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.