Manager, IT Systems

The Opportunity

As Coursedog's first Manager, IT Systems, you'll lead the systems, integrations, and operational infrastructure that support day-to-day business operations across the company. Working within our Centralized Operations & Systems team, and reporting directly to the VP, Enterprise Systems & Architecture, this role combines hands-on IT systems management, data architecture, AI tooling enablement, and security operations into a single foundational function that supports 200+ employees across the company.

• This contract is well-suited for a hands-on, AI-fluent operator who moves fluidly between solving today's problems and architecting next year's foundation.
• You'll lead tier-1 IT support for the company — triaging and resolving day-to-day issues across our internal tools, with L2/L3 escalation paths to the rest of the Systems team — while also designing the data flows and integrations that hold our systems together, leading multi-quarter projects, and supporting the AI tooling and governance that helps every team move from one-off AI usage to systematic, well-supported workflows.
• This is a highly cross-departmental function, not a solo operation - you'll partner closely with Operations, Finance, and Legal to drive progress and efficiency.

What You'll Do

• Internal Tool Stack & Vendor Management:
• Own administration of our core SaaS systems including Rippling, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Maxio, Jira, and related tooling.
• Serve as the company-wide point of contact for internal tool questions, escalations, and requests.
• Evaluate, procure, implement, and retire internal tools based on evolving business needs and operational scale.
• Manage vendor relationships, contracts, and renewals in partnership with Finance and Legal.
• Data Architecture & Integrations:
• Design and maintain the data architecture connecting our internal systems — data models, pipelines, warehousing, and integrations between SaaS tools and our analytics environment.
• Build and maintain ETL/ELT workflows via APIs, iPaaS tools, and native connectors so data flows reliably between systems of record.
• Establish scalable data governance practices around ownership, quality, definitions, and access.
• Partner with Data & Analytics teams to ensure operational and AI-related workflows are supported by reliable, well-modeled data.
• AI Enablement & Tooling:
• Administer and support the company's AI tooling ecosystem, including licensing, access management, usage policies, and employee enablement.
• Partner cross-functionally to operationalize AI workflows and ensure employees can effectively leverage approved tools.
• Lay the foundation — SSO, identity, shared context, data access — that lets AI initiatives move from experiments to systematic implementation.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations leaders as they build AI into their workflows.
• Evaluate and pilot emerging AI capabilities and help drive responsible adoption across the organization.
• Security & SOC 2 Compliance:
• Own the internal-systems side of Coursedog's SOC 2 compliance program, including access controls, provisioning and deprovisioning, access reviews, MFA enforcement, audit logging, and evidence collection.
• Implement and maintain identity and access management (SSO, SCIM, least-privilege, RBAC) across the tool stack.
• Manage endpoint security and MDM for company devices.
• Partner with Security and Legal on policy creation and implementation, risk assessments, and vendor security reviews (including AI tools).

Requirements

• 5+ years in IT operations, business systems, data engineering, or systems engineering, with prior experience leading projects, mentoring teammates, and/or owning a domain end-to-end.
• Hands-on experience administering modern SaaS environments (Okta or similar IdP, Google Workspace or M365, Salesforce, an HRIS, a finance or ERP system, support and engineering tools). Strong Jira administration experience and comfort supporting cross-functional operational workflows.
• Strong experience designing and maintaining data models, integrations, and pipelines, with fluent-level SQL skills and hands-on experience using modern cloud data warehouses and ETL/ELT tooling such as Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, dbt, Fivetran, or Airbyte.
• Practical, hands-on AI fluency — you've used Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools to do meaningful work, helped others adopt them, and have a point of view on what works.
• Experience operating — not just observing — a security compliance program (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or similar).
• Ability to translate ambiguous business needs into scalable technical solutions, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and build strong working relationships across technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Benefits

• This is a 4-month contract role with the intention to convert to a full-time position.
• Candidates who join the team full time will be eligible for our competitive comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, unlimited paid time off, and retirement savings options.