Senior IT Manager (Head of IT)

PayZen•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

PayZen is seeking a strategic, results-oriented, and high-impact Sr. IT Manager to serve as their Head of IT. This role involves enterprise ownership of PayZen's global IT infrastructure and operational roadmap. The ideal candidate will possess deep domain understanding to proactively identify operational risks and technical debt, contributing to organizational productivity, security, and support. This role requires an individual focused on empowering others, establishing scalable technical frameworks, and designing solutions that enhance function-wide outcomes. The position reports directly to the VP, People, and collaborates with People, Engineering, Finance, Legal, and leadership teams to scale IT Operations. This is a hybrid role based in San Francisco, requiring in-office presence on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Requirements

8+ years of experience directly managing Information Technology functions, corporate systems architecture, or infrastructure engineering in fast-paced tech environments.
Demonstrated ownership capacity, with a proven track record of shifting from execution-only tasks to defining strategic roadmaps, balancing technical debt, and driving cross-functional alignment.
Deep domain expertise across enterprise macOS/Windows management, scalable identity access management (e.g. Okta, Kandji, Google Workspace, etc.), and modern, API-driven SaaS tech stacks.
Advanced technical foresight with an established ability to dissect complex infrastructure topologies, discover underlying technical risks, and execute solutions that bulletproof organizational operations.
Hands-on compliance and information security experience, specifically project managing technical evidence collection and control enforcement for SOC 2 and HIPAA frameworks.
Strong communication and collaborative capability, centered on lifting the technical baseline of the entire company, managing complex vendor ecosystems, and interfacing comfortably with executive leadership.
Local to the Bay Area and able to commute to our San Francisco headquarters for the required hybrid schedule.

Responsibilities

Drive the long-term vision, design, and architecture of company-wide IT infrastructure, networks, and operations.
Architect resilient environments that eliminate single points of failure and ensure high availability across a rapidly scaling organization.
Drive IT automation initiatives across onboarding, offboarding, ticketing, and other operational workflows to accelerate efficiency and create the infrastructure foundation needed to scale.
Leverage AI tools and technologies creatively to build operational efficiencies, automate repetitive workflows, and scale team capacity.
Contribute directly to the IT and corporate enablement strategy, anticipating organizational friction points, evaluating technical trade-offs, and sequencing infrastructure bets to compound long-term operational productivity and system maturity.
Lead complex, high-stakes IT initiatives from conception to execution, including enterprise software integrations, identity governance overhauls, and office expansions.
Leverage deep domain expertise to uncover hidden vulnerabilities, architecture bottlenecks, and compliance gaps, designing and implementing systematic, permanent fixes.
Oversee relationships, budgets, and service level agreements (SLAs) with critical third-party IT vendors and partners.
Build automated, programmatic lifecycle frameworks for global asset management, account provisioning, and identity access management.
Partner with Security and Legal teams to enforce robust enterprise IT security compliance.
Act as the primary driver for continuous SOC 2 audits, HIPAA requirements, global data privacy compliance, and IT risk mitigation policies.