Director, IT Operations

About Ascent

Ascent Developer Solutions is a leading private lending platform, serving real estate developers nationwide in the acquisition, renovation, and construction of residential real estate. Founded by a leadership team with a deep understanding and personal experience in virtually every facet of real estate development, Ascent is uniquely positioned to create custom, innovative lending solutions for a variety of real estate development business strategies.

The Role

Ascent Developer Solutions is seeking an experienced Director of IT Operations to lead and mature our cloud-first, Microsoft-based technology environment. Reporting to the SVP, Technology, this role owns the reliability, security, and performance of all IT systems and services across the organization — infrastructure, endpoints, identity, collaboration, and end-user support. The Director leads a small internal IT operations team and directs our Managed Service Provider (MSP), owns the IT operations budget a nd roadmap, and partners with information security, HR, and business leaders to keep systems available, compliant, and cost-effective as the company scales.

The Work

• Own the reliability, performance, and security of the company’s technology environment — network, endpoints, servers, cloud and hybrid workloads, and collaboration systems.
• Lead planned network infrastructure modernization, including a firewall and switch refresh.
• Administer the Microsoft 365 environment, including tenant configuration, licensing, mail flow, and security baselines.
• Direct endpoint management and device lifecycle — provisioning, Microsoft Intune (MDM), patching, imaging, and refresh — across an on-site and hybrid workforce.
• Own the IT service desk and end-user experience, defining and meeting service-level agreements (SLAs) for response and resolution.
• Operate identity and access management within Microsoft Entra ID, including SSO, MFA, conditional access, and least-privilege/role-based access.
• Own the technology portion of user onboarding, offboarding, and role changes in close coordination with HR — account and license provisioning, equipment, role-based access, and timely deprovisioning (same-day for involuntary separations).
• Serve as the primary owner of the MSP relationship, directing scope and priorities, managing performance against SLAs, and defining the split between internal and MSP-delivered work.
• Direct IT hardware and software procurement, standardization, and asset and license inventory; manage carriers and technology vendors, including contracts, SLAs, performance reviews, and renewals.
• Continuously monitor IT systems for performance and reliability, proactively addressing issues to minimize downtime and maintain operational efficiency.
• Operate core security controls in partnership with information security leadership — vulnerability and patch management, endpoint protection, logging, and email security.
• Own business continuity and disaster recovery, including backups, recovery testing, and incident-response readiness.

GENERAL DUTIES

• Own the IT operations budget; forecast, track, and report spend, including cloud and SaaS cost optimization.
• Build and maintain the IT operations roadmap aligned to company growth, headcount, and facilities plans, such as office moves and new sites.
• Lead, coach, and develop the internal IT operations team.
• Develop, enforce, and update IT policies, standards, runbooks, and best practices to support a secure and efficient technology environment.
• Identify and implement automation and AI-assisted ope