Director, IT Operations

Form Energy; Berkeley (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health coverage (employee)

Paid parental leave

Competitive compensation

13 weeks paid leave

Job summary

Form Energy, a high-growth energy technology company, seeks a Director of IT Operations to own the core IT infrastructure and services across multiple U.S. sites. You will lead a distributed team, drive ITIL-aligned operations, and partner with Cybersecurity & GRC to mature controls.

You will oversee onboarding of devices, networks, cloud services, and procurement, delivering reliable services to R&D, lab, and manufacturing users while maintaining lean operations and strong customer focus.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in IT with leadership experience across multiple sites.
• Experience with ITSM/ITIL in a scalable operation.
• Proven track record in vendor and budget management.
• Strong communication and hands-on, pragmatic style in hardware/manufacturing environments.

Responsibilities

• Own core IT infrastructure across sites including servers, storage, virtualization, cloud services, and identity platforms.
• Lead the endpoint fleet and device management across Windows and macOS.
• Direct networking and IT/OT boundary collaboration with manufacturing controls teams.
• Own service desk, procurement, and IT asset management with defined SLAs.
• Mature incident, change, and problem management with monitoring and audit readiness.
• Manage budgets, vendors, and a distributed team across MA, CA, and WV.

Skills

IT leadership

IT operations

ITSM/ITIL

Vendor management

Distributed teams

Cloud (M365 / Azure)

Audit & compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT or related field

Tools

Microsoft 365 / Azure

Google Workspace

Endpoint management tools

Job description

Are you ready to build America’s energy future? Form Energy is an American manufacturing and energy technology company. We’re revolutionizing energy storage with cost-effective, multi-day technology designed to keep the electric grid secure and reliable, even during extended periods of stress. By strengthening the electric system and reimagining what’s possible, we’re giving clean energy a whole new form!

In recent years, Form Energy has earned a number of accolades, including being named by TIME as a “Best Invention”, MIT Technology Review as a “Top Climate Tech Company To Watch”, and Fast Company as “One of the Next Big Things In Tech”. We are making rapid progress on our mission of delivering energy storage for a better world, and our team is growing just as rapidly to meet demand. We have signed contracts with leading electric utilities across the United States and production of our iron-air batteries is underway at our first high-volume manufacturing facility in West Virginia.

Working for Form Energy is more than just a job, it’s a chance to be part of something extraordinary. And now - right as we significantly scale up battery manufacturing - might be the most exciting moment in the company’s history to join. We are assembling a team of highly talented and driven individuals across the country. Driven by our core values of humanity, excellence, and creativity, our team is determined to deliver on our mission and transform the energy landscape for the better.

Feeling energized to make a meaningful impact on the world? Then keep reading - you’ve come to the right place.

Role Description

Form Energy is scaling quickly across research, engineering, and manufacturing, and maturing the operating discipline that comes with it. The Director of IT Operations owns the infrastructure, end-user services, networks, identity, and endpoint fleet that keep the company running across four U.S. sites. You will build a lean, metrics-driven, audit-ready IT operation — delivering excellent service to a demanding R&D, lab, and manufacturing user base while standing up the operational controls a maturing company requires.

This is a hybrid role, which will require working onsite from one of our office locations 3+ days per week.

Relocation assistance is available.

What you'll do:

• Own core IT infrastructure: servers, storage, virtualization, and cloud (Microsoft 365 / Azure and Google Workspace) — including tenant infrastructure, security baselines, licensing compliance, and endpoint integration — and the identity and access infrastructure (Entra ID / Active Directory, MFA, and conditional-access policies). SSO federation and SCIM provisioning to enterprise platforms are owned by IT Engineering & Platforms, acting on this infrastructure.

• Lead the endpoint fleet and device management across Windows and macOS (MDM, imaging, patching, encryption enforcement) and the supporting service catalog.

• Direct networking across all sites — LAN/WAN/WLAN, firewalls, and segmentation — and partner with manufacturing controls teams on the secure IT/OT boundary (without owning OT).

• Own the service desk, procurement, and IT asset/inventory management across all sites — through a Manager, IT Service & Procurement — defining SLAs and metrics and driving a strong customer-service culture for a multi-site, multi-shift user base.

• Mature IT operations disciplines — incident, problem, and change management; monitoring and alerting; backup and restore; runbooks; and on-call.

• Operate IT general controls (access, change, and operations) to ITGC standards and produce audit-ready evidence as the company’s controls environment matures; partner closely with Cybersecurity & GRC and external auditors.

• Manage infrastructure, networking, and endpoint vendors, licensing, and the operating budget; deliver excellence and reliability with a lean team.

• Lead a distributed team of site systems/network engineers and a service & procurement manager across MA, CA, and WV; coach, develop, and hire selectively against clear capability gaps. (A dedicated Infrastructure & Networking manager layer may be added later if span of control warrants.).

What you'll bring:

• 10+ years in IT with 5+ years leading IT operations and/or infrastructure teams, ideally across multiple sites.

• Demonstrated operational maturity across identity, endpoint, network, and cloud (Microsoft 365 / Azure), with strong ITSM/ITIL practices.

• Experience operating IT controls in a compliance-intensive environment, including producing audit evidence.

• A track record of building lean, metrics-driven operations with high service levels.

• Strong people leadership of distributed teams, plus vendor and budget management.

• Clear, credible communication and a hands-on, pragmatic style suited to a fast-paced hardware and manufacturing environment.
  

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in manufacturing, hardware, laboratory, or critical-infrastructure environments.

• Experience standing up IT controls in a maturing or compliance-intensive company.

• Familiarity with the IT/OT boundary in a manufacturing setting.

• Relevant certifications (e.g., ITIL, PMP, Microsoft / identity / cloud).

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-CB1

Humanity is a cornerstone of Form Energy’s culture, and we make sure our compensation and benefits reflect that. Form Energy offers competitive salaries, stock options, and a holistic benefits package to ensure all employees have what they need to thrive while working here.

When it comes to you and your family’s health, we cover 100% of medical, dental, and vision premiums for full-time employees - and 80% of healthcare premiums for dependents. This starts from day one. We also offer at least 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents (up to 20 weeks for birthing parents), and generous vacation policies to give employees time to recharge when needed.

To build America’s energy future, we need everyone at the table. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply to our open jobs.

If you may require reasonable accommodations to participate in our interview process, please contact [e-mail]. Requests for accommodations will be treated with discretion.

Form Energy is committed to maintaining the privacy of our applicants. Please be aware that we will never solicit sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers or bank account details during the recruiting or hiring process.