Sr. IT Infrastructure Manager & Cloud Engineering - Remote -USA - Contract

Role: Sr. Manager, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Engineering

Location of work: Remote

Duration: 12+ months

Own the design, operation, and roadmap for Microsoft Azure environments (resource group governance, service principals, PIM) alongside on-premises and co-located infrastructure

 Own global on-premises infrastructure across offices and datacenters, including compute, storage, virtualization, and facilities-adjacent systems, with consistent standards worldwide

 Administer virtualization and server infrastructure (VMware/vCenter, Windows Server, Linux) and maintain standards for provisioning, naming conventions, and Dev/Test/Prod separation

 Define and enforce patching and maintenance cadences across Windows and Linux fleets, including staged deployment rings and scheduled maintenance windows

 Own business continuity and disaster recovery for both cloud and datacenter workloads, covering backup, replication, failover design, and regular DR testing against defined RTO/RPO targets

 Lead architecture reviews and design governance globally, setting standards and approving infrastructure, cloud, and identity designs across regions

 Champion Infrastructure-as-Code, scripting, and automation (and applied AI where it adds leverage) to reduce manual toil

 Lead identity and access management across Microsoft Entra ID, including federation, entitlement management/access packages, conditional access, and MFA (YubiKey/passkeys), and drive identity platform consolidation

 Partner with Security on Zero Trust architecture, vulnerability and responsible- disclosure triage, and incident escalation

 Own IT's role in eDiscovery and compliance, including legal/litigation holds and data retention across Microsoft Purview, M365, and backup platforms

 Oversee endpoint management for Windows (Intune/Autopatch) and macOS (Jamf), including application packaging, hardware standards, and cost-conscious provisioning models

 Support M365 collaboration services (Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive) and conference-room/AV technology across offices

 Maintain global network connectivity and a Zero Trust/SASE edge (SD-WAN, secure web gateway), managing circuits, bandwidth, and multi-site resiliency

 Own operational KPIs and SLAs, including infrastructure availability (99%+ targets) and MTTR for incidents and service requests, and report service health to leadership

 Administer the ITSM platform (Jira Service Management/Confluence), including integrations and cross-organization ticket exchange (e-bonding) with partners and auditors

 Maintain authoritative operational documentation, runbooks, and knowledge base content

 Lead the Client Engineering function, covering end-user computing, device lifecycle, application delivery, and service-desk enablement, for a reliable, secure employee experience globally

 Build and mature DevOps practices: CI/CD pipelines, configuration management, and Infrastructure-as-Code for repeatable, auditable deployments

 Apply SRE principles, including observability/monitoring, SLIs/SLOs and error budgets, on-call and incident response, and toil reduction through automation, across cloud and on-prem services

 Manage the vendor and software-license register end to end: contract terms, renewals, true-ups, monthly license audits, and points of contact

 Negotiate renewals and new agreements, and drive cost-optimization and consolidation across the SaaS and infrastructure portfolio

 Own a portion of the IT operating budget, including invoice coding/approval and forecasting

 Lead, coach, and develop a team of infrastructure, cloud, and identity engineers through regular 1:1s, goal-setting, and performance management

 Manage prioritization and delegation across a high-volume operational workload, and build team capability in automation and modern cloud practices

 Serve as a senior escalation point and represent IT Infrastructure to executive stakeholders and cross-functional partners What You Bring

 8+ years in IT infrastructure/cloud/systems engineering, including 3+ years directly managing technical teams

 Deep, hands-on expertise with Microsoft Azure and the M365 ecosystem, including Entra ID identity and access management

 Strong background in enterprise infrastructure: virtualization, Windows and Linux server administration, networking, and endpoint management (Intune and/or Jamf)

 Hands-on experience owning global on-premises datacenter and office infrastructure, plus business continuity and disaster recovery across cloud and datacenter workloads (RTO/RPO, failover, DR testing)

 Experience leading a Client Engineering / end-user computing function and running architecture reviews and design governance across regions

 DevOps and SRE fluency: CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, observability, and SLI/SLO- driven reliability practices

 Demonstrated ownership of security and compliance practices (Zero Trust, MFA, privileged access, data retention/eDiscovery)

 Proven vendor management, contract negotiation, licensing, and IT budget ownership

 Track record of running IT operations to defined SLAs/KPIs and leading through incidents and escalations

 Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to translate technical detail into business impact for executives

 Preferred: Entra ID identity consolidation/modernization; SASE/SD-WAN edge networking and multi-site global operations; CAD/PLM exposure (SolidWorks/3DEXPERIENCE); scripting/automation (PowerShell, Python) and practical AI tooling; relevant certifications (Azure/Identity, ITIL) and a related degree or equivalent experience