Executive Director, IT Infrastructure & Automation

Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Tuition remission

Free Pittsburgh Regional Transit pass

Extensive retirement options

Paid time off & holidays

Healthcare options

Job summary

Carnegie Mellon University seeks a technology leader to drive the network, data center, and communications services supporting the university's academic, research, and administrative missions. You will lead a team responsible for critical infrastructure, balancing operations with automation and cloud initiatives to improve reliability and service quality.

Your role reports to the Assistant Vice President for Infrastructure Services, guiding directors and senior experts while aligning

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise networking, data centers, IT infrastructure, or related technology services, including leading managers and senior technical contributors.
• Experience leading architectural, technical, and organizational change to advance standardization, automation, and service delivery without sacrificing reliability.
• Experience with operational resilience, service management, financial planning, strategic sourcing, vendor management, and contract negotiation.
• Experience negotiating complex, high-value vendor contracts and managing strategic network provider agreements.
• Ability to discuss technical issues with engineers, frame choices for executives, and build productive relationships with technical and nontechnical collaborators.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement a cohesive, multi-year strategy across the portfolio, including infrastructure architecture, software platforms, management, and automation.
• Build automation into the operating model through consistent configuration management, standard interfaces, observability, and shared automation platforms and practices.
• Ensure services are secure, scalable, sustainable, and reliable while continuously improving how they are operated and delivered.
• Collaborate with IT and campus partners to establish clear service standards and improve resource management, availability, performance, incident response, and lifecycle management.
• Develop reusable capabilities that enable teams to consume infrastructure consistently, automate processes, and innovate more quickly.
• Negotiate major vendor contracts, SLAs, and pricing for enterprise networking and services in your portfolio.
• Lead architecture, capacity, resilience, sustainability, and capital planning across the portfolio.
• Set direction for the organization, develop leaders and technical talent, and foster a culture of accountability and engineering rigor.
• Lead organizational and operational changes required to expand automation at scale while maintaining reliability of critical services.
• Establish priorities and make decisions balancing institutional needs, technology, risk, service quality, staffing, and cost.
• Provide financial stewardship and oversee strategic vendor relationships.
• Represent the portfolio in university planning, governance, and major institutional initiatives.

Skills

Leadership

Enterprise networking

Data centers

IT infrastructure

Vendor management

Contract negotiation

Automation

Cloud & hybrid

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Carnegie Mellon University seeks a technology leader to drive the network, data center, and communications services supporting the university's academic, research, and administrative missions. You will lead a team responsible for critical infrastructure, balancing operations with automation and cloud initiatives to improve reliability and service quality.

Your role reports to the Assistant Vice President for Infrastructure Services, guiding directors and senior experts while aligning