IT Manager II | Server and Storage Systems

The IT Manager – Engineering & Enterprise Architecture leads enterprise-level infrastructure modernization, architecture strategy, and critical operational resiliency. This role bridges the gap between high-level architectural design and hands-on engineering management, ensuring AWG infrastructure—spanning legacy data centers, Cloud environments and modern SaaS environments—is secure, compliant, and scalable. You will lead, mentor, and manage a team of 8-10 IT infrastructure professionals, championing the transition to modern infrastructure practices by driving Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation via Terraform. **IT Manager | Server and Storage Systems** **Location:** 5000 Kansas Avenue Kansas City, KS 66106 **Work Model:** Hybrid **Department:** Information Technology **Make us your BEST Choice!** **Job Summary** The IT Manager leads enterprise-level infrastructure modernization, architecture strategy, and critical operational resiliency. This role bridges the gap between high-level architectural design and hands-on engineering management, ensuring AWG infrastructure—spanning legacy data centers, Cloud environments and modern SaaS environments—is secure, compliant, and scalable. You will lead, mentor, and manage a team of 8-10 IT infrastructure professionals, championing the transition to modern infrastructure practices by driving Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation via Terraform. **Key Responsibilities** - Team Leadership & Management: - Directly lead, mentor, and manage a high-performing team of 8-10 IT infrastructure professionals, fostering a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and technical excellence. - Balance team capacity between critical operational support and long-term engineering initiatives, ensuring clear prioritization and professional growth for all team members. - Promote cross-training between disparate technical disciplines (e.g., legacy systems vs. cloud/SaaS) to build redundancy and bridge skill gaps. - Enterprise Architecture & Strategy: - Define and enforce technical standards, architectural roadmaps, and lifecycle management for enterprise hardware and software. - Lead engineering steering initiatives to ensure infrastructure aligns with long-term business goals and technical debt reduction. - Consult with internal teams to provide guidance on systems architecture, cloud adoption, and future-state technology direction. - IaC & Automation Leadership: - Drive the enterprise-wide adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles to eliminate manual configuration and improve consistency. - Lead the standardization, development, and maintenance of Terraform modules to automate the provisioning and lifecycle management of cloud and hybrid environments. - Integrate IaC practices into CI/CD pipelines to ensure scalable, reproducible, and compliant infrastructure deployments. - Legacy Data Center & Hybrid Infrastructure: - Oversee the full lifecycle management of on-premises data center infrastructure (compute, storage, and networking). - Manage production environments, including troubleshooting complex, unsupported legacy systems and planning phased migrations to modern platforms. - Maintain robust connectivity and integration between legacy data center footprints and modern cloud/SaaS environments. - SaaS Governance & Integration: - Partner with application and business teams to manage the selection, implementation, and lifecycle of SaaS solutions, ensuring alignment with organizational security and operational standards. - Develop frameworks for SaaS integration, focusing on data flow, automated provisioning, and vendor management. - Monitor SaaS performance and compliance, ensuring these tools effectively support business unit requirements. - Identity & Access Management (IAM) Modernization: - Lead the IAM modernization program anchored in Microsoft Entra, focusing on workforce and external identity flows. - Design and implement modern authentication, Privileged Access Manage…