Data Infrastructure Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

Are you a hands-on IT professional with strong experience in hybrid Microsoft environments and a passion for team leadership? Join our dynamic team as the Manager, Infrastructure and Help Desk and take charge of our company's hybrid on-premises and cloud IT environment supporting a multi-site, multi-department organization. Reporting to the CIO, you'll oversee our Microsoft Entra ID identity platform and Microsoft 365 collaboration stack (Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams), maintain our legacy on-premises ERP infrastructure, and lead help desk operations across 7 locations. This hands-on role offers the opportunity to make a tangible impact on our IT systems' performance, security, and scalability.

What You'll Do

1. Microsoft Entra ID & Collaboration Suite Management

• Own the day-to-day administration and strategic roadmap for our Microsoft Entra ID/Active Directory environment, including identity management, conditional access, group policies, security and governance across multiple sites and departments.
• Manage and optimize the Microsoft 365 collaboration suite — Exchange Online/OnPrem, SharePoint, and Teams — ensuring reliability, governance, and a seamless user experience for all business units.
• Administer mailbox provisioning, distribution groups, shared resources, SharePoint site architecture, Teams governance, and Microsoft 365 licensing across the organization.
• Implement and enforce identity, access, and collaboration governance policies aligned with security and compliance requirements.

2. Legacy On-Premises ERP Infrastructure

• Maintain and support our legacy ERP environment running on HP enterprise blade servers and SAN storage, ensuring high availability, performance, and data integrity for this business-critical system.
• Note: This role is not responsible for ERP application development or configuration. Responsibilities are focused on the underlying hardware, storage, and networking infrastructure — ensuring the ERP environment remains functional, accessible, and performant for the application and business teams.

3. Additional On-Premises Infrastructure

• Oversee and maintain Check Point firewalls, VMware environments, and Citrix servers.
• Ensure seamless operations, applying updates and upgrades as needed.

4. Help Desk Oversight

• Develop and enforce workstation setup and onboarding/offboarding guidelines for help desk teams.
• Serve as the escalation point for help desk teams supporting users across 7 locations and multiple departments.
• Provide leadership, training, and support to enhance help desk efficiency and end-user satisfaction.

5. License and Vendor Management

• Manage software and infrastructure-related licenses, including Microsoft 365 licensing across the organization.
• Act as the primary liaison for vendors and MSPs, ensuring service quality and compliance.

6. Backup and Recovery

• Oversee MSP-managed backup and recovery processes, ensuring robust disaster recovery protocols across on-premises ERP systems and Microsoft 365 workloads.

7. Security and Compliance

• Ensure adherence to company security policies and best practices, with particular attention to identity security and collaboration data protection.
• Collaborate with the MSP to continually enhance our security posture.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years of experience managing hybrid on-premises and cloud environments.
• Strong, hands-on experience independently administering Microsoft Entra ID in hybrid mode, including device, user, and login policies.
• Demonstrated hands-on expertise managing the Microsoft 365 collaboration suite— Exchange Online and on-prem, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams — including configuration, governance, security, and policy enforcement.
• Hands-on experience supporting on-premises hardware and networking infrastructure, preferably HP enterprise servers and storages.
• Proficiency with Check Point firewalls, site to site VPN configuration, security policies, Citrix servers, and VMware ESX/ESXI solutions.
• Experience leading help desk operations across multiple locations.
• Strong understanding of IT security practices, backup, and disaster recovery.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications such as Microsoft Azure Administrator, Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert, or equivalent. Legacy Microsoft certifications are acceptable.
• This role requires a true hands-on skill set — candidates must bring proven experience with both cloud and on-premises technologies.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience building and configuring on-premises servers, storages, and networking infrastructure.