IT Operations Manager, Onsite Client Lead

About the role

Velocity Technologies is a Tempe IT services company, founded in Arizona in 2004. One of our clients is an organization with about 1,000 users and its own IT team of fewer than five people. We provide that client's IT leadership: planning, security, engineering and escalation.

What's missing is someone on site every day who makes sure the plan gets done. That's this job. You'll be a Velocity employee, based at the client, running day-to-day IT and directing the work of the client's IT staff.

The job, honestly

We know what needs to happen at this client: patching on schedule, access cleaned up, backups that are actually tested, a documented network, and tickets that don't sit for weeks. Knowing has not been the problem. Follow-through has. Work gets agreed to and then drifts.

We need someone who turns a list into names and dates, checks the result, and says plainly when something hasn't been done. You'll do it respectfully, as the person who gives the team clear direction and backs them up.

You won't be on your own. Velocity's engineers and security team back you up on anything that needs more depth or more hands. You'll report to Jesse Knox, who leads IT operations at Velocity, and meet with him every week. For about the first six months you'll have close support from senior Velocity staff while you take over day-to-day ownership.

Where you'll work

Three to four days a week at the client site, and the rest at our Tempe office. The two are five minutes apart. Weekday day shift, matched to the client's business hours. Some evening or weekend work: planned maintenance, scheduled around the client's operations and announced ahead of time, and urgent issues at the site, with Velocity engineers as backup.

The job covers offices and operational areas, so you'll need to be able to lift and move equipment up to 50 lbs. A valid driver's license and reliable transportation are required for travel between the client site and our office.

Your first 90 days

Month one

Learn the business, the systems and the people. Get admin access that Velocity controls. Find out what's really in the ticket queue, what's overdue, and what isn't documented.

Month two

Every recurring task has an owner and a due date. A weekly queue review with the team. A change process that keeps the business running during changes.

Month three

Show what got closed, what's still open and why, and what keeps breaking. Bring a short list of permanent fixes to leadership.

Day to day

• Set the team's priorities each morning and run a weekly review.
• Work Tier 2 and 3 problems yourself when that's the fastest way through: Windows Server, Active Directory and DNS, Entra ID and Microsoft 365, Linux, switching and VLANs, firewalls, VPN and backups.
• Keep patching, monitoring follow-up, access changes and restore tests on schedule.
• Plan changes so nothing goes in without a way back.
• Coach the technicians and keep a record when work isn't getting done. The client makes employment decisions for its own staff; you make sure they have the facts.
• Keep documentation, asset records and runbooks current, so the place doesn't depend on one person's memory, including yours.
• Send a short written update each week to client leadership and to Velocity: done, slipped, blocked, decisions needed.
• Work with vendors and Velocity engineers on projects and the harder escalations.

How we'll measure it

• Tickets older than 30 days, and whether that number is going down.
• Patching and backup restore tests completed on schedule.
• Agreed work finished by the date it was promised.
• Your weekly update sent on time, every week.

We'll set specific targets with you once we've seen the starting point.

You're probably right for this if

• You have five or more years of hands-on systems administration or infrastructure work, with things you personally owned.
• You've spent at least two years directing other technicians' work, with or without a manager title.
• You can tell us about a team that kept missing commitments and what you changed.
• You've restored from backup for real and confirmed it worked.
• You're comfortable telling a manager, politely, that something they asked for isn't done.

Useful but not required: manufacturing, MSP or co-managed IT experience; Intune, PowerShell, Veeam, Hudu or SyncroMSP; a Microsoft, CompTIA or Cisco certification. Equivalent experience counts.

Pay

• $100,000 salary.
• Flexible PTO, planned around coverage at the client.
• About six months of close support from senior Velocity staff as you take over.

We'll go over the full package on the first call.

How hiring works

1. A 30-minute phone call with Jesse Knox about your experience, the schedule and the pay.
2. An in-person interview with Jesse in Tempe. We'll walk through a realistic scenario together: a few overdue tasks, a failed backup check and a change request, and how you'd handle them. No take-home work.

You'll hear back from a person within five business days of applying, whatever the answer.