Senior Project Manager - Infrastructure & Operations

DRW; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Group medical insurance

Dental and vision insurance

401k with discretionary match

Short and long-term disability

Life and AD&D insurance

Health savings accounts

Flexible spending accounts

Job summary

DRW in Chicago is seeking a Senior Project Manager for Infrastructure & Operations to own end-to-end delivery of complex infrastructure programs across data centers, compute, storage, and networks.

You will lead multiple projects, manage BOMs with procurement, coordinate with engineering and vendors, and drive modernization initiatives, including AI-enabled tooling, while maintaining candor and accountability.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of PM experience in technology or infrastructure.
• Hands-on grounding across data center operations, compute, storage, network, security.
• Own outcomes with minimal oversight and manage multiple projects.
• Familiarity with AI tooling; Jira/ServiceNow helpful.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate infrastructure projects across data centers, hardware platforms, and IT services.
• Drive a portfolio of concurrent projects with minimal disruption to business operations.
• Own BOM for each project; coordinate with procurement to source hardware and circuits.
• Translate ambiguous, cross-domain technical work into structured, trackable plans.
• Align engineering teams and vendors around priorities; surface conflicts early.
• Plan production changes including off-hours and weekend work when required.
• Anticipate risk and communicate status candidly.
• Deliver against firm-driven mandates and IO modernization efforts.

Skills

Project leadership

Technical fluency

Cross-functional collaboration

Ownership mindset

Tools

Jira

ServiceNow

Job description

Senior Project Manager - Infrastructure & Operations

Chicago

DRW is a diversified trading firm with over 3 decades of experience bringing sophisticated technology and exceptional people together to operate in markets around the world. We value autonomy and the ability to quickly pivot to capture opportunities, so we operate using our own capital and trading at our own risk.

Headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, we trade a variety of asset classes including Fixed Income, ETFs, Equities, FX, Commodities and Energy across all major global markets. We have also leveraged our expertise and technology to expand into three non-traditional strategies: real estate, venture capital and cryptoassets.

We operate with respect, curiosity and open minds. The people who thrive here share our belief that it’s not just what we do that matters–it's how we do it. DRW is a place of high expectations, integrity, innovation and a willingness to challenge consensus.

As a Senior Project Manager, you will own the delivery of complex infrastructure projects end-to-end within Infrastructure & Operations (IO), managing multiple projects concurrently from initiation through production deployment, and be held accountable for the outcome, not just the plan. Operating as a central point of coordination across data centers, hardware platforms, network connectivity, and foundational IT services, you translate technical complexity into clear plans, align competing priorities, and drive accountability across engineering teams.

This is not a generalist PM seat. Success demands genuine technical fluency: you engage engineers as a credible peer, understand their constraints, and earn trust through competence, not process for its own sake. You'll move work forward with urgency across demanding, sometimes highly sensitive environments where the technology backbone directly supports the firm's ability to trade. Change windows and occasional weekend cutovers come with the territory.

This is a high-performance team inside a high-performance firm. Expectations are high, the pace is fast, and the way we work is changing rapidly, particularly in how we use AI to manage scale and complexity. We need people who are curious about it, experiment constantly, and constructively challenge how things are done, including our own practices.

This role is for you if you take ownership instinctively, communicate honestly even when the news is difficult, operate with minimal oversight, and adapt fast. It's not for you if you need a defined playbook, defer accountability to committees, or measure your work in status updates rather than delivered outcomes.

What You Will Do

• Lead and coordinate implementation of infrastructure projects spanning data center builds, expansions, and migrations; hardware platforms; network connectivity; security and access controls; and foundational IT services.
• Drive a portfolio of concurrent projects to completion, owning coordination, visibility, and risk across all of them, and holding the delivery team accountable to scope and timeline with minimal disruption to business operations.
• Own the bill of materials (BOM) for each project: assembling, reviewing, and maintaining accuracy across hardware and services. Partner with procurement and provisioning teams to source hardware and circuits. Cost visibility flows from the BOM, so you own it end-to-end.
• Translate ambiguous, cross-domain technical work into structured, trackable plans with clear ownership.
• Align engineering teams, stakeholders, and vendors around shared priorities; surface conflicts early and drive resolution.
• Plan and coordinate execution around production change windows, including off-hours and weekend changes when required.
• Anticipate risk, know when and how to elevate, and communicate status with candor.
• Deliver against firm-driven mandates (exchange-mandated changes, security and data-protection initiatives, trading desk and market expansion) and IO-driven modernization efforts.

What You'll Need

• Experience: 8+ years of project management in technology or infrastructure environments, with a proven track record leading engineering teams through complex technical delivery.
• Technical Fluency: Hands-on grounding across infrastructure domains, including data center operations, compute, storage, network engineering, network security, systems administration, and enterprise platforms. Enough depth to engage engineers credibly, review BOMs intelligently, and challenge estimates.
• Ownership & Operating Style: You own outcomes, not tasks. You're honest even when it's difficult, self-directed under minimal oversight, and effective navigating organizational and technical complexity. You manage multiple concurrent projects without losing control of any of them, and drive with urgency without losing stakeholder alignment.
• Adaptability & AI Fluency: You experiment with new tools and methods rather than defending old ones, and you challenge existing practices constructively, including ours. Our team increasingly relies on AI tooling to manage project complexity, information volume, and data alignment, and that reliance is expanding fast. You must be eager to work this way and to push it further. Familiarity with tools like Jira and ServiceNow is helpful but not required; how you think matters more than what you've used.

Preferred

• Strongly preferred: experience in the trading / capital markets industry.
• Direct experience with infrastructure buildouts, data center migrations, and networking technology and hardware.
• Demonstrated use of integrated AI toolsets to improve project management efficiency and effectiveness.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

What Success Looks Like — First 6 to 12 Months

• You've taken full ownership of an active portfolio and stakeholders trust it lands, without exception.
• Engineers engage you as a credible peer: you understand their work well enough to push back, unblock, and make sound tradeoffs.
• Your projects are tracked with clarity: status, risk, cost, and dependencies are current and accurate.
• You've driven complex, cross-domain initiatives through to production, navigating disruptions, unknowns, and shifting constraints without losing control of scope, cost, or timeline.
• When things go sideways — and they will — you get ahead of them, communicate early, and keep delivery on track.
• You've integrated AI tooling into how you work daily, increasing the complexity and volume you can manage without losing data alignment.

The annual base salary range for this position is $160,000 to $200,000 depending on the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and relevant skill set. The position is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition, DRW offers a comprehensive suite of employee benefits including group medical, pharmacy, dental and vision insurance, 401k (with discretionary employer match), short and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance, health savings accounts, and flexible spending accounts.

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