IT Manager (Applications Infrastructure)

***We are unable to work with 3rd-party or corp-to-corp candidates for this position***

Out client seeks an accomplished IT Manager to lead technical teams responsible for reliable business applications across on-premises and cloud environments. This management-focused role owns project and program execution, operational outcomes, service reliability, and stakeholder communication. The successful candidate will balance a high volume of smaller projects with larger, complex initiatives; set priorities and track commitments; remove obstacles; lead structured responses to service disruptions; and proactively coordinate technical teams, business partners, vendors, and leadership to deliver results against firm deadlines.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, develop, and manage the technical team, establishing clear priorities, accountability, and performance expectations aligned with business objectives.
• Manage a portfolio of concurrent work, balancing a high volume of smaller projects with larger, more complex initiatives while maintaining visibility into scope, dependencies, risks, commitments, and deadlines.
• Develop and maintain practical project plans, prioritize work, track progress, remove obstacles, escalate risks, and drive initiatives through successful completion.
• Take ownership of reliable business services and operational outcomes for internally developed applications hosted on-premises and in Azure cloud environments.
• Lead calm, logical, and structured responses to service disruptions and outages, coordinating troubleshooting, communications, escalation, recovery, and follow-up actions.
• Coordinate technical teams, business partners, vendors, and leadership during important initiatives and service issues, ensuring responsibilities, decisions, risks, and next steps are clearly understood.
• Proactively engage stakeholders to gather requirements and status information, communicate risks and tradeoffs, resolve gaps, and drive timely decisions rather than waiting for direction.
• Evaluate, implement, or oversee AI agents and AI-enabled solutions that improve service delivery, team effectiveness, automation, or business outcomes.
• Provide technical leadership across the technologies managed by the team and guide sound decisions involving application support, cloud services, security, performance, and deployment practices.
• Implement and reinforce standards, operating practices, and continuous improvements that strengthen service quality, security, performance, and operational consistency.

Required Qualifications:

• Proven experience leading and managing a technical team with responsibility for operational services, work prioritization, accountability, and delivery.
• Demonstrated success managing multiple concurrent projects and programs, including smaller efforts and complex cross-functional initiatives, while meeting firm deadlines.
• Strong ability to establish priorities, track commitments, manage dependencies and risks, remove obstacles, and drive work to successful completion.
• Experience owning reliable business services and leading structured incident response, recovery coordination, stakeholder communication, and follow-up for service disruptions.
• Excellent communication, analytical, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills, including the ability to coordinate technical teams, business partners, vendors, and leadership.
• Demonstrated initiative in gathering information, communicating risks, escalating issues appropriately, and driving decisions with minimal supervision.
• Experience establishing and improving practices that strengthen application performance, security, service quality, and operational consistency.
• Adaptability and sound judgment when responding to changing priorities, urgent issues, and competing business demands.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Expertise supporting Azure PaaS-based applications and familiarity with modern server operating systems and application architecture.
• Proficiency in supporting .NET applications and other Microsoft technologies.
• Demonstrated experience supporting custom applications developed by internal teams.
• Experience evaluating, implementing, or overseeing AI agents, AI-enabled automation, or related solutions in a business or technology environment.
• Experience applying security-hardening practices across on-premises and cloud environments, including Windows Server platforms.
• Advanced proficiency in scripting languages, including PowerShell and KQL.
• Experience with Azure Automation.
• Experience applying security controls that protect business applications, infrastructure, and cloud services.
• Knowledge of Windows Server best practices for security and performance.