Senior Manager, IT

Forward Financing is a financial technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts with team members throughout the United States, Dominican Republic, and Canada. The company is on a mission to unlock the capital that fuels small businesses across America. Recognized as a Best Place to Work by Built In Boston and certified as a Great Place To Work®, Forward is investing in its employees, technology, and customer experience – with long-term success in mind every step of the way.

Forward is looking for a Senior IT Manager to lead teams in a fast, agile environment supporting a company growing at a rapid pace.  The ideal candidate will be hands-on, materially contributing to the technical implementation and support work of the team, while developing a vision for growth of the IT function.  You should come to work every day excited to mentor and nurture the talent on your team.

As a Senior IT Manager , you will lead IT operations, overseeing system maintenance, upgrades, and new builds for Forward's business. You'll manage daily IT activities, including support services and system administration, while creating scalable operational processes. You'll also supervise and mentor direct reports, define team metrics, lead large-scale projects, and manage vendor relationships and office technology improvements. This position operates on a hybrid model, with a requirement of 1-2 days in office each week.

In this role you will:

• Be responsible for maintaining, upgrading, and building the IT systems and devices that power Forward’s business.
• Lead and manage day-to-day IT operations, including support services and system administrators
• Create, run, and manage operational processes to allow the IT team to scale
• Formulate, articulate, and socialize a strong vision for growth of the IT function
• Own IT information systems including Google Workspaces
• Assist team in managing MacOS, ChromeOS, and Windows endpoints
• Supervise and mentor direct reports
• Define operational metrics for your teams and hold individuals accountable to those goals
• Lead large-scale IT projects and hold direct reports responsible for project delivery
• Create and implement a unified customer communications strategy, including SMS, call center, email
• Manage onboarding and offboarding, including rolling out zero-touch laptop deployments
• Negotiate vendor contracts and renewals. Own key vendor relationships.
• Continuously improve the technology in our 3 offices, including networking, teleconferencing, card access, cameras
• Handle AV for large company events
• Create and maintain key partnerships with global stakeholders
• Expand support to a 12x5 model
• Consolidate management of business information systems from non-technical departments
• Ensure that cybersecurity requirements are implemented across systems and devices to protect company assets and meet compliance requirements
• Travel internationally twice a year

Why you should apply:

• Rapidly growing company and team.  There are ample opportunities for professional growth
• Leverage contemporary technologies.  Forward uses best in class cloud services for IT operations
• Opportunity to lead high-impact technical projects
• An amazing team of peers and direct reports

Role Requirements:

(Even if you don’t check every box, but see yourself contributing, please apply.)

• Bachelor's degree
• At least 5 years of experience working in IT
• At least 2 years of experience managing a technical team
• Successful completion of at least one major IT project
• Strong experience in system administration
• Basic scripting and automation ability
• Experience managing IT budgets and hardware lifecycles
• Strong understanding of modern IT service management practices
• 3 years of experience managing MacOS, Windows, (ChromeOS a plus)
• Advanced knowledge in the following systems: Google WorkspacesA hosted telephony provider or PBX systemAn MDM provider for managing Mac, Windows endpoints
• Google Workspaces
• A hosted telephony provider or PBX system
• An MDM provider for managing Mac, Windows endpoints

Compensation:

Annual Targeted Salary: $145,000 - $175,000 USD

Annual Target Bonus: 15%

At Forward Financing, we're committed to fair and transparent compensation. We believe in providing a compensation package that recognizes your skills, experience, and the unique value you bring to our team. We take a market-based approach to pay, regularly reviewing benchmark data to ensure our compensation remains competitive, equitable, and aligned with our performance-driven culture.

Final offers are determined by a variety of factors, including the candidate's qualifications, relevant experience, specific skills, and internal equity. This approach ensures that our compensation is competitive and equitable. Your recruiter will provide specific details on the expected base and variable earnings as it pertains to this specific role.

Total Rewards:

Additionally, we offer a comprehensive total rewards package, including but not limited to: medical, dental, vision, commuter benefits, a flexible time-off policy, paid parental leave, 401k match for US employees, wellness reimbursement, volunteering days, annual professional development budget, and charitable donation match.

Forward is proud to be a remote-first company, keeping workplace flexibility a top priority for our employees. As a business, we are focused on impact; we are more concerned with your contributions to the success of the company than where you get your work done. To help facilitate in-person collaboration, employees are welcome to work from one of our premiere office locations.

When we aren’t collaborating to drive business and support our customers, we’re finding virtual and in-person ways to get to know our colleagues, celebrate team wins, and have fun together!