Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Head of Systems Operations role sits in the internal SaaS layer that increasingly determines how well modern software companies scale. By owning identity, endpoint management, SaaS administration, and automation, the remit maps to the operational backbone behind product teams, customer-facing delivery, and secure access to tools. The emphasis on self-service and AI-enabled workflows reflects a broader shift in SaaS toward treating internal operations as an engineering problem with measurable reliability outcomes.
For a SaaS career, the long-term value is in learning how to build leverage across an organization rather than optimizing a single system. Leading across Entra ID architecture, access governance, and infrastructure automation creates durable experience in controls, audit readiness, and platform standardization, all of which transfer across enterprise SaaS environments. The cross-functional operating model described also develops the kind of stakeholder fluency that becomes essential for senior operations leadership in subscription businesses.
This position fits professionals who prefer ambiguous, portfolio-style ownership and can create clarity across competing priorities. It will suit a leader who is comfortable moving between people management, operational metrics, and hands-on technical judgment, and who is motivated by reducing friction for internal users through automation and well-defined service patterns.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About the Team
The Employee Technology Experience (ETX) team is responsible for delivering a world-class internal technology experience that enables employees to do their best work. We support and operate the employee-facing systems that keep the company moving quickly and efficiently.
Within ETX, the SysOps team sits at the center of critical internal platforms and operational workflows. The team owns a broad portfolio spanning identity systems, endpoint management, SaaS administration, infrastructure automation, enterprise tooling, and internal technical operations. We partner closely with Security, Engineering, Workplace, Finance, People and other cross-functional teams to ensure internal technology is fast, reliable, and scalable.
We are focused on building modern internal operations through automation, self-service, and AI-enabled workflows that reduce friction and create leverage across the company.
About the Role
We are hiring a Head of System Operations to lead a high-impact technical operations organization. This leader will be responsible for running the SysOps team, creating clarity across a broad remit, improving operational performance, architecture and building the future of how internal systems are delivered in the age of AI.
This role requires a strong operator who can organize complex work, set priorities, drive accountability, and continuously improve how the team functions. You will serve as the connective tissue across multiple technology domains while ensuring the team is focused on the highest-impact work.
You should be equally comfortable leading people, improving operational processes, and engaging deeply with technical systems. The role is ideal for someone who combines technical breadth with strong execution and a builder mindset.
You’ll be responsible for:
Leading and developing a high-performing System Operations team with clear ownership and accountability.
Setting priorities across a broad portfolio of operational and technical work to ensure focus.
Driving team effectiveness through strong operational rhythms, metrics, capacity planning, and execution discipline.
Driving automation, self-service, and AI-enabled workflows that reduce manual work, eliminate delays, improve employee experience, and scale operations across identity, endpoint, SaaS, and internal systems.
Overseeing the operation of core internal technology domains including identity systems, endpoint management, enterprise applications, and systems automation, with ownership of Entra ID architecture, lifecycle automation, access governance, and privileged access.
Ensuring internal technology operations meet security, audit, and control requirements through reliable processes and disciplined execution, supported by clear standards, version-controlled configuration, and measurable reliability.
Partnering cross-functionally to deliver scalable solutions for company growth, onboarding, integrations, and changing business needs.
Continuously improving the speed, quality, and reliability of technology services, while driving Terraform standards, reducing configuration drift, and raising the engineering bar.
We’re looking for someone with:
Experience leading systems engineering, enterprise technology, IT operations, or platform operations at scale.
Strong people leadership skills with a track record of building effective teams and raising performance standards.
Proven ability to run complex operational environments with clear prioritization and measurable results.
Technical depth across several areas such as identity platforms, endpoint management, SaaS administration, automation, infrastructure, or enterprise tooling.
Experience building durable processes that balances speed control, and high-quality user outcomes.
Familiarity with modern AI tools and practical ways to apply them to operations and internal workflows.
Strong judgment, clear communications, and comfort operating in fast-moving environments.
A hands-on, ownership-oriented mindset with high standards for execution.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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