IT Infrastructure Team Leader

Description StoreNext, a leading technology solutions provider serving major enterprises, is seeking an experienced, highly technical Hands-on IT Infrastructure Team Leader for a full-time position. In this role, you will lead and mentor a team of four IT/System engineers while remaining highly technical, with approximately 70% hands-on work. You will oversee our 24x7 critical, high-availability SaaS production environments, drive operational excellence, and advance technological innovation across our on-prem and cloud infrastructures. We are looking for a proactive, high-ownership ("Big Head") leader who actively observes their environment to identify needs before they become problems, drives cost-effective open-source and AI adoption, and is a key player in security, compliance, and team cohesion. Key Responsibilities: • Team Leadership & Culture: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of four IT/System engineers. Foster a collaborative, positive culture of accountability and innovation, and organize social/team-building activities to maintain high team cohesion. • Hands-on Administration & Backups: Personally manage, maintain, and troubleshoot virtualized infrastructures (VMware, Hyper-V) and active data-center facilities. Design, implement, and own the organization's backup, retention, and Disaster Recovery (DR) policies. • 24x7 SaaS Operations & Crisis Management: Ensure maximum uptime, performance, and stability of mission-critical SaaS production environments operating 24x7. Act as the technical first responder and coordinator during major infrastructure crises, maintaining professional communication with external enterprise customers to restore trust. • Proactive Innovation & AI Integration: Constantly observe the IT landscape to identify architectural gaps. Research and introduce cost-effective open-source solutions and lead the adoption of modern technologies—including AI tools (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT)—to optimize daily decisions and team troubleshooting. • Security & Remote Access: Implement, maintain robust security, and remote access solutions (VPN, Zero Trust/ZTNA, SASE, and MFA) for internal employees. Secure, partition, and monitor privileged access for external third-party vendors and contractors. • SaaS Identity & Access Management (IAM): Manage end-user authentication and identity lifecycle for cloud-based services, utilizing enterprise Identity Providers (e.g., Okta, Entra ID), SSO, and modern protocols (SAML, OIDC). • Compliance & Audits: Support the organization's compliance efforts, ensuring infrastructures and IT procedures actively meet standards such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2. • Procurement & Supplier Management: Locate new IT infrastructure, hardware, and licensing suppliers, utilizing strong negotiation and bargaining skills to secure optimal cost-benefit terms for the organization. Requirements • Hands-on Leadership: 3+ years of experience leading/managing small IT system teams in high-pressure environments, with a strong desire to remain 70%+ hands-on. Experience handling team workload balance, burnout, and maintaining morale is a must. • Linux Server Administration (Must): Deep, hands-on experience with Linux servers (installation, configuration, troubleshooting, patching, and security hardening). • Scripting Skills (Must): Proven ability to write scripts (e.g., Bash, Python, PowerShell) for task automation and infrastructure management. • SaaS & 24x7 Production Experience: Prior experience supporting a 24x7 critical production environment with high-availability requirements and strict enterprise-grade SLAs. • Cloud Infrastructure (AWS/Azure) & Migration: Practical experience with public cloud environments (AWS and/or Azure). Proven experience designing, executing, and securing hybrid/cloud migration plans while maintaining service continuity. • Enterprise Security, Remote Access & IAM: Strong knowledge of security systems (Check Point/Fortigate, EDR, DLP), remote access (VPN, ZTNA), and identity directories/SSO (Okta, Entra ID/Active Directory, LDAP, SAML, OIDC). • Compliance Familiarity: Practical experience preparing, adapting, or maintaining IT infrastructures to meet ISO 27001 or similar security standards. • Backup & DR Systems: Extensive experience with enterprise-grade backup solutions (Veeam, Commvault, AWS Backup) and defining retention policies across physical and cloud media. • Networking & Virtualization: Broad expertise in system administration including VMware, Hyper-V, Windows Servers, and networking (F5 XC + BIG-IP, routing, switches). • Microsoft SaaS Ecosystem: Proficiency with Microsoft cloud-based enterprise environments (SharePoint, M365, Teams).