IT Director

SmartTech Contracting LLC

2h • $140,000 - $180,000 • Remote

About The Position

The IT Director owns Smart Tech Contracting’s information technology function as the company scales from a small specialty contractor into a midsize, technology-driven organization with a fully remote national workforce. STC currently relies on a managed service provider for corporate IT and has no internal IT team. The Director sets IT strategy, builds the internal team, owns platforms and policies, and gradually brings in-house capabilities currently delivered by the MSP. IT supports every STC department, office, and field team.

This is a dedicated leadership role accountable for the performance of IT leads, the annual IT plan, headcount, budget, and company policies affecting operations. Initially, the Director will lead a small team covering development and DevOps, cloud and infrastructure, and security and compliance, with some roles combined. As leads are hired, routine hands-on work will taper to involvement by exception, such as architecture reviews, major incidents, and client security escalations. The role combines tactical decision-making and hands-on work in its first phase with increasing strategic leadership as the team and business mature. Outside partners may be used for defined specialist work.

The role supports, but does not own, AI strategy, AI adoption, or AI tool selection; those are led by Special Projects & Innovation and the AI Program Manager. IT owns the software stack, security, policy, integration, and support that the shared AI framework runs on. The Director is also not intended to be a traditional corporate IT administrator, a compliance-first governance function, or the company’s sole developer or cloud engineer.

The IT Director reports to the President and works closely with the VP of Engineering & Technology, AI Program Manager, Director of the Business Management Office, department leaders, and STC’s MSP. The position is remote, with travel up to 15%, potentially to any of the 50 U.S. states.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience building or scaling an internal IT function through rapid growth, ideally from small to midsize, including moving capabilities in-house from an MSP.
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Azure, including landing zones, management groups and subscriptions, Azure Policy, networking, backup and recovery, and cost management.
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, including identity, conditional access, Intune device management, SharePoint and Teams architecture, and external collaboration.
• Strong knowledge of DevOps and CI/CD (Azure DevOps and/or GitLab), infrastructure as code (Terraform or Bicep), containers, and modern application hosting, with ability to review architecture and challenge technical decisions.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise AI tooling and agent deployment, including Microsoft Copilot, Claude, or similar platforms; connectors and APIs; service identities; data governance; and usage and cost monitoring.
• Strong knowledge of security frameworks and client assurance, including SOC 2, NIST CSF or CIS Controls, security questionnaires, and audit evidence.
• Strong knowledge of application lifecycle management, including intake, ownership, release, support, recovery, and retirement.
• Skill in writing practical, risk-based policies that enable speed and innovation while meeting security and client requirements.
• Skill in IT budgeting, licensing, cloud cost management, and investment decisions.
• Skill in recruiting, coaching, and growing technical leads and teams in a remote environment.
• Skill in managing MSPs and vendors, including RACI, service levels, contract structure, and transition of services in-house.
• Skill in communicating trade-offs clearly to executives, non-technical leaders, and field staff.
• Skill using MS Office Suite, including Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams, and exceptional organizational skills for file management.
• Ability to work hands-on with scripting, configuration, and AI coding assistants while leading the function.
• Ability to balance speed and control and to enable staff to try new tools safely.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fully remote, fast-scaling organization through clear communication, self-motivation, and organizational discipline.
• Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to follow company and site safety requirements and work under pressure to meet close deadlines.
• Bachelor’s degree in information systems, computer science, engineering, or a related discipline, or four additional years of hands-on IT, cloud, or software delivery experience.
• Minimum 10 years of IT experience, including 5–7 years of leadership experience and at least 2 years leading leads, supervisors, or multiple teams.
• Must have carried budget or staffing-plan accountability.
• Must have supported software developers or builders, including environments, CI/CD, release, and production support, not only end-user IT.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in construction, specialty contracting, engineering services, or another distributed field-based business.
• Experience at a company transitioning into software and digital products.
• Exposure to data center, critical infrastructure, or OT/industrial control environments.
• Experience leading SOC 2 readiness or responding to enterprise client security reviews.
• Relevant certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect, Microsoft 365 Administrator, CISSP, or CISM.

Responsibilities

• Translate company objectives into an annual IT plan, set operational objectives and work plans, delegate assignments, and review results.
• Own STC’s IT strategy and prioritized multiyear roadmap, adapting it to business growth and client requirements.
• Define the IT operating model at each stage of growth, including which capabilities are owned internally or delivered by partners and when work moves in-house.
• Make build, buy, continue, and stop decisions based on business value, cost, risk, and support capacity; retire tools and duplicate efforts where appropriate.
• Own the IT budget, licensing, and cloud spend, and communicate cost and value to leadership.
• Lead change management for IT practices and platforms, involving users and department leaders, piloting changes, preparing people, and measuring adoption.
• Hire, coach, manage, develop, and hold IT leads and managers accountable; sequence hires as the business scales.
• Lead recruiting, manage headcount within plan, and maintain succession planning for critical systems and services.
• Identify and remove roadblocks for IT team members and partners working under STC direction.
• Maintain a workforce plan that grows service desk, platform engineering, and application support capacity while reducing MSP reliance over time.
• Own the MSP relationship, including responsibilities, RACI, service levels, escalations, performance reviews, service transitions, and documented handoffs.
• Engage interim consultants, audit specialists, and contract developers for defined scopes with clear deliverables and handoffs.
• Build a remote IT team culture focused on service, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Own the Microsoft Azure tenant and landing zone, including environment separation, governed prototype sandboxes, identity, networking, backup, patching, monitoring, and inventory standards.
• Establish a paved road from prototype to production, including shared repositories, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, hosting templates, environments, and release and rollback processes.
• Govern the application portfolio from intake through retirement, requiring business ownership, backup ownership, and support readiness before production use.
• Own reliability and recovery testing for production systems the business depends on.
• Provide hosting, environments, and controls for client-facing software and data platforms as offerings grow.
• Own Microsoft 365 information architecture jointly with the Business Management Office and AI Program Manager, including site, group, and Teams structure, retention, and external sharing.
• Support SPI and the AI Program Manager by providing and maintaining secure software and platform foundations for AI tools approved by them.
• Configure and maintain AI platform foundations, including licensing, tenant configuration, service accounts and managed identities, connectors and API access, agent publishing controls, and usage and cost telemetry.
• Own AI security and data-governance guardrails, including approved models, data classification, and access rules, in partnership with SPI.
• Reduce friction around access requests, licensing, environments, and approvals for tools vetted by SPI; measure and shorten turnaround times.
• Lead business systems integration with relevant leads, connecting ERP, scheduling, reporting, and project systems.
• Own and maintain practical IT policies covering acceptable use, AI and data use, access, secure development, change, incident response, and vendor risk.
• Apply risk-based guardrails by data sensitivity and environment, enabling sandbox experimentation while protecting production systems and client data.
• Lead SOC 2 readiness, client security questionnaires, and evidence collection, coordinating with auditors and MSP security services.
• Own identity and zero-trust posture, including Entra ID, conditional access, device management, and privileged access.
• Define and protect the IT/OT boundary with engineering and field operations, aligned with ISA/IEC 62443 where STC systems touch client operational technology, without disrupting field work.
• Lead incident response and post-incident improvement.
• Maintain a service catalog and support model for nationwide office and field users, tracking responsiveness and user satisfaction.
• Automate onboarding, offboarding, and access changes to support rapid hiring.
• Use automation and AI within IT, such as self-service, AI-assisted support, and automated compliance evidence, and continually improve IT operations.
• Establish and ensure adherence to IT budgets, schedules, work plans, and service performance requirements; allocate resources efficiently.
• Report roadmap progress, cost, risk, and service performance to leadership.
• Work with executives, directors, department leaders, and clients on cross-functional matters, including client-facing security and technology discussions.
• Gain acceptance for sensitive changes, including policy changes, tool retirements, and access decisions, while maintaining relationships.
• Represent IT in cross-department initiatives with SPI, the Business Management Office, and operations.
• Complete assigned tasks and deliverables on time and on budget, and perform other related duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Choice of comprehensive medical plans, including two PPO-style plans and an HDHP with HSA option.
• Dental and vision plans.
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits for spouse or domestic partner and dependent children up to age 26.
• 401(k) with company match and self-directed brokerage account option.
• PTO, including additional paid time off during the last week of the year.
• Company-paid life insurance for employees and eligible dependents.
• Short- and long-term disability and AD&D coverage.
• Professional development opportunities, tuition reimbursement, and professional licensing assistance.
• Paid parental leave after one year of employment.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director