Manager, Infrastructure Engineering

seoClarity•Chicago, IL

2d•$120,000 - $150,000•Onsite

About The Position

You will be the Technical Commander of an infrastructure running on 300+ servers across multiple data centers. This role is designed to unblock our Executive Team from operational security and infrastructure tasks. You will own the stability of our systems, lead the technical execution of our SOC 2 Type II compliance, manage our Global Technical Operations and DBA teams, and act as the financial steward of our infrastructure. The Mandate: "B-SMART" Operations At seoClarity, our Ops team lives by the B-SMART framework. You will not just "manage servers"; you will own these six pillars of excellence: B – BUDGETS: Act as the Financial Owner of our infrastructure. You will proactively negotiate contracts with data centers, hardware vendors, and SaaS providers. You will audit utilization rates to ensure we aren't paying for idle capacity and treat every dollar of company capital as your own. S – SECURITY & COMPLIANCE: Act as the Operational SOC 2 Lead. Automate evidence gathering, enforce Zero Trust policies, and serve as the technical point of contact for auditors so the CISO doesn't have to. M – MONITORING: Move us from "Reactive" to "Proactive." Configure deep observability tools that alert us to anomalies before they become outages. A – AUTOMATION (Ansible): Eliminate manual toil. You must be an Ansible expert. You will write the playbooks that define our infrastructure as code, ensuring that configuration management is automated, repeatable, and version-controlled. R – REDUNDANCY: Ensure 99.99% availability. Design and test failover strategies to satisfy Business Continuity Plan (BCP) requirements. T – TESTING: Never break production. Enforce strict Change Management protocols for every infrastructure update. Leadership & Vendor Management The Technical Commander: You will manage our existing outsourced DBA and MSP teams. You are the "Brain"; they are the "Hands." You will set their priorities, review their execution, and hold them accountable to strict SLAs. Global Team Leadership: You will lead and mentor our offshore Technical Operations support team. You will design the workflows and SOPs that allow them to handle L1/L2 support (infrastructure alerts, access requests), ensuring you are free to focus on high-leverage engineering and architecture.

Requirements

5+ Years Linux & Ansible Mastery: Deep experience in RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu administration.
Ansible is not optional. You must demonstrate experience writing complex playbooks from scratch to manage fleets of servers. If you rely on manual SSH loops, this role is not for you.
Team Leadership: Experience managing technical teams (internal or external).
You must be able to give clear technical direction. We need an "Owner" who verifies the work of others, not someone who blindly trusts a team to "fix it."
Vendor & Budget Experience: Proven experience negotiating technical contracts and managing infrastructure costs.
We need an "Owner" who fights for efficiency. If you just "swipe the credit card" without negotiating terms or auditing usage, this role is not for you.
SOC 2 / Compliance Experience: Demonstrated ability to manage technical evidence for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA audits.
You must understand why we need Change Management and Access Controls.

Responsibilities

Act as the Financial Owner of our infrastructure.
Proactively negotiate contracts with data centers, hardware vendors, and SaaS providers.
Audit utilization rates to ensure we aren't paying for idle capacity and treat every dollar of company capital as your own.
Act as the Operational SOC 2 Lead.
Automate evidence gathering, enforce Zero Trust policies, and serve as the technical point of contact for auditors so the CISO doesn't have to.
Configure deep observability tools that alert us to anomalies before they become outages.
Write the playbooks that define our infrastructure as code, ensuring that configuration management is automated, repeatable, and version-controlled.
Design and test failover strategies to satisfy Business Continuity Plan (BCP) requirements.
Enforce strict Change Management protocols for every infrastructure update.
Manage our existing outsourced DBA and MSP teams.
Set their priorities, review their execution, and hold them accountable to strict SLAs.
Lead and mentor our offshore Technical Operations support team.
Design the workflows and SOPs that allow them to handle L1/L2 support (infrastructure alerts, access requests), ensuring you are free to focus on high-leverage engineering and architecture.