Senior Infrastructure Engineering Manager (Chicago-based)

About the role

The Senior Infrastructure Engineering Manager is responsible for leading the operational stability, scalability, automation, and performance of a large-scale infrastructure environment supporting enterprise SaaS operations. The role requires a minimum of 5+ years of experience in enterprise infrastructure environments, with a strong focus on uptime, reliability, operational efficiency, and infrastructure stability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the operational stability, scalability, performance, automation, and reliability of a 300+ server infrastructure environment across multiple data centers.
• Oversee Linux-based infrastructure operations supporting enterprise SaaS applications and internal technical operations.
• Drive infrastructure automation initiatives utilizing Ansible and Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies to improve consistency, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Develop and maintain automation playbooks, operational standards, and configuration management processes.
• Lead infrastructure incident response, root cause analysis efforts, and long-term remediation planning.
• Design and support redundancy, failover, backup, and disaster recovery strategies aligned with business continuity expectations.
• Provide technical leadership and operational oversight across outsourced infrastructure vendors, MSP partners, and DBA resources.
• Establish operational priorities, review execution quality, and ensure accountability and SLA adherence across third-party technical partners.
• Lead and mentor offshore Technical Operations resources supporting L1/L2 infrastructure operations workflows.
• Create and improve SOPs, escalation procedures, operational workflows, and infrastructure support processes.
• Partner cross-functionally with Engineering Leadership, Security, Product, and Executive Leadership teams to support infrastructure scalability and operational reliability.
• Support infrastructure governance, security operations, audit preparation, technical evidence gathering, and operational compliance initiatives related to SOC 2 Type II and related frameworks.
• Partner with leadership on infrastructure budgeting, vendor negotiations, utilization analysis, and operational cost optimization initiatives.
• Contribute to long-term infrastructure planning, operational maturity initiatives, and scalability improvements across the environment.
• Comfort operating within a fast-moving, highly collaborative infrastructure environment where operational ownership, responsiveness, and accountability are critical.
• Flexibility to support early morning occasionally or evening collaboration with offshore technical teams and infrastructure operations across multiple time zones.
• Ability to balance hands-on infrastructure engineering responsibilities with operational leadership and technical oversight.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience supporting and managing enterprise infrastructure environments within data centers, MSPs, hosting providers, SaaS organizations, or large-scale technical operations environments.
• Strong hands-on expertise with Ansible and infrastructure automation is REQUIRED.
• Demonstrated experience managing and supporting large-scale server environments with a strong focus on uptime, reliability, operational efficiency, and infrastructure stability.
• Demonstrated experience building and maintaining complex Ansible playbooks, automation workflows, configuration management standards, and Infrastructure-as-Code practices across large-scale infrastructure environments.
• Experience supporting infrastructure operations across multi-site or multi-data center environments.
• Experience leading infrastructure operations, outsourced technical vendors, MSP relationships, offshore operational teams, or DBA support resources.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure monitoring, observability, incident response, root cause analysis, backup strategies, redundancy planning, disaster recovery, and change management processes.
• Experience supporting infrastructure compliance initiatives such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or similar operational governance frameworks.
• Ability to balance technical execution with leadership, prioritization, operational accountability, and long-term infrastructure planning.
• Strong troubleshooting, documentation, communication, and organizational skills within fast-moving technical environments.