IT Director

Lender Service Provider LLC• Fairfax, VA, US, VA

About The Position

The Senior IT Operations Manager serves as the organization’s primary internal technology leader, responsible for the strategy, governance, and day-to-day oversight of all IT operations. This role owns the full technology stack from the network edge through cloud-hosted infrastructure and end-user devices, ensuring systems are secure, reliable, and aligned with business objectives. The Senior IT Operations Manager directly manages a small internal IT team and maintains a close working relationship with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to deliver comprehensive infrastructure support, monitoring, and maintenance across on-premises and Azure-hosted environments. This position requires a technically strong, operationally experienced leader who can balance hands-on technical engagement with vendor management, strategic planning, and executive-level communication.

Requirements

Minimum 10 years’ experience in IT infrastructure, systems administration, or IT operations; minimum 4 years in a management, lead, or senior technical role.
Demonstrated experience managing or overseeing a Managed Service Provider relationship in an enterprise or mid-market environment.
Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Azure, including IaaS/PaaS services, Azure networking, Entra ID, and Microsoft 365.
Solid understanding of networking fundamentals: routing, switching, firewalls, VLANs, VPNs, DNS, DHCP, and WAN technologies.
Experience with endpoint management platforms (Intune, SCCM, or equivalent) and service desk tooling (ConnectWise, ServiceNow, or similar).
Demonstrated ability to manage IT budgets, vendor contracts, and technology roadmaps.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to translate technical concepts for executive and non-technical audiences.
Strong organizational and project management skills; able to manage multiple priorities simultaneously across varying timelines.

Nice To Haves

Experience with regulatory or compliance frameworks applicable to financial services, healthcare, or similar regulated industries is a plus.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)
Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert
ITIL Foundation or higher
CompTIA Network+, Security+, or equivalent
Project Management Professional (PMP) or equivalent a plus

Responsibilities

Own overall IT operations strategy and execution, ensuring all systems, services, and infrastructure meet organizational availability, performance, and security requirements.
Directly supervise and develop 1–3 internal IT staff; provide day-to-day direction, conduct performance reviews, and support professional development.
Define, document, and enforce IT policies, standards, and procedures across all operational domains including change management, incident management, and asset lifecycle.
Serve as the primary internal escalation point for critical IT incidents; lead root cause analysis and drive remediation to prevent recurrence.
Maintain and regularly test business continuity and disaster recovery plans for all critical systems.
Develop and manage the IT operations budget, including forecasting for hardware, software, licensing, and managed services contracts.
Report regularly to senior leadership on IT operational health, project status, risk posture, and technology roadmap.
Work closely with executives and their business units to discover automation and development opportunities that can simplify business processes.
Serve as the primary liaison and contract owner for the organization’s MSP relationship; manage SLAs, escalations, and ongoing service delivery performance.
Review and approve MSP-delivered changes to infrastructure, ensuring work aligns with organizational standards and change management processes.
Collaborate with the MSP to plan and execute infrastructure projects including upgrades, migrations, and expansions.
Conduct regular service reviews with MSP leadership to evaluate performance, address gaps, and align on upcoming initiatives.
Ensure MSP staff operate within the organization’s security policies, access control standards, and compliance requirements.
Provide architectural oversight and operational governance for the organization’s Azure environment, including Virtual Machines, Virtual Networks, storage, identity (Entra ID / Azure AD), and security services.
Guide and review cloud infrastructure design decisions, ensuring environments are optimized for cost, performance, resilience, and security.
Oversee Azure DevOps, monitoring tooling, and automation pipelines in partnership with the MSP and internal staff.
Manage Azure cost governance through tagging, reserved instances, right-sizing, and regular spend reviews.
Ensure hybrid connectivity between Azure and on-premises environments (VPN, ExpressRoute, AD sync) is properly maintained and documented.
Oversee Microsoft 365 / Office 365 services including Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, and endpoint management through Intune.
Maintain oversight of the full network stack from the edge (firewalls, WAN, SD-WAN) through core switching, Wi-Fi, and LAN infrastructure.
Ensure physical server, storage, and data center or co-location environments are properly maintained, documented, and under appropriate support contracts.
Oversee patch management and vulnerability remediation across all network and infrastructure components.
Review and approve firewall rules, network segmentation changes, and perimeter security configurations.
Oversee end-user computing standards including desktop/laptop imaging, software deployment, mobile device management, and hardware lifecycle.
Ensure the service desk (internal and/or MSP-provided) operates efficiently, with strong ticket hygiene, SLA adherence, and user satisfaction.
Champion user technology experience by driving consistent onboarding/offboarding procedures, access provisioning, and endpoint security policies.
Partner with leadership and any security or compliance functions to ensure IT operations align with applicable regulatory requirements (e.g., SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FFIEC as applicable).
Oversee identity and access management, MFA enforcement, privileged access controls, and periodic access reviews.
Coordinate with the MSP and any third-party security vendors on vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and security incident response.
Maintain and regularly test the organization’s incident response plan, backup integrity, and DR runbooks.
Oversee data warehouse operations and manage relationships with providers (SQL, Snowflake, etc).
Ensure that reporting and analytics align with the expectations of Executive Management, utilizing tools like Power BI, SSRS, and other third-party analytics platforms.