Manager, IT Systems & Data Architecture (Contract Role)

Coursedog

2d•$9,000 - $11,000•Remote

About The Position

As Coursedog’s first Manager, IT Systems & Data Architecture, you’ll lead the systems, integrations, and operational infrastructure that support day-to-day business operations across the company. Working within our Centralized Operations & Systems team, and reporting directly to the VP, Enterprise Systems & Architecture, this role combines hands-on IT systems management, data architecture, AI tooling enablement, and security operations into a single foundational function that supports 200+ employees across the company. This contract is well-suited for a hands-on, AI-fluent operator who moves fluidly between solving today's problems and architecting next year's foundation. You'll lead tier-1 IT support for the company — triaging and resolving day-to-day issues across our internal tools, with L2/L3 escalation paths to the rest of the Systems team — while also designing the data flows and integrations that hold our systems together, leading multi-quarter projects, and supporting the AI tooling and governance that helps every team move from one-off AI usage to systematic, well-supported workflows. This is a highly cross-departmental function, not a solo operation – you'll partner closely with Operations, Finance, and Legal to drive progress and efficiency. This contract includes occasional off-hours responsibility for critical system outages (e.g., SSO, core SaaS tools), though these are infrequent. This role will begin as a fixed-term, 4-month contract with the possibility of extension or conversion to full-time employment. This contract is fully remote and is open to candidates located anywhere in the continental US. This contract role offers a monthly compensation range of $9,000 - $11,000, depending on experience, qualifications, and scope of engagement. Compensation will be determined based on the selected candidate’s expertise, technical background, and ability to support the company’s evolving systems, data architecture, and operational infrastructure needs.

Requirements

5+ years in IT operations, business systems, data engineering, or systems engineering, with prior experience leading projects, mentoring teammates, and/or owning a domain end-to-end
Hands-on experience administering modern SaaS environments (Okta or similar IdP, Google Workspace or M365, Salesforce, an HRIS, a finance or ERP system, support and engineering tools).
Strong Jira administration experience and comfort supporting cross-functional operational workflows
Strong experience designing and maintaining data models, integrations, and pipelines, with fluent-level SQL skills and hands-on experience using modern cloud data warehouses and ETL/ELT tooling such as Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, dbt, Fivetran, or Airbyte
Practical, hands-on AI fluency — you've used Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools to do meaningful work, helped others adopt them, and have a point of view on what works
Experience operating — not just observing — a security compliance program (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or similar)
Track record building integrations via APIs, iPaaS tools (Workato, Tray, Zapier at scale), or native connectors
Ability to translate ambiguous business needs into scalable technical solutions, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and build strong working relationships across technical and non-technical stakeholders
Bias toward documentation, automation, and self-service over becoming a bottleneck

Nice To Haves

Experience standing up or scaling an AI tooling program (licensing, governance, internal enablement)
Experience managing direct reports
Familiarity with MCP, agentic workflows, retrieval-augmented systems, or similar AI integration patterns
Scripting experience (Python, JavaScript) for automation and AI workflows
Experience with MDM platforms (Rippling, Kandji, Jamf, Intune, etc.) and endpoint security tooling (SentinelOne)
Prior experience leading a SOC 2 Type II audit through to a clean report

Responsibilities

Own administration of our core SaaS systems including Rippling, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Maxio, Jira, and related tooling
Serve as the company-wide point of contact for internal tool questions, escalations, and requests
Evaluate, procure, implement, and retire internal tools based on evolving business needs and operational scale
Manage vendor relationships, contracts, and renewals in partnership with Finance and Legal
Design and maintain the data architecture connecting our internal systems — data models, pipelines, warehousing, and integrations between SaaS tools and our analytics environment
Build and maintain ETL/ELT workflows via APIs, iPaaS tools, and native connectors so data flows reliably between systems of record
Establish scalable data governance practices around ownership, quality, definitions, and access
Partner with Data & Analytics teams to ensure operational and AI-related workflows are supported by reliable, well-modeled data
Administer and support the company’s AI tooling ecosystem, including licensing, access management, usage policies, and employee enablement
Partner cross-functionally to operationalize AI workflows and ensure employees can effectively leverage approved tools
Lay the foundation — SSO, identity, shared context, data access — that lets AI initiatives move from experiments to systematic implementation
Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations leaders as they build AI into their workflows
Evaluate and pilot emerging AI capabilities and help drive responsible adoption across the organization
Own the internal-systems side of Coursedog’s SOC 2 compliance program, including access controls, provisioning and deprovisioning, access reviews, MFA enforcement, audit logging, and evidence collection
Implement and maintain identity and access management (SSO, SCIM, least-privilege, RBAC) across the tool stack
Manage endpoint security and MDM for company devices
Partner with Security and Legal on policy creation and implementation, risk assessments, and vendor security reviews (including AI tools)