Principal IT Operations Architect

Overview

The Principal IT Operations Administrator leads, manages, and optimizes the organization's IT infrastructure and operational services. This role ensures the availability, reliability, performance, and security of critical IT systems while aligning operations with business needs and compliance requirements.

Primary Purpose

The Principal IT Operations Administrator provides technical leadership, oversees day-to-day IT operations, and acts as a subject matter expert for infrastructure, systems, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Lead IT operations strategy, planning, and execution across infrastructure, networks, servers, storage, and cloud environments.
• Oversee daily monitoring, incident management, problem management, and system health checks.
• Manage configuration, patching, and upgrades of operating systems, servers, and enterprise applications.
• Ensure compliance with IT security standards, regulatory requirements, and company policies.
• Implement automation and monitoring solutions to improve operational efficiency and reduce downtime.
• Collaborate with security, application, and business teams to ensure seamless system integrations and operations.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to IT operations team members.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) for major incidents and ensure implementation of corrective and preventive actions.
• Manage vendor relationships, service contracts, and performance of managed service providers.
• Develop and maintain documentation of IT processes, architecture, and operational procedures.
• Support business continuity and disaster recovery planning, testing, and execution.
• Performs other duties as assigned

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. Master’s degree or industry certifications preferred.
• Experience with ITIL, Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS, VMware preferred.
• 15+ years of experience in IT operations, infrastructure administration, or systems engineering.
• Proven experience in managing enterprise IT environments (on-premises, hybrid, and cloud).
• Strong background in Windows/Linux server administration, virtualization, networking, and storage technologies.
• Experience with Azure administration and automation tools.
• Demonstrated success in leading IT operations teams and managing critical IT services.
• Experience in regulated industries (pharma, CRO, healthcare).
• Deep understanding of IT infrastructure, networking, server administration, and cloud technologies.
• High knowledge of IT service management, ITSM, frameworks such as ITIL.
• High ability to analyze complex issues, perform root cause analysis, and implement long term solutions.
• High strong leadership and mentoring skills to guide junior IT staff.
• High excellent project management, organizational, and time management skills.
• High effective communication and interpersonal skills to engage with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• High ability to thrive in a fast-paced, global environment with multiple competing priorities.
• Proficiency with monitoring, automation, and orchestration tools as ServiceNow, Ansible, Nagios, Splunk.