Manager, Infrastructure Engineering and Operations

Palomar College; San Marcos (CA); On-site; USD 132,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental & Vision plans

26+ paid holidays

Life insurance

Long-term care insurance

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Voluntary insurance options

Job summary

Palomar College seeks a Director-level Manager for Infrastructure Engineering and Operations to lead day-to-day operations across data center, network, servers, storage, and cloud services. You will drive strategic initiatives, manage budgets, and ensure security and resilience of critical systems.

Experience leading enterprise infrastructure in higher education or similar large organizations is essential. Travel to multiple campus locations and occasional after-hours maintenance are required.

Qualifications

• Five years infrastructure engineering/operations experience with supervisory responsibility.
• Education equivalent to a bachelor’s degree; US accreditation recognized.

Responsibilities

• Plans, manages, coordinates, and evaluates budget and staffing for infrastructure ops.
• Directs data center, network, server, storage, and cloud infrastructure operations.
• Ensures security controls and incident response align with policy and risk posture.
• Oversees vendor management, contracts, and service level agreements.

Skills

Leadership

Infrastructure management

Data center management

Budget planning

Security controls

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field

Tools

Cloud infrastructure

Job description

Manager, Infrastructure Engineering and Operations

Please see Special Instructions for more details.

The hiring committee will determine if interviews will be conducted in person at the College or via Zoom. Travel expenses are not reimbursed by the College. If a second-level interview is required, second-level travel reimbursement is only available for eligible candidates. HR will notify those who are eligible when second-level interviews are scheduled.

Position Information

Position Title

Position Title Manager, Infrastructure Engineering and Operations

Department

Department Information Services (Dept)

Primary Location

• Requires travel to other District locations.
• Palomar has multiple campus locations (San Marcos, Escondido, Rancho Bernardo and Fallbrook); training may occur at any of these locations and the work location is subject to change depending on future department needs.

Full or Part Time

Full or Part Time Full-Time

Category

Category Administrative

Hours per week Exempt Position

Number of Months

Number of Months 12 month

Work Schedule

• Exempt position
• Occasional evening, weekend and holiday hours are required to support scheduled maintenance and incident response.

Grade

Grade 69

• $11,785.72 [step 1] – $14,354.87 [step 5]. Step placement may be negotiable within this range dependent upon education and experience. Administrators who possess earned doctorates from accredited institutions are awarded an annual stipend of $1,842.81.
• If you are a current employee who applies via the external recruitment process and is selected for a promotion, step placement on the new grade will be in accordance with the applicable District agreement/handbook.

Salary/Wage Frequency Monthly

In addition to a competitive compensation structure, Palomar College also offers an extremely generous benefits package.

• Insurance fully paid for employees and their eligible dependents: four medical plans, dental HMO , and the vision plan (additional plans are available that require employee buy up/monthly contribution)
• Vacation, sick leave and 25 paid holidays
• $80,000 employee term life/accident insurance policy (additional buy up options available)
• Employee long-term care insurance
• Employee Assistance Plan ( EAP ) – Confidential free counseling, financial, legal, personal and professional development resources for all members of your household
• Additional buy up options available for other voluntary insurance benefits

The estimated maximum value of this employer-paid benefits package is approximately $31,245.84 annually.

Primary Function

Manages, plans, coordinates, and administers day-to-day operational activities for the District’s infrastructure engineering and operations; assist in and performs operations functions including planning, budget, oversight of contracts, coordinating with human resources, procurement and customer service; manages the District’s data center, network, telecommunications, server, storage, identity, and cloud infrastructure, including the acquisition, implementation, operation, security, maintenance, and lifecycle management of infrastructure systems and services; provides leadership and accountability for the District’s hybrid infrastructure environment, infrastructure transformation initiatives, operational resilience, and security posture of the systems and services within the assigned area; coordinates department functions and activities with other division staff, faculty, administrator and departments that utilize or depend on related infrastructure engineering and operations services.

Minimum Qualifications

To be eligible for this position, you must meet and provide evidence of the following minimum qualifications:

• Experience: Five years infrastructure engineering and/or infrastructure operations experience including two years of supervisory experience.
• Note: For work experience, a “year” is defined as equivalent to 40 hours per week for 12 months. If the position requires supervisory experience, the experience must be at a professional level (i.e. evaluation and/or discipline of staff).

AND

• Education: Equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field.

Only coursework completed at, and degrees awarded by, accredited institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education will be considered as satisfying the minimum qualifications. Coursework and degrees that are completed outside of the United States are required to have transcripts evaluated (evaluation to U.S. equivalency and a course by course analysis) by an appropriate U.S. credentials evaluation service. For a list of credentials evaluation agencies accepted by Palomar College, visit the National Association of Credentials Evaluation Services ( NACES ) website at https://naces.org/ , or the Association of International Credential Evaluators, Inc. ( AICE ) website at http://aice-eval.org/ .

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Antiracism (DEIAA) Statement

Palomar College is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and antiracism ( DEIAA ). We are dedicated to empowering students to succeed and are guided by our core values; some of which are the following:

• Access – We make education possible for everyone.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – We recognize and respect diversity, seek to foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, and strive to address inequities.

All positions require cultural competency which includes the sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ethnic backgrounds of community college students, faculty, and staff.

Preferred Qualifications

• Coursework beyond the minimum qualifications in computer science, information systems, information technology management or a related field.
• Current certification in cloud architecture, enterprise infrastructure or information security.
• Experience leading a technology transition in an educational setting, preferably in higher education.

Licenses and/or Certificates

Possession of a valid California Driver’s License.

Supervision Received and Exercised

Supervision Received From: Director, Information Services
Supervision Given: Assigned Supervisory, Classified, hourly, and volunteer employees

Duties and Responsibilities

Essential Functions: Essential responsibilities and duties may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Performs full management and supervisory activities in accordance with relevant District policies, procedures, and applicable employee contracts/handbooks which includes selecting and training new employees; planning, assigning, scheduling, and evaluating completed work; approving overtime/compensatory time; preparing and signing employee performance evaluations; recommending reclassifications; responding to grievances and taking appropriate disciplinary action; and performing related supervisory activities.
• Plans, manages, coordinates, and evaluates business and support functions and activities for infrastructure engineering and operations, including planning, budget, coordinating with human resources, procurement, contract administration, work planning and management, reporting, customer service and related matters; evaluates and reports on program operations and assesses program needs and improvement opportunities.
• Participates in and oversees development and implementation of goals, objectives, policies and priorities for infrastructure engineering and operations to include the District’s data center, network, telecommunications, server, storage, identity, and cloud infrastructure; recommends and administers program, department, division and District policies and procedures; monitors and evaluates the efficiency and effectiveness of program/department work and procedures; recommends appropriate service and staffing levels.
• Manages the development and tracking of the infrastructure engineering and operations budget; works with the Director and other division managers throughout the budget development process in forecasting funding needs for staffing, equipment, materials and supplies; analyzes department expenditure estimates, requests and proposals, identifies issues and concerns and advises on appropriate actions; prepares and processes budget transfers, contracts and other budget adjustments.
• Implements and maintains security controls within the assigned area consistent with the District’s information security program and adopted security framework; participates in security incident response; supports vulnerability identification and remediation, periodic access review, and security awareness activities within the assigned area.
• Establishes and monitors service level targets and operational performance measures for infrastructure engineering and operations, including service availability, capacity, performance, incident trends, and other applicable measures; analyzes performance data to inform staffing, priorities, training, process improvements, and investment recommendations.
• Coordinates services and incidents with other department managers responsible for identity and access, endpoint management, security response, shared platforms, and related technology services to ensure continuity of operations and service delivery.
• Evaluates vendors and manages vendor relationships, contracts and service level agreements for the assigned area; participates in procurement; and reviews vendor security and accessibility documentation prior to adoption.
• Prepares and maintains records, reports, project documentation, and operational status information related to department operations, including projects, personnel, equipment usage, service performance, and government-required reports; monitors operational status and apprises the Director of significant issues, emerging resource requirements, and other matters affecting service delivery.
• Directs and oversees the planning, design, implementation, operation, maintenance, and lifecycle management of the District’s data center, network, telecommunications, server, storage, and related infrastructure systems; provides technical consultation and strategic guidance to District departments and management regarding infrastructure architecture, capacity, technology solutions, and long-range infrastructure planning; oversees infrastructure procurement, asset management, documentation, system utilization, and operational performance District-wide.
• Directs the District’s hybrid infrastructure strategy and architecture, including evaluation and determination of appropriate workload placement among on-premises data center, public cloud, and vendor-hosted environments; evaluates and oversees the adoption of cloud infrastructure, platform, and related services based on operational and security performance, availability and cost considerations.
• Leads infrastructure transformation planning and execution, including current-state assessment, target-state architecture, roadmap development, prioritization, sequencing, migration, integration, coexistence, and decommissioning of legacy systems; establishes implementation, testing, rollback, and validation criteria and verifies post-migration operation and service stability.
• Establishes cloud consumption and cost management practices; monitors cloud usage and expenditures against budget; identifies opportunities to optimize cloud resources and costs; advises the Director on the operational and financial implications of subscription- and consumption-based services, including impacts on multi-year planning.
• Directs the implementation and maintenance of infrastructure security controls and standards, including network segmentation, privileged access management, logging and monitoring, patch and vulnerability management, configuration management, and system hardening; coordinates with Information Security and other technology teams to identify, assess, prioritize, and remediate infrastructure security risks.
• Directs the District’s identity and access infrastructure, including directory services, federation, authentication services, and multi-factor authentication enforcement; ensures the availability, security, integration, and lifecycle management of identity infrastructure in coordination with applicable security and technology teams.
• Directs disaster recovery and business continuity planning, implementation, maintenance, and testing across on-premises, cloud, and vendor-hosted environments; establishes recovery priorities, recovery objectives, testing schedules, and restoration procedures and coordinates recovery activities with applicable District departments, technology teams, and service providers.

Marginal Functions:

• Provides responsible staff assistance to the Director; acts as administrator in charge in the absence of other Information Services managers and/or the Director, assuming leadership responsibilities to ensure continuity of operations and service delivery.
• Participates in/on a variety of committees, task forces, boards, meetings, and/or other related groups in order to receive and/or convey information.
• Participates in shared governance through service on planning and/or operations committees and task forces.
• Performs related duties and responsibilities as required.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

Knowledge of:

• Leadership and managerial principles and practices, including selection, training, evaluating, and discipline.
• Principles, practices, and technologies related to the operation, capabilities, limitations, performance, and lifecycle management of enterprise computing, network, telecommunications, server, storage, and data center infrastructure.
• Operating systems, infrastructure software, utilities, enterprise platforms, and business applications used to support District operations, including their integration with network, server, storage, and cloud environments.
• Principles, practices, procedures, and techniques of budget preparation, administration, and maintenance, including District budget development and administration policies, practices, and procedures and budgeting for infrastructure, subscription-, and consumption-based technology services.
• Higher education administrative practices and the organization, policies, procedures, objectives, governance, and operational environment of a community college district.
• Principles, practices, methods, and techniques of project management.
• Principles and practices of enterprise infrastructure architecture, implementation planning, integration, configuration, lifecycle management, and technology transition.
• Information security frameworks, controls and risk management practices applicable to higher education, including infrastructure security, vulnerability management, security monitoring, incident response, access controls, system hardening, and remediation.
• Cloud service models, including Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service, and the shared responsibility model, architecture, security, governance, migration, and operational considerations associated with cloud services.
• Vendor and service provider management, contract administration, procurement practices, service-level agreements, service evaluation, performance management, and vendor escalation procedures.
• Service management and operational performance measurement principles, including service availability, capacity, performance, incident trends, service levels, and other measures used to evaluate and improve infrastructure operations.
• Principles and practices of organizational and technology change management, including stakeholder communication, transition planning, adoption, and management of operational impacts.
• Hybrid and cloud infrastructure architecture, workload placement, migration methodologies, integration, coexistence and decommissioning of legacy infrastructure.
• Disaster recovery and business continuity principles and practices, including recovery strategies, recovery objectives, backup and restoration, testing, and recovery of on-premises, cloud, and vendor-hosted environments.
• Identity and access infrastructure, including directory services, federation, authentication, multi-factor authentication, privileged access, and identity lifecycle management.
• Infrastructure availability, resilience, capacity planning, performance management, monitoring, and operational continuity principles and practices.
• Policies, procedures, standards, and applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations related to information technology, information security, privacy, accessibility, procurement, contracts, and operations.

Skill in:

• Leadership, supervisory and managerial principles and practices, including selection, training, evaluating and discipline.
• Planning, organizing and directing the day-to-day activities, services, and operations of infrastructure engineering and operations staff and services.
• Establishing service priorities, operational procedures, service standards, staffing levels, and performance measures for infrastructure engineering and operations; analyzing operational data to identify trends, improve service delivery, allocate resources, and recommend changes to staffing, processes, and technology.
• Analyzing complex technical and operational problems, interpreting data and information, evaluating alternatives, exercising sound judgment and decision-making, and implementing effective solutions.
• Analyzing organizational and infrastructure needs, evaluating technology alternatives, and identifying and recommending effective infrastructure solutions that support District departments, functions, and enterprise technology objectives.
• Directing and overseeing the design, configuration, implementation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management of enterprise infrastructure technologies, including network, telecommunications, server, storage, data center, and related systems.
• Researching, evaluating, testing, and recommending new infrastructure technologies, hardware, software, cloud services, and other technology solutions based on operational, security, performance, compatibility, and cost considerations.
• Planning, implementing, and managing infrastructure and technology projects, including establishing priorities, developing project plans and schedules, allocating resources, coordinating cross-functional teams, managing vendors and project personnel, monitoring progress, and resolving issues.
• Planning and directing migration and transition of enterprise workloads and infrastructure services among on-premises, cloud, and vendor-hosted environments, including sequencing, testing, coexistence, rollback, validation and decommissioning activities.
• Managing cloud consumption, resource utilization, and costs against budget; analyzing usage trends and identifying opportunities for optimization and cost control.
• Directing the implementation and maintenance of infrastructure security controls, security standards, system hardening, vulnerability remediation, logging and monitoring, network segmentation, and privileged access controls.
• Managing vendor relationships, service-level agreements, contracts, procurement activities, service performance, vendor deliverables, and escalation of service issues.
• Developing, administering, monitoring, and forecasting infrastructure engineering and operations budgets and allocating resources to meet operational, service delivery, and technology objectives.
• Leading organizational and technological change, including developing transition plans, communicating changes to affected stakeholders, managing operational impacts, coordinating implementation, and supporting adoption of new technologies and processes.
• Coordinating across organizational and technology units to ensure that interdependent infrastructure and technology services are planned, implemented, and delivered effectively without gaps in service or accountability.
• Establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with administrators, faculty, staff, vendors, and other internal and external contacts.
• Communicating clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing; exercising sound independent judgment and initiative; mediating difficult situations; and managing multiple priorities in a dynamic technology environment.
• Interpreting, applying, and explaining applicable laws, regulations, policies, procedures, standards, and technical practices; preparing and maintaining reports, policies, procedures, project documentation, operational records, and other related materials.
• Exercising sound independent judgment and initiative, managing multiple priorities, and making timely decisions in a dynamic technology environment.
• Providing technical consultation and guidance to District departments, management, vendors, and technical staff regarding infrastructure architecture, technology solutions, complex technical issues, service delivery, and emerging infrastructure technologies.
• Maintaining sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, age, cultural, physical or mental disability, medical condition, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, race, and ethnic backgrounds of community college students, faculty, and staff.

Working Conditions

Environmental Conditions: Office environment; exposure to computer screens, noise and electrical energy; periodic work in a data center environment with low temperatures and high decibel levels; and extensive contact with faculty and staff.

Physical Conditions: Essential and marginal functions require mental and physical fitness to perform necessary job functions with or without accommodations such as extensive use of computer keyboard, sitting or standing for extended periods of time, the ability to lift and carry computer related equipment, and visual acuity for creating computer-generated work and to read printed materials. Position requires travel to District and other locations. Occasional evening, weekend and holiday hours are required to support scheduled maintenance and incident response.

Terms of Employment

• This is a full-time, 12 months per year classified administrator position.
• The person selected for hire will be required to complete the following pre-employment requirements: live scan/fingerprinting, official transcript(s), and TB risk assessment. Other pre-employment requirements may be required depending on the position (i.e. certifications or licenses; see applicable job posting section for details). Successful completion of all pre-employment requirements is mandatory to be eligible for employment. These requirements are in accordance with the following Administrative Procedures and Board Policies: AP 7120 , AP 7125 , AP 7126 , AP 7127 , AP 7330 , BP 7330 , AP 7336 , AP 7337 , and BP 7335 .

Open Date

Open Date 09/14/2026

Close Date

Close Date 10/12/2026

Open Until Filled No

Posting Number

Posting Number P1081P

Additional Application Information

The hiring committee will determine if interviews will be conducted in person at the College or via Zoom. Travel expenses are not reimbursed by the College. If a second-level interview is required, second-level travel reimbursement is only available for eligible candidates. HR will notify those who are eligible when second-level interviews are scheduled.

Supplemental Questions

Required fields are indicated with an asterisk (*).

• * How would your experience, training, and/or knowledge of antiracism assist you in achieving the goals of this position?

  (Open Ended Question)

• * How did you hear about this employment opportunity?
  • ACCCA.org
  • American Association of Community College
  • CalJOBS
  • CCC Registry
  • ChronicleVitae.com (Chronicle of Higher Education)
  • Colleague/Friend/Relative
  • Community College Jobs
  • CraigsList
  • DSPSjobs.com
  • EdJoin
  • Handshake
  • HigherEdJobs.com
  • Human Resources at Palomar College
  • Indeed.com
  • indian-affairs.org
  • Inside Higher Ed
  • Job Fair
  • MilitaryJob.com
  • Other Source
  • Palomar College website
  • San Diego LGBT Job Board (http://www.gsdba.org/pages/Jobs)
  • SDBCjobs.com
  • Vista Chamber