Director, Technology Enablement

About Understood

Understood is a nonprofit focused on shaping the world for difference. We raise awareness of the challenges and strengths of people who learn and think differently. Our resources help people navigate challenges, gain confidence, and find support and community so they can thrive.

Having a shared commitment to our values is a key factor in any hire we make. We have five core values:

• Continuously learn.
• Act with intention.
• Champion difference.
• Inspire change.
• Grow together.

Come be part of an organization with an entrepreneurial spirit that’s helping to shape the world for difference. Together, we can build a world where everyone can reach their full potential.

To learn more about Understood, please visit: www.understood.org .

Who you are

To advance Understood’s mission and to further our impact, we’re hiring a Director of Technology Enablement, reporting to our VP, Engineering & IT.

This leader owns the full spectrum of how technology serves our people. That spans everything from “your laptop works” to “here’s how this tool changes your workflow.” Technology is not a support function at Understood. It is the lever that determines how fast we move, how well our people perform, and how effectively we deliver on our mission.

Our people now have access to information that is fundamentally different from what they had even a year ago, and the possibilities keep expanding every month. This role exists to bring the entire organization together on that journey.

This isn’t an IT Manager or Director role. It treats employees as customers to be enabled, not as tickets to be closed. The role starts by stabilizing IT operations and overhauling how we support employees. From there, it grows into the engine that drives technology adoption, proficiency, and transformation across the organization. It also positions Understood to treat AI as a fundamental shift in how work gets done, not just an automation tool bolted onto existing workflows.

The role carries a cultural mandate. We invest in our people’s technology capabilities because we believe it makes them, and our mission, stronger. We provide enablement, training, and the right tools, and we expect our people to lean in: to be curious, to experiment, and to take ownership of their own growth. “I don’t know how” is a starting point we’ll help with; “I don’t want to learn” is not consistent with where this organization is going. This person sets that tone and models it alongside leadership.

This is an ideal role for a hands-on technologist and evangelist who can operate autonomously: someone fluent in modern productivity and AI tools, energized by helping people work better, and able to run IT operations cleanly while leading the change management that makes new technology stick.

This is a hybrid role that requires a minimum of three (3) days a week in our NYC office, with a focus on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We are a Mac-based environment, and team members are provided a Mac laptop for their work.

What you’ll do

Technology enablement

• Act as a technology evangelist. Proactively find ways teams can work better with tools they already have, like AI features in Adobe Creative Cloud, Gemini in Google Workspace, and automation in Slack and Jira. Partner with teams to unlock that potential in their day-to-day work.
• Champion Claude and AI across the organization. Serve as a hands-on internal Claude champion who builds skills, plugins, and workflows for each team’s actual work, so every team has Claude working for them and experimentation becomes self-sustaining.
• Drive adoption of new tools. Own the adoption and internal integration of new rollouts. Work with external training vendors where useful, but own the integration into how people actually work, because adoption doesn’t stick when the person driving it leaves.

IT operations

• Lead a small IT team, including an IT operations manager and IT support specialists.
• Own the hardware lifecycle: laptops, access points (APs), network taps, and audio/visual (AV) equipment.
• Own the employee support tier structure, Rippling and other mobile device management (MDM) tools, vendor management, and compliance infrastructure.
• Overhaul the IT queue. Define what’s self-serve versus white-glove, with a baseline expectation that people troubleshoot before they escalate.
• Operate autonomously. Run IT operations without daily executive involvement, and rebalance the team as needed.

Adoption, governance, and culture

• Centralize knowledge in Jira. Become the internal owner of consolidating how work is tracked and made visible. Convene and run the cross-functional working group, drive taxonomy and workflow decisions, and establish a shared vocabulary across teams.
• Connect Jira to the docs and decisions behind each project, and make our work queryable by AI.
• Partner on new technology rollouts. Serve as the technical enablement partner to other internal functions, leading workshops and ensuring adoption.
• Set a culture of technology curiosity. Model the expectation that curiosity is normal and experimentation is encouraged, with troubleshoot-before-escalate as the baseline and self-directed growth as the norm.
• Keep a future view. Track emerging technology with the VP of engineering and IT, and translate what’s coming into capability plans for the organization.

Must-haves

In this role, you bring leadership experience and the ability to set direction across a capability. You also own team-level priorities, manage multiple direct reports, including hiring and resourcing decisions, own the team budget, and communicate directly with the leadership and executive leadership teams.

We don't expect a perfect match across every category. What matters is relevant experience, genuine interest in the work, and a mindset for growth.

Leadership and people

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in IT or technology roles, including 3+ years leading a team in a fast-moving or complex environment. You’ve owned team-level priorities and delivered results with impact across the organization.
• People leadership and development: You manage multiple direct reports and make decisions on hiring, team structure, and resourcing. You coach and develop people, and keep the team motivated through change.
• Stakeholder and cross-functional partnership: You work effectively with leaders in other functions, senior leaders, and direct reports. You make tradeoffs across teams when priorities compete, and build strong working relationships up, down, and across the organization, including in a hybrid setting.

Strategy, execution, and data

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