Senior IT Manager – Defense Tech & Security Leader

Cypress HCM; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

Cypress HCM seeks a Senior IT Manager to lead and evolve the IT function for a fast-growing aerospace/defense tech environment. This hands-on role builds on an existing foundation, implementing technologies, processes, and systems to support scaling while aligning with business and engineering objectives.

You will mentor the IT team, drive the roadmap, ensure compliance with NIST 800-171, CMMC, FedRAMP, and DoD IL requirements, and partner with vendors to enable secure, resilient operations

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, MIS, Business, or related field.
• 7+ years of progressive IT experience, including 3+ years in leadership.
• Experience with Microsoft 365 GCC-High or equivalent government tenants.
• Hands-on AWS Commercial and GovCloud (IAM, networking, security) experience.
• Familiarity with GitHub Enterprise and/or GitLab (RBAC, CI/CD, audit logging).
• Knowledge of NIST 800-171, CMMC, and CUI requirements.
• Experience supporting ATO/RMF processes.
• US citizenship and ability to obtain security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor the IT team; set priorities, grow capabilities, and act as technical lead.
• Define org structure and hiring roadmap to scale a high-performing IT team.
• Establish helpdesk processes, ticketing workflows, and SLA standards.
• Develop and maintain runbooks, SOPs, and escalation procedures.
• Own incident management, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Implement monitoring, alerting, and observability across clouds (e.g., CloudWatch, Azure Monitor).
• Oversee security, zero trust, and compliance with DoD frameworks (NIST 800-171, CMMC).
• Manage vendors, licenses, and hardware lifecycle.

Skills

Leadership & mentoring

Strategic IT planning

Vendor management

Regulatory compliance

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, MIS, Business, or related field

Tools

Microsoft 365 GCC-High

AWS GovCloud

GitHub Enterprise / GitLab

SIEM: Sentinel / Splunk

Defender / CrowdStrike

DevSecOps / IaC

Job description

Cypress HCM seeks a Senior IT Manager to lead and evolve the IT function for a fast-growing aerospace/defense tech environment. This hands-on role builds on an existing foundation, implementing technologies, processes, and systems to support scaling while aligning with business and engineering objectives.

You will mentor the IT team, drive the roadmap, ensure compliance with NIST 800-171, CMMC, FedRAMP, and DoD IL requirements, and partner with vendors to enable secure, resilient operations