IT Operations Manager

Arc Institute•Palo Alto, CA

20h•Onsite

About The Position

The IT Operations Manager is a technical and operational leader responsible for the day-to-day reliability, performance, and scalability of Arc’s technology systems. This role serves as a key escalation point for infrastructure issues and the helpdesk, and a hands-on operator across our core platforms. The ideal candidate brings deep systems expertise across on-premises and cloud infrastructure, a service-delivery mindset, and the ability to help drive the organization forward. This position is full-time onsite (5 days a week).

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience
10+ years of progressive IT infrastructure and systems administration experience in a technical operations or senior engineering role
2+ years of experience in managing direct reports
Experience overseeing or directly supporting a helpdesk or service delivery function
Hands-on expertise with systems administration, design and troubleshooting
Practical experience with Google Workspace or MS365 at an organizational scale, including user management, domain configuration, and application integrations
Working knowledge of hyperscaler environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) at the administration and engineering level
Familiarity with the design and build of backup and recovery platforms
Ability to produce clear technical documentation and maintain active repositories and knowledge bases
Ability to work onsite 5 days a week

Nice To Haves

Experience in managing teams or supporting large scale projects to deliver high output results
Familiarity with ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, Freshservice, Jira)
Experience in the creation of and execution of IT Strategy initiatives as well as the ability to report on the effectiveness of those strategies
Experience supporting HPC or research computing environments
Experience with observability tooling for enterprise monitoring and reporting
Knowledge of SD-WAN or private interconnect technologies
Experience with Okta, including SAML, SCIM and policy administration
Relevant certifications (e.g., AWS, Cisco, Google Cloud, Okta, CompTIA, ITIL) are a plus

Responsibilities

Oversee the daily operations of the IT department and ensure that systems and networks are running smoothly
Lead IT support teams to ensure consistent, high-quality service delivery to Arc
Help foster a collaborative, solutions-oriented culture within the team and to the greater organization
Define and monitor service level targets; review ticket queues, escalation trends, and resolution metrics to identify systemic gaps
Serve as a technical resource for IT team —fielding escalations, providing guidance, and enabling the team to resolve issues more effectively
Manage operational technology vendors and service providers to ensure that Arc’s technology needs are met
Assist IT Leadership in the development of departmental and technology strategies across Arc’ tech stack, measure upon the effectiveness of these strategies
Actively invest in the growth and development of team members by sharing knowledge, providing mentorship, and creating space for others to take on meaningful work
Drive continual service improvement by identifying recurring issues, proposing process or tooling changes, and ensuring knowledge base content stays current
Collaborate with the team to align helpdesk operations with ITSM best practices
Monitor system performance, availability, and capacity across the stack; proactively identify risks and drive remediation before issues impact researchers or staff
Oversee configuration management, change control, and documentation standards across managed systems