integrations (4+ years).
Strong administration of Google Workspace at scale — Gmail, Drive, security, DLP, and access management (4+ years).
Hands-on experience with JumpCloud and/or comparable directory/MDM platforms; familiarity with Intune and JAMF for endpoint management.
Experience administering and integrating modern SaaS portfolios (e.g., Slack, Zoom, Atlassian, Salesforce, NetSuite, Rippling, or similar).
Solid understanding of network fundamentals, identity protocols (SAML, OIDC, SCIM), and endpoint security.
Working familiarity with enterprise AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or domain-specific copilots) and a genuine interest in adopting and governing them at scale.
Awareness of AI-related security risks — shadow AI, data leakage to LLMs, third-party AI vendor risk — and the curiosity to grow this expertise as the field evolves.
Working knowledge of SOC 2 and ISO 27001; experience contributing to audits.
Highly committed, ownership-driven, and self-motivated.
Strong strategic thinking and prioritization; able to balance day-to-day operations with multi-quarter roadmap execution.
Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable presenting to executives and translating technical topics for non-technical audiences.
Customer-oriented mindset — treats employees, vendors, and partners as customers of the IT function.
Comfortable operating across time zones in a globally distributed company (U.S. and Israel).
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent professional experience.
Ability to introduce structure and decision-making discipline in environments with evolving processes, ensuring scalable and consistent technology operations.

Nice To Haves

Relevant certifications: Okta Certified Professional/Administrator, Google Workspace Admin, AWS/Azure/GCP fundamentals, CISSP, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer.
Prior experience deploying and governing enterprise AI tools, or standing up an AI Governance Council or cross-functional AI risk committee.
Familiarity with frameworks such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, ISO/IEC 42001, OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, or the EU AI Act.
Experience with AI-native IT tooling (e.g., AI helpdesk agents, identity copilots, automated SaaS spend management).
Experience working with or managing teams across the U.S. and Israel.

Responsibilities

Own the global IT function end-to-end — strategy, roadmap, budget, team, and delivery — across all Placer regions.
Lead a globally distributed IT team across the U.S. and Israel; set goals, mentor team members, and build a high-performing, customer-oriented organization.
Set global standards for identity, endpoints, SaaS, and IT operations; drive consistency across regions while respecting local needs.
Deliver KPIs and executive reporting on performance, cost, and risk; manage vendor relationships and contracts globally and drive measurable cost optimization.
Champion an efficiency-of-operations mindset across the IT org — automate aggressively, reduce ticket volume, shorten cycle times, and continuously raise the bar on cost-per-employee.
Operate effectively in a lean IT team environment while building a roadmap to scale IT capabilities, coverage and service levels globally.
Navigate cross-functional stakeholders (Revenue, Finance, Security, R&D) with competing priorities and drive alignment on technology decisions that impact systems, data, and operations.
Own the identity stack end-to-end: Okta SSO, SCIM provisioning, lifecycle automation, RBAC, access reviews, and integrations across our SaaS portfolio.
Manage Google Workspace administration globally, including Gmail, Drive, security controls, and access management.
Operate and evolve our endpoint management stack (JumpCloud, Intune, JAMF) across macOS and Windows; set patching, compliance, and posture standards.
Drive automation across onboarding/offboarding, access requests, and asset lifecycle to reduce ticket volume and accelerate employee time-to-productivity.
Drive standardization of access and identity across all enterprise applications, ensuring consistent enforcement of SSO, RBAC and lifecycle management.
Partner with R&D, Security, Legal, and HR on the safe, scaled rollout of AI tools, copilots, and agents to the workforce.
Help build the governance framework for enterprise AI use — acceptable-use policy, AI tool inventory, access controls, and data-handling standards — and stay current on emerging AI security risks (shadow AI, data leakage to LLMs, third-party model exposure, agentic AI).
Make IT itself AI-first — evaluate, pilot, and operationalize AI-powered IT tooling (helpdesk automation, identity copilots, endpoint analytics) to materially reduce IT cost and effort.
Evaluate technology decisions (including AI initiatives) based on total cost of ownership, factoring in operational overhead, support complexity, and long-term maintainability.
Partner with the Security team on identity-driven security controls, zero-trust principles, MFA, conditional access, and SaaS security posture.
Support and operate within ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance programs globally; own IT-side controls, evidence collection, and audit readiness.
Lead IT components of incident response, business-continuity planning, and disaster recovery for corporate systems.
Oversee security of corporate systems, networks, endpoints, and SaaS services across the global user base.
Own the global helpdesk function and SLA delivery; build toward follow-the-sun Coverage across U.S. and Israel time zones.
Own SaaS governance across the organization, including application inventory, SSO enforcement, vendor lifecycle management and reduction of shadow IT.
Run a global Asset Management program covering procurement, deployment, refresh, return, and decommissioning of all employee equipment.
Support the full employee lifecycle in partnership with HR and Operations — from onboarding through offboarding — across all regions.
Continuously raise the bar on employee IT experience: self-service, automation, knowledge base, and proactive communications.