It Operations Manager Jobs in Highlands Ranch, CO

About Prime Data Centers

Prime Data Centers develops, acquires, and operates data centers for some of the world's largest enterprises. A private firm owned by a group controlling $6 billion in assets, with a 15-year tenure in technology and real estate development, Prime provides customers with ownership options and dynamic leasing models, defining a true corporate partnership.

About the role

We are seeking an experienced, player-coach IT Operations Manager to lead the day-to-day delivery of IT services across our corporate office and growing data center portfolio. Reporting to the VP of IT & Cybersecurity, you will own run-the-business IT operations — service delivery, infrastructure health, patching, backups, and network availability — while leading and developing a team of systems, network, and helpdesk professionals.

This is a hands-on leadership role: you will remain technically engaged in the environment, act as the senior escalation point, and take an active on-site role in the design, installation, and commissioning of IT infrastructure for new data center sites, with additional sites expected in the future. You will be a key partner in scaling the IT organization as the company grows.

What you'll do

• Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and develop the IT Operations team (systems administration, network administration, and helpdesk), including 1:1s, performance management, growth plans, and hiring against the approved phased headcount plan.
• Service Delivery & ITSM: Own IT service delivery outcomes in ITSM — SLA performance, queue health, escalation paths, customer satisfaction, and operational reporting to leadership.
• Player-Coach Engineering: Remain hands‑on across the core stack — Windows / Linux Servers, Vritual Environments and Backup Servers, Microsoft 365 (Entra ID, Exchange Online, Intune, SharePoint Online. Etc.,), Grafana, and enterprise networking — serving as the team's senior technical escalation point.
• Site Deployment & Commissioning: Travel 30-40% to lead the IT scope of new data center site deployments: rack and network design coordination, structured cabling oversight, server and network commissioning, and go‑live support in partnership with construction and critical operations teams.
• Infrastructure Lifecycle: Own the patching and vulnerability remediation program for servers and critical endpoints, backup integrity and restore testing, storage and NAS health, capacity planning, and hardware/software asset lifecycle and procurement.
• Monitoring & Observability: Partner with IT & Cybersecurity leadership on the Grafana observability build — consolidating logs and telemetry from critical IT systems and Building Management System (BMS) sources — and manage maintenance windows and on‑call coverage.
• Security & Compliance Partnership: Enforce security baselines and configuration standards; support investigation workflows for alerts escalated by SOC Team; provide evidence and control support to the Compliance Manager for ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, and PCI DSS audits.
• Vendor & Budget Management: Manage IT vendors, service contracts, licensing, and renewals; provide input to annual opex/capex budgeting and track spend against plan.
• Process & Documentation: Establish and maintain runbooks, configuration standards, change management discipline, and documentation so the environment is supportable beyond any single individual.

Qualifications

Required

• Experience: 5-8 years of progressive IT infrastructure and operations experience, including 2+ years directly managing or leading technical staff (systems administrators, network administrators, or support technicians).
• Technical Depth: Demonstrated hands‑on depth in Windows & Linux Server administration, Microsoft 365 tenant administration, virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, or Proxmox VE), and backup/recovery operations.
• Networking: Solid enterprise networking fundamentals (routing, switching, VLANs, firewalls, wireless) with the ability to guide and quality‑check network administration work.
• Service Management: Experience running or materially improving an ITSM practice — SLAs, escalation management, and service reporting (Service Now, Zendesk, or similar ITSM or comparable platforms).
• Multi‑Site & Data Center: Experience supporting multi‑site infrastructure; direct exposure to data center environments, site buildouts, commissioning, or construction‑adjacent IT delivery strongly preferred.
• Security & Compliance: Working knowledge of security and compliance operations — patching and vulnerability management discipline, access reviews, and audit support for frameworks such as ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, or PCI DSS.
• Flexibility & Mobility: Ability and willingness to travel 30-40% to regional and new‑build sites; valid driver's license required.
• Leadership & Communication: Clear communicator who can translate technical status into business terms for executive stakeholders, with strong organizational discipline and a coaching mindset.

Preferred

• Certifications such as ITIL 4 Foundation, CompTIA Security+ or Network+, CCNA, Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert (MS-102), or PMP.
• Experience in mission‑critical, colocation, hyperscale, or other 24/7 uptime‑driven environments.
• Exposure to international or multi‑entity IT operations.
• Competitive salary rangeof $110-130k along with an annual performance bonus program
• 401k fully vested upon enrollment, up to a 4% employer match
• 100% employee premiums paid by employer for medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability
• Paid Time Off + Sick time

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis.

Prime is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants are considered for employment without attention to race, color, age, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, protected veteran or military status, disability status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local laws and ordinances.

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