Head of IT & Platform Operations (Hands-on Leader)

Tito & Friends Dienstleistungs GmbH; Wien; On-site; EUR 80,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work

Performance-based bonus from year two

Job summary

Tito & Friends Dienstleistungs GmbH, a European group in market research and SaaS platforms, seeks a hands-on Workplace IT & Platform Operations lead. You will unify identity, access, networks, and security across sites, while actively contributing technically in incidents and IaC work.

You will guide a distributed team and own major infrastructure areas from laptops to production clusters. The role requires 6+ years in infra/ops with 3+ years leadership, strong cloud skills (AWS, Kubernetes),

Qualifications

• At least 6 years of hands-on work in infrastructure and operations, including 3+ years leading teams while staying technically active.
• Strong hands-on skills in cloud and platform operations: AWS, Kubernetes, Linux, networking, Terraform or similar IaC tools.
• Solid knowledge of workplace IT: Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune and/or Jamf, VPN, firewalls.
• Practical experience with security and compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 or comparable.
• Experience leading distributed, multi-country teams, and willingness to travel regularly between our sites (around 20–25%).
• You decide, prioritize hard and explain things clearly to engineers and non-technical people alike.
• You still enjoy getting stuck in - if you haven’t touched a terminal in years, this isn’t the role for you.
• Experience merging or restructuring IT teams is a strong plus.
• Fluent English is essential, with excellent communication and stakeholder management skills. German language skills are a strong advantage.
• Proven professional experience in Austria and/or Germany, with a good understanding of local business practices, workplace culture and stakeholder expectations.
• Demonstrated experience leading multicultural, internationally diverse teams, ideally within a European business environment. Strong intercultural communication skills, with the ability to build trust and collaborate effectively across different nationalities and working styles.
• This position is based at our headquarters in Vienna. Candidates must already have the legal right to work in Austria. Relocation assistance is not provided; candidates relocating to Vienna would be responsible for their own relocation arrangements.

Responsibilities

• Lead a distributed team of around 8 engineers across several European sites, covering workplace IT and platform operations. You coach by doing: pairing, reviewing, and taking on hard technical problems yourself.
• Stay hands‑on: own critical parts of the infrastructure yourself, take part in on‑call, and set the technical standard by example.
• Own operations of our SaaS infrastructure: AWS, a self-hosted Kubernetes cluster and around 350 virtual servers.
• Own workplace IT for around 200 users: devices, device management, VPN, office networks, firewalls, accounts and user support.
• Build one consistent model for identity and access management across the group: Microsoft 365 / Entra ID, SSO, 2FA, password management, DNS and domains, onboarding and offboarding across all systems.
• Set priorities, SLAs and an on‑call setup that works without heroes.
• Drive security and compliance: ISMS, GDPR, audit readiness, and NIS2 where relevant.
• Own the IT budget, vendors and hosting contracts. Keep cloud and hosting costs under control.
• Standardize and automate: infrastructure as code, documentation, ticketing, runbooks.
• Be the go‑to counterpart for product, engineering and management on infrastructure decisions.

Skills

English fluency

Stakeholder management

Cloud operations

Kubernetes

Networking

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Linux

Terraform

Job description

Tito & Friends Dienstleistungs GmbH, a European group in market research and SaaS platforms, seeks a hands-on Workplace IT & Platform Operations lead. You will unify identity, access, networks, and security across sites, while actively contributing technically in incidents and IaC work.

You will guide a distributed team and own major infrastructure areas from laptops to production clusters. The role requires 6+ years in infra/ops with 3+ years leadership, strong cloud skills (AWS, Kubernetes),