Head of Infrastructure & IT

Location: South Bay, CA

Work Arrangement: On-site, 5 days per week

Our Client is a rapidly growing, privately held technology company developing advanced hardware and software systems for industrial applications.

The company is looking for a hands-on Head of IT to build and lead its infrastructure and IT organization during a significant period of growth. This is an opportunity to take ownership of the company's technology infrastructure, establish its long-term IT strategy, and build the systems that will support its next stage of expansion.

This is not a traditional corporate IT leadership position. The environment combines corporate technology needs with demanding engineering and infrastructure requirements, including on-premises data centers, high-performance computing, large-scale data storage, and hybrid cloud environments.

Reporting directly to the CEO, you will initially operate as a highly technical individual contributor while establishing the architecture, priorities, and organizational structure for the IT function. You will have significant influence over technology decisions, infrastructure investments, and the team you build.

Responsibilities:

• Establish the company's IT and infrastructure strategy, roadmap, and standards to support continued business growth.
• Architect, build, and commission a new data center, including compute, storage, networking, power, cooling, and edge-computing infrastructure.
• Design and manage large-scale, high-performance storage and compute environments supporting substantial volumes of engineering and operational data.
• Own Kubernetes, virtualization, and Linux-based infrastructure across on-premises and cloud environments.
• Design and manage network architecture, including segmentation across corporate, server, engineering, and operational environments.
• Establish and lead the company's security program, including monitoring, vulnerability management, incident response, and security controls.
• Oversee compliance initiatives involving NIST 800-171, CMMC, and ITAR requirements.
• Establish high-availability architecture, disaster recovery, and business continuity practices.
• Oversee corporate IT, including identity and access management, endpoints, employee technology, and collaboration systems.
• Manage infrastructure budgets, evaluate vendors, and make practical build-versus-buy and on-premises-versus-cloud decisions.
• Present infrastructure strategy, investment priorities, availability, and risk to executive leadership.
• Recruit, develop, and lead the IT organization as the company scales.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of enterprise IT, infrastructure, or systems engineering experience.
• At least 2 years of experience leading IT or infrastructure teams.
• Strong hands-on experience designing, building, and managing on-premises infrastructure and data center environments.
• Deep knowledge of Linux-based infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience deploying and managing Kubernetes, including in on-premises environments.
• Broad technical knowledge across compute, storage, networking, and virtualization.
• Experience with both on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
• Ability to architect and troubleshoot complex infrastructure environments rather than relying exclusively on third-party vendors.
• Experience developing infrastructure strategy, managing budgets, and making technology investment decisions.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work directly with executive leadership and engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building an IT or infrastructure function within a startup or high-growth company.
• Experience designing or commissioning a data center from the ground up.
• Exposure to high-performance computing, large-scale data storage, or high-bandwidth networking technologies such as InfiniBand.
• Experience supporting manufacturing, industrial, engineering, or other hardware-intensive environments.
• Familiarity with operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS), and factory network security.
• Experience with NIST 800-171, CMMC, or ITAR compliance.
• Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline.

This position is based in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, California, and requires an on-site presence five days per week. The company operates in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment where IT and infrastructure work closely with engineering and business operations.

Compensation

Base compensation is $225-275k