Remote Research Operations Director Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Sentinel Blue is looking for an Operations Director to join our Operations organization, working alongside peer leaders in Security, Compliance, PMO, and Customer Success. This role will directly lead our Service Desk and Infrastructure Engineering teams while owning the full lifecycle of IT operations from ticket intake and resolution through remediation, automation, lifecycle management, and continual service improvement.
The ideal candidate has strong leadership skills, a hands-on technical foundation across Microsoft and cloud infrastructure, and a passion for building repeatable and secure operational practices. They should communicate effectively with both executives and engineers, drive ITIL-aligned processes, enforce change management standards, and deliver reliable service outcomes across our client environments.
This is a full-time position that is fully remote.
This position may require access to technology, technical data, or information that is subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations. Employment in this position is contingent upon either verification of U.S. person status as defined under applicable export control regulations (which includes U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain protected individuals such as refugees and asylees) or the ability to obtain any required export authorization. The company reserves the right not to apply for an export license and to decline to proceed with any applicant on that basis. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to citizenship status, national origin, or immigration status.
A day in the Operations Director role:
The Operations Director will oversee the full lifecycle of IT services and infrastructure operations, ensuring reliability, security, and responsiveness across all client environments. A typical day may include managing ticket escalations, coordinating service desk workflows, reviewing infrastructure performance metrics, and ensuring adherence to secure baseline configurations for systems such as Windows 11, Windows Server, macOS, Microsoft 365, and Azure.
This role will track and improve key operational metrics, including ticket volume, SLA adherence, MTTR (mean time to resolution), system uptime, patch compliance rates, backup success rates, and individual contributor performance indicators. They will establish and maintain dashboards for visibility across leadership and technical teams, and ensure that SLA and KPI targets are clearly defined, measured, and met.
The IT Operations Director will also participate in change management activities, conduct post-incident reviews, and collaborate with peer teams in Security, Compliance, PMO, and Customer Success to align technical practices with operational and security objectives. They will help refine ITIL-aligned processes and implement automation and knowledge-sharing initiatives that drive long-term efficiency and service quality.
As the organization grows, this role will have opportunities to shape infrastructure modernization roadmaps, mentor technical staff, drive continuous improvement initiatives, and expand into strategic leadership or architecture positions.
Responsibilities:

• Lead the Service Desk and Infrastructure Engineering teams, ensuring consistent ticket lifecycle management from intake through resolution and post-incident review.
• Monitor and improve operational metrics including SLA performance, MTTR, ticket volume trends, escalation rates, patch compliance, backup success, and infrastructure uptime.
• Maintain clear escalation paths and ensure appropriate ticket categorization, prioritization, and assignment across support tiers.
• Drive the development and enforcement of secure baseline configurations for Windows 11, Windows Server, macOS, Microsoft 365, Azure, and endpoint devices.
• Oversee patching, backup, disaster recovery, and environment lifecycle management, ensuring accurate tracking and remediation of failures or exceptions.
• Implement and refine ITIL-aligned processes including Incident, Problem, Change, and Knowledge Management frameworks.
• Coordinate with peer teams in SOC, Compliance, PMO, and Customer Success to align operational practices with security, regulatory, and customer-facing objectives.
• Participate in change management activities, including risk scoring, approval workflows, rollback planning, and impact communication.
• Conduct post-incident reviews and root cause analyses, ensuring remediation activities are documented, tracked, and executed.
• Maintain operational documentation, SOPs, runbooks, asset inventories, and knowledge base articles to standardize and streamline support.
• Manage performance expectations for individual contributors through metrics, coaching, and feedback loops driven by data and SLA adherence.
• Identify automation opportunities and drive continual service improvement initiatives that reduce recurring incidents and increase operational efficiency.
• Provide regular reports and operational insights to leadership, translating complex technical metrics into clear business narratives.

What We Can Offer:
Sentinel Blue is a young company with a focused mission: We're bringing enterprise-class cybersecurity to small and medium sized businesses. Frankly, we're pushing the envelope of how things are done and constantly seeking innovative ways to meet that mission. The pace is fast, and we're always learning new things. This is a great place if you want to expose yourself to new and emerging technologies, want to be challenged, and want to build your skills. Further, success in this role can quickly transition into a team leadership role. The right person will find themselves in a fun, dynamic environment, working on interesting problems and making a real difference.
You will be required to achieve a Security+ certification in the first 2 months of hire; we'll cover your certification costs and provide paid time for you to study!
Requirements:

• U.S. citizenship - by nature of our work with the defense industry, all employees must be eligible for a Secret clearance.
• 5-10 years of experience in IT operations, service delivery, infrastructure engineering, or IT leadership roles.
• Proven experience managing Service Desk, Tiered Support Models, and escalation workflows.
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure technologies such as Windows 11, Windows Server, macOS, Microsoft 365, Azure, virtualization platforms, and enterprise networking.
• Demonstrated ownership of operational metrics such as SLA adherence, MTTR, uptime, patch compliance, backup success rates, and ticket volume reduction.
• Experience implementing or improving ITIL-aligned processes including incident management, change management, problem management, and knowledge management.
• Ability to lead teams, make decisions under pressure, assign priority appropriately, and maintain operational discipline.
• Experience deploying and enforcing secure baseline configurations across client environments.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly report status, escalate risks, and translate technical issues into business impacts.
• Ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously while driving tasks to completion through structured workflows.
• CompTIA Security+ certification is required in the first 2 months of hire

Desired Qualifications:

• Relevant certifications such as CMMC Certified Professional (CCP), Certified CMMC Assessor (CCA), ITIL Foundation/Practitioner, CompTIA Network+, Azure Administrator, Azure Solutions Architect, CCNA, CISSP, or related technical credentials.
• Experience working in a multi-client consulting or managed services environment. Prior work supporting multiple organizations simultaneously is highly valued.
• Familiarity with Azure Government and Microsoft 365 GCC High environments, including their unique compliance and security requirements.
• Practical understanding of security and compliance policies such as least privilege, RBAC, audit logging, configuration baselines, change management, and endpoint protection.
• Experience leading technical teams in client-facing roles such as IT operations, consulting, infrastructure engineering, Service Desk leadership, or support management.
• Understanding of cloud-first architecture and securing environments built in Azure, Microsoft 365, and hybrid environments.
• Experience with related frameworks such as CMMC, NIST 800-171, NIST 800-172, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, ISO 27001, CIS Controls, or SOC 2.
• Ability to analyze infrastructure configurations and determine whether policies or technical safeguards meet operational and security objectives.
• Demonstrated passion for continual improvement, automation, and professional growth, with potential to advance into Director-level roles.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Business, or a related technical field.

Benefits:

• Fully paid individual healthcare, vision and dental insurance for the employee.
• Paid certification and training opportunities.
• Three weeks of paid vacation + 10 paid holidays.
• A supportive environment with a focus on keeping healthy work-life balance.
• Retirement benefit (401k) with company match.