Director, Infrastructure & Security Operations

Director, Infrastructure & Security Operations Reports to: VP, Technology Location : Irwindale, CA (Headquarters) or Las Vegas, NV Remote Work : Hybrid remote work arrangement available. If residing in Nevada, must be willing to travel to HQ approximately every 6 weeks. Build the Technology Foundation That Keeps Rize Moving At Rize Credit Union, technology is essential to how we serve our team members, our members, and our communities. We’re looking for an experienced Director, Infrastructure & Security Operations to lead the teams, systems, and operational practices that keep our technology environment reliable, secure, resilient, and ready for growth. This is a leadership role for someone who understands that great technology operations require more than keeping systems running. You'll build strong operational standards, develop talented technical teams, strengthen infrastructure and security operations, improve resiliency, and create an environment where issues are anticipated, ownership is clear, and problems are followed through to resolution. You’ll work closely with Technology leadership, our CISO, business leaders, application teams, and strategic partners to ensure Rize has the infrastructure and operational capabilities needed to support a growing financial institution. This is not a software development role. Your focus will be infrastructure, IT operations, security operations, technology support, identity and access, resilience, and operational excellence. What You’ll Do Lead Infrastructure & Technology Operations Lead the reliability, performance, and lifecycle of Rize’s technology infrastructure and services. Oversee networks, branch connectivity, telecommunications, wireless, firewalls, VPN, servers, virtualization, storage, cloud infrastructure, and related platforms. Establish operational standards, workflows, documentation, and performance measures that improve reliability, scalability, and service. Serve as a senior escalation point during outages, incidents, and complex technology issues. Use operational metrics and trends to identify opportunities for greater efficiency, automation, scalability, and service quality. Strengthen Identity, Endpoint & Access Operations Oversee Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Active Directory, Intune, endpoint management, software deployment, and device compliance. Lead identity lifecycle and privileged-access operations, including MFA, access reviews, service accounts, and least-privilege controls. Ensure operating systems, applications, firmware, and security patches are managed effectively and timely. Partner across the organization to maintain strong onboarding, offboarding, access-change, and privileged-access practices. Drive Security Operations & Resilience Lead the operational execution of security controls across infrastructure, endpoints, identity, email, cloud, and network environments. Oversee vulnerability remediation, security-tool administration, alert escalation, containment support, and technology recovery. Coordinate technical incident response with Technology leadership, the CISO, vendors, legal, and business partners. Ensure audit findings, security issues, penetration-test findings, and control gaps are tracked through remediation and validation. Lead infrastructure backup, redundancy, failover, recovery, and disaster-recovery readiness. Coordinate recovery testing and ensure lessons learned result in meaningful improvements. Build a High-Performing Technology Team Lead and develop infrastructure and technology support teams with clear expectations for accountability, service, and operational excellence. Develop technical leads and team members through coaching, cross-training, succession planning, and professional development. Establish priorities, escalation paths, on-call coverage, service expectations, and measurable performance standards. Remain capable of engaging in hands-on technical problem solving when critical incidents or significant operational events require senior-level expertise. Foster a responsive, respectful, and business-focused service culture. Manage Vendors, Risk & Operational Governance Manage key infrastructure, cloud, telecommunications, security-operations, and support partners. Support technology budgeting, forecasting, licensing, contract planning, asset lifecycle management, and cost optimization. Lead the preparation of infrastructure and security-operations evidence for audits, NCUA examinations, risk assessments, and control testing. Maintain disciplined change, incident, problem, asset, and operational-risk management practices appropriate for a regulated financial institution. Provide leadership with clear reporting on availability, incidents, vulnerabilities, projects, risks, audit issues, vendor performance, and staffing. What You’ll Bring We’re looking for a technology leader who combines deep operational knowledge with strong people leadership and business judgment . You’ll ideally bring: 10+ years of progressive experience across infrastructure, systems, networking, cloud, endpoint, identity, or security operations, including at least 5 years leading technical teams. Experience owning complex, business-critical technology environments where availability, security, recovery, and auditability matter. Strong working knowledge of Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Active Directory, Intune, Windows infrastructure, networking, firewalls, VPN, cloud platforms, backup, and disaster recovery. Experience with identity and privileged-access management, vulnerability management, endpoint security, monitoring, incident response, and remediation. Experience managing technology vendors, contracts, projects, budgets, audits, and operational risk. The ability to translate complex technical issues into clear business impacts, options, and recommendations for executives and other nontechnical stakeholders. Even Better If You Have A bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, cybersecurity, or a related discipline—or equivalent practical experience. Experience within a credit union, bank, financial institution, or similarly regulated environment. Familiarity with NCUA, FFIEC, GLBA, third-party risk, technology controls, and audit requirements. Experience with core banking connectivity, branch technology, Microsoft security tooling, PAM, zero-trust access, or cloud security. Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CCNP, Microsoft, Azure, AWS, ITIL, or comparable credentials. The Leadership Style We’re Looking For The right person for this role takes ownership and follows issues through resolution. You remain calm and decisive during outages, incidents, audits, and competing priorities. You develop people rather than simply directing work, and you build documentation, cross-training, and succession coverage so the operation isn't dependent on any one person. You also understand that security and resilience are part of everyday technology operations, not separate activities . You communicate clearly, simplify unnecessarily complicated processes, and approach Technology as a partner to the business. Why Rize? At Rize Credit Union, our mission is to uplift communities through knowledge, access, and care. That mission depends on having strong people and reliable systems behind every interaction. As our Director of Infrastructure & Security Operations, you’ll have the opportunity to strengthen the technology foundation behind that mission - developing people, improving operational maturity, increasing resilience, and helping ensure our technology can securely support where Rize is headed next. Compensation The expected pay range for this position is $140,000–$180,000 per year for candidates residing in California . We are also open to candidates residing in Nevada ; the applicable pay range may vary based on the candidate’s state of residence and geographic market. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, education, skills, internal equity, geographic location, and other job-related factors. As part of the hiring process, candidates who receive a contingent offer will undergo a background investigation, which may include employment verification, credit review, criminal records search, Social Security verification, and government registry checks. Candidates must also meet eligibility requirements to be bonded under a fidelity bond. Rize Federal Credit Union is an Equal Opportunity Employer.