Director, IT

Pantheon WebOps Platform powers the open web, running more than 300,000 sites in the cloud for customers including Google, Princeton, Salesloft and Doctors Without Borders. Every day, thousands of developers and marketers create, iterate, and scale WordPress and Drupal sites to reach billions of people globally. Pantheon’s multitenant, container-based platform enables organizations to manage all of their websites from a single dashboard. Organizations including Clorox and the United Nations drive results through accelerated development and real-time publishing using Pantheon’s collaborative workflows. 

As the Director, IT, you will lead the strategic and operational management of Pantheon’s IT function, ensuring the delivery of secure, reliable, scalable, and employee-centered technology services.

This role is accountable for IT strategy, team leadership, service delivery, infrastructure, identity and endpoint operations, security controls, compliance readiness, vendor management, technology lifecycle management, and business continuity. You will lead the IT support and systems engineering function and partner closely with Business Systems, Information Security, Security Engineering, GRC, People, Legal, Finance, Engineering, and other cross-functional leaders.

You will establish an operating model that makes IT easy to engage, clear to own, and efficient to scale. You will turn recurring operational needs into durable processes, automation, documentation, and measurable services while serving as a senior escalation point for high-impact IT issues.

The role has global scope across Pantheon employees, contractors, offices, remote workers, endpoints, workplace technology, enterprise IT services, and internal IT operations. 

Strategic IT Leadership:

• Develop and execute Pantheon’s IT strategy, roadmap, and operating model, aligning technology initiatives with business objectives, employee needs, security requirements, and business continuity goals.
• Establish clear ownership, service boundaries, decision rights, escalation paths, and operating agreements across IT, Business Systems, Security, GRC, People, Legal, Finance, and Engineering.
• Translate business needs into sequenced programs, measurable outcomes, and clear tradeoffs for executive stakeholders.
• Identify and implement technologies, processes, and automation that improve operational efficiency, security, employee experience, and organizational scale.

Team Management:

• Lead, mentor, and develop the IT support and systems engineering team, fostering a culture of service excellence, technical ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Plan team capacity, coverage, hiring, succession, and skills development as Pantheon’s needs evolve.
• Allocate resources effectively across operational support, strategic programs, incidents, technical debt, and planned improvements.
• Establish expectations for documentation, service quality, operational discipline, and sustainable workload management.
• Partner with People and Finance on headcount planning, role design, performance management, and organizational development.

Infrastructure and Operations:

• Oversee the design, implementation, maintenance, and lifecycle management of IT systems, endpoints, networks, office technology, workplace platforms, and internal IT tooling.
• Own the IT-side strategy and operations for identity and access, endpoint management, device security, patching, software deployment, asset management, and hardware lifecycle processes.
• Ensure reliable operation of core workplace services, including identity, collaboration tools, endpoint platforms, office networks, conference-room technology, and employee hardware.
• Ensure onboarding, transfers, offboarding, access changes, device deployment, and equipment recovery are completed accurately, promptly, and auditable.
• Maintain accurate inventories of applications, licenses, devices, vendors, integrations, and business-critical dependencies.

IT Service Delivery and Automation:

• Own the internal IT service-management model, including intake, triage, incident response, request fulfillment, escalation, knowledge management, service reporting, and continual improvement.
• Establish and monitor service expectations and metrics such as response time, resolution time, employee satisfaction, backlog health, request quality, and automation rate.
• Improve the employee experience through clear support channels, reliable self-service, useful documentation, and consistent communications.
• Design scalable workflows for access requests, software provisioning, onboarding, offboarding, hardware tracking, and other repeatable employee requests.
• Use automation and integrations to reduce repetitive work, improve consistency, strengthen controls, and scale service delivery while preserving human escalation for ambiguous or sensitive issues.
• Ensure new systems and workflows are documented, supportable, measurable, and clearly owned after launch.

Security and Compliance:

• Partner with Information Security, Security Engineering, GRC, Internal Audit, Legal, and People to implement practical security controls across IT operations.
• Develop, maintain, and enforce IT policies, standards, procedures, and evidence required for effective governance and audit readiness.
• Support identity governance, access reviews, role-based access, SSO, SCIM, privileged access, service-account governance, endpoint security, vendor reviews, and remediation of identified risks.
• Ensure IT processes follow least privilege, separation of duties, reliable approvals, traceability, and appropriate independent verification.
• Contribute to security investigations, incident response, business continuity, disaster recovery, and operational resilience planning.
• Balance strong security and compliance controls with a practical employee experience and manageable operational processes.

Vendor and Budget Management:

• Manage vendor relationships, renewals, service reviews, contract inputs, licensing, procurement, implementation, and operational escalations for IT-managed services.
• Manage the IT budget, forecast demand, evaluate total cost of ownership, and ensure cost-effective use of resources.
• Identify opportunities to consolidate tools, improve utilization, reduce waste, and retire unnecessary services.
• Partner with Business Systems, Finance, Security, Legal, and functional leaders to clarify ownership when a platform spans multiple organizations.

Program and Cross-Functional Leadership:

• Lead complex IT programs from problem definition through planning, implementation, adoption, measurement, and operational handoff.
• Establish program governance, milestones, risks, dependencies, decision logs, launch readiness, rollback plans, and post-launch reviews.
• Represent IT priorities, risks, decisions, and tradeoffs in executive and cross-functional forums.
• Communicate clearly with employees, managers, executives, and technical partners about change, expected impact, and required action.
• Act as a trusted advisor on IT strategy, service quality, technology investment, operational risk, and business continuity.

Problem Resolution and Support:

• Act as a senior escalation point for critical or cross-functional IT issues, providing strategic guidance and coordinating recovery when business operations are at risk.
• Ensure high-quality, empathetic, and consistent user support across regions, offices, and time zones.
• Use service, asset, incident, and operational data to identify trends, recurring problems, and opportunities for improvement.
• Build durable solutions that reduce repeat incidents and avoid dependence on heroic individual effort.

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field; relevant equivalent experience will also be considered. A Master’s degree or relevant certifications such as ITIL, PMP, CISSP, or CISM is preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in IT, systems administration, infrastructure, workplace technology, or a related discipline, including at least 3 years in a people-leadership role.
• Proven experience leading an IT support, systems engineering, workplace technology, or corporate IT function in a distributed or global organization.
• Proven expertise in IT infrastructure, identity and access management, endpoint management, SaaS administration, systems management, service delivery, and network or workplace technology operations.
• Strong knowledge of cloud technologies, enterprise applications, ITSM practices, automation, and IT governance frameworks.
• Experience with modern workplace technologies such as Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, Okta, Jamf or comparable MDM, Jira or comparable ITSM platforms, and endpoint-security tools.
• Practical understanding of security, privacy, risk, audit, and compliance expectations, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, SOX, or comparable standards.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and inspire a high-performing distributed team.
• Experience managing budgets, vendors, renewals, licensing, procurement, technology contracts, and total cost of ownership.
• Experience delivering cross-functional programs, managing competing priorities, and establishing clear ownership and accountability.
• Exceptional problem-solving, decision-making, written, verbal, and executive communication skills.
• Strong judgment when balancing employee experience, operational efficiency, security, privacy, governance, and cost.

We have all the usual perks and benefits but what we can really offer you is a fantastic work environment powered by an amazing team.

• Industry competitive compensation and equity plan
• Flexible time off, sick days, and 13 paid holidays
• Comprehensive medical insurance including Health, Dental and Vision
• Paid parental leave (plus fertility, adoption and other family planning benefits)
• In-office workspace (San Francisco & Chicago)
• Monthly allowance for wellness, reading and access to LinkedIn Learning for continued development
• Events and activities both team-based and company wide that inspire, educate and cultivate
• The compensation range for this role is $166,700 to $232,000, based on experience.

Pantheon is an equal opportunity employer and we welcome applications from all backgrounds regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, or any other classification protected by law. Pantheon complies with federal and local disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation due to a disability for any part of the interview process, please contact [email protected]. Pursuant to local and federal regulations, Pantheon will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.

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