IT Operations Manager

The IT Operations Manager is responsible for managing, developing, controlling, and overseeing a team of IT Operations professionals. This position works closely with members of the Information Technology team and performs both a leadership and management function. The IT Operations Manager is expected to carry out their duties and responsibilities consistent with EquiTrust’s Company Values of Integrity, Leadership, Accountability, Teamwork, and Passion. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Manages employees, including but not limited to the following activities: makes recommendations for hiring, termination, promotions and transfers, assessing and completing performance appraisals, responsibility allocations and task completion, problem identification and resolution and other day-to-day people management and leadership responsibilities. Provides a constant avenue of feedback, data, and metrics to the IT Infrastructure team on the supportability and viability of solutions under IT Operations support. Spearheads process improvement efforts in the monitoring and maintenance of company systems. Utilizes the organization's ITSM solution to track system metrics, assets, patching/vulnerability data, uptime, and support issues. Acts as a just-in-time escalation point for critical issues and a focal coordinator of support efforts in downtime situations. Maintains system and support documentation, including validations of documents submitted by Infrastructure project teams to ensure supportability. Provides keen operations support-based focus and a similar mindset with the ability to realign resources to project roles as needed. Leads Disaster Recovery testing and execution efforts from an infrastructure recovery standpoint. Builds support dashboards and provides reports to IT Leadership on the history and health of our company's IT environment. Coordinates with Enterprise Security in the practice of identification and remediation of system vulnerabilities. Builds and maintains a suitable DevOps practice to provide adequate separation of duties for Release Management and other functions. Assists in strategic planning and budget efforts for the Infrastructure & Operations teams. Supports the Information Technology team and other departments on an as needed basis. Willingly takes on additional responsibilities as requested in order to accomplish department and Company objectives. Actively participates and contributes to the goals and objectives of the Company by working collaboratively and fostering a positive and inclusive work environment. Skills and Abilities: Strong abilities in the practice of IT Operations, including the daily maintenance of systems, monitoring and tracking uptime and resiliency, utilizing a variety of tools to collect data and metrics, and delegating tasks to staff members. Ability to coordinate and collaborate with various teams across various businesses. Ability to identify, establish, and work towards common goals of both IT and our business partners. Ability to direct and manage a diverse staff, handle conflicts or concerns when they arise, and maintain the team's quality and productivity at all times. Ability to receive both visionary guidance and strategic direction from IT leadership and execute these duties with little oversight. Ability to log and track budgetary and purchasing efforts and follow policies/processes around such activities. Strong ability to apply troubleshooting principles to determine the root causes of issues and resolve them. Broad knowledge base across various technology stacks and how they interact. Analytical, attention to detail, problem-solving, and accuracy skills. Strong knowledge or experience in the Microsoft Services stack, including, but not limited to, Active Directory, Integrated DNS/DHCP, Windows Server Operating Systems, Entra ID, and Microsoft SQL Server. Experience in Azure Cloud Services, their implementation, tuning, securing, etc. This includes IaaS/PaaS/SaaS infrastructure design, administration, and integrations. Experience in facilities support practices. Experience in Virtualization Platforms and their associated sub-components. Ex: VMWare, Xen/XCP-ng, AzureStack HCI, Azure Cloud. Experience in on-premises storage systems, including sizing, implementation, administration, and optimization. Experience with backup and recovery solutions and practices. Rubrik and Azure Backup experience preferred. Experience in firewall technologies and practices. Palo Alto or Fortinet is preferred. Experience in the administration of CDN/WAF solutions. CloudFlare is preferred. Experience in LAN & WAN design, implementation, and administration. Experience in Networking technologies and concepts. Nexus and Cisco Meraki are preferred. General knowledge of system architectures and security concepts/techniques is required. Examples include authentication mechanisms, operating systems, DNS, NFS, SSH, Firewalls, IIS, Apache, and security applications capabilities. Strong ability to handle occasionally stressful periods that involve multi-faceted problems and varying degrees of prioritization. Ability to quickly think under pressure to determine root causes, remediations, and service restorations. Training or Work Experience: Bachelor’s Degree – Information Security, Computer Information Systems, Network Security, Computer Science or a related field of study, preferred. Minimum of 2 years of IT management or team lead experience. Education: If High School Diploma, minimum 10 years of infrastructure experience required. If Associates Degree, minimum 8 years of infrastructure experience required. If Bachelor’s Degree, minimum 6 years of infrastructure experience required. Working Conditions: On-Site Location: West Des Moines, Iowa Business Travel: Infrequent (less than 5%). #LI-DW1 #LI-Hybrid EquiTrust is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participates in the U.S. Federal E-Verify program. Applicants have rights under federal and state employment laws. To learn more, visit https://www.equitrust.com/careers/opportunities/applicant-notices/.