About Phaidra

Phaidra is building the future of industrial automation.

The world today is filled with static, monolithic infrastructure. Factories, power plants, buildings, etc. operate the same they've operated for decades — because the controls programming is hard-coded. Thousands of lines of rules and heuristics that define how the machines interact with each other. The result of all this hard-coding is that facilities are frozen in time, unable to adapt to their environment while their performance slowly degrades.

Phaidra creates AI-powered control systems for the industrial sector, enabling industrial facilities to automatically learn and improve over time. Specifically:

• We use reinforcement learning algorithms to provide this intelligence, converting raw sensor data into high-value actions and decisions.

• We focus on industrial applications, which tend to be well-sensorized with measurable KPIs — perfect for reinforcement learning.

• We enable domain experts (our users) to configure the AI control systems (i.e. agents) without writing code. They define what they want their AI agents to do, and we do it for them.

Our team has a track record of applying AI to some of the toughest problems. From achieving superhuman performance with DeepMind's AlphaGo, to reducing the energy required to cool Google's Data Centers by 40%, we deeply understand AI and how to apply it in production for massive impact.

Phaidra’s ability to achieve its mission is determined by our ability to work together — as defined by our core values: Agency, Velocity, Craft, and Truth. We seek individuals who embody these values, as they are instrumental in ensuring our team consistently delivers excellence and fosters an engaging and supportive culture

Phaidra is based in the USA, but we are 100% remote with no physical office. We hire employees internationally with the help of our partner, OysterHR. Our team is currently located throughout the USA, Canada, UK, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, and India.

Who You Are

You are a hands-on IT leader who treats IT as an enablement function, not a ticket queue. You have run IT for a fast-scaling, remote-first technology company and you know what it takes to be at the scale of 150+ employees and operate without losing velocity: identity and access that just works, devices that arrive configured on day one, and a tooling request process measured in days, not weeks. You are deeply technical, comfortable being both the strategist and the person who ships the fix, and you understand AI-native ways of working well enough to evaluate, sandbox, and roll out AI tools that make the whole company faster.

This is Phaidra's first dedicated Director of IT. IT is being established as its own function, reporting directly to the CTO, as a peer to our Security (Cyber Enablement) and Infrastructure organization. You will inherit a small existing IT function and build the team, systems, and processes for our next phase of growth. You will not do this alone: enablement at Phaidra is a three-way partnership, and you will work with counterparts in our Cyber Enablement (Security) organization and the Productivity Engineering team within Infrastructure on every evaluation and rollout.

**We are seeking teammates who are based in the UK or North America (Eastern timezone)

Responsibilities

As Director of IT, you will:

Build and Lead the IT Function

• Establish IT as a first-class function with its own charter, roadmap, and budget, reporting to the CTO.

• Build and manage the IT team, inheriting existing IT operations and growing the team to match company scale.

• Define the IT strategy for scaling a remote-first, globally distributed company to 150+ employees.

• Operate within clear ownership boundaries alongside two peer organizations: Security owns security strategy, architecture, standards, risk management, and detection and response; Productivity Engineering owns developer tooling and engineering workflows; IT owns the business systems and services that keep employees productive. Where domains overlap, decisions are made jointly with the peer team.

Employee Enablement and Tool Lifecycle

• Own the software and tool request process end to end: intake, evaluation, trial, procurement, and rollout. Security review and developer-workflow review are built into the process through the peer teams.

• Partner with teams across the company on a regular cadence to understand tooling needs and deliver the fastest path to safe adoption.

• Manage the SaaS portfolio: licensing, renewals, vendor consolidation, and spend.

AI-Enabled IT

• Lead evaluation and rollout of company-wide AI assistants and employee-facing AI tooling. Security owns the security of AI adoption end to end: threat modeling and baselining of AI systems, integration and connector review, data-access and agent-permission guardrails, and monitoring of AI tool usage. Productivity Engineering leads developer-facing AI tools. IT rolls out within those boundaries.

• Apply AI to IT operations itself: reduce toil in support, onboarding, and request fulfillment.

• Stay current on the AI tooling landscape and proactively bring options to teams.

Core IT Operations

• Operate account lifecycle and access management across the SaaS estate (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Notion, Linear, and more): provisioning, deprovisioning, access request fulfillment, and license assignment. Security owns identity architecture and standards, including SSO and MFA policy, the authorization model, and privileged access; IT operates to those standards.

• Administer the Microsoft 365 tenant: tenant administration, licensing, and user provisioning.

• Own device fleet operations: procurement and logistics, MDM administration, patching, and device retrieval. Security defines the device security baseline and network security configuration; IT deploys and maintains devices to that baseline.

• Run onboarding and offboarding so every new hire is productive on day one and every departure is clean, complete, and auditable.

• Own helpdesk and internal IT support with clear SLAs.

Security and Compliance Partnership

• Operate as a peer to the Security organization: IT executes and enables, Security governs and audits. This separation of duties is by design and applies across identity, devices, and SaaS.

• Support the company's compliance programs (SOC 2, ISO 27001): asset inventory hygiene, device compliance evidence, and access review execution within the compliance platform.

• Escalate risk-acceptance decisions that exceed established thresholds to the leadership team.

Key Qualifications

• 10+ years in IT, with 5+ years leading IT as a function or equivalent ownership of IT for a large research/engineering organization, ideally through a scaling phase (50 to 200+ employees).

• Deeply technical: hands-on with identity providers, MDM, device security baselines, SaaS administration, and scripting/automation. You can still do the work, not just direct it.

• Track record of running IT as an enablement function, with concrete examples of reducing tool-approval friction while maintaining a strong security posture.

• Experience evaluating and deploying AI tools in a company setting, with a working understanding of their data-access and security implications.

• Experience supporting compliance programs (SOC 2, ISO 27001, or similar) and working with automated compliance platforms.

• Comfort operating in a remote-first, globally distributed company.

• Strong judgment on build vs. buy, and disciplined SaaS vendor and spend management.

• Clear communication and the ability to say a productive "yes, with guardrails" to demanding technical teams.

• Proven ability to operate through counterpart teams: shared ownership, joint processes, and influence without sole authority.

• Share our company values: agency, velocity, craft, truth

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience running IT for research or engineering-heavy organizations.

• Experience standing up an IT function from scratch.

• Scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, or Go) for IT workflows and integrations.

• Familiarity with zero-trust access models and modern endpoint security tooling.

• Prior experience as a senior IC or manager in a large-scale research/AI organization.

Our Stack

• Productivity & Collaboration: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Notion, Linear

• Device Management: Jamf Pro (MDM), Firstbase (procurement & logistics)

• Compliance: Vanta (SOC 2, ISO 27001 automation)

• Cloud: GCP

• Engineering Tooling (owned by Productivity Engineering, your counterpart team): GitLab, Kubernetes (GKE), Terraform/Kapitan

• AI Tooling: actively evaluating and expanding — you will shape this jointly with Productivity Engineering and Security.

Onboarding

In your first 30 days...

• Learn Phaidra's product, org structure, and how teams work day to day in a remote-first company.

• Take ownership of the existing IT function: current tooling, device fleet, identity setup, open requests, and the IT specialist joining your team.

• Meet your counterparts in Security, Productivity Engineering first, then leaders across Product Development, Infrastructure, Business Operations and Research, to map the biggest enablement pain points and in-flight tool requests.

• Review the current tool request backlog and ship at least one visible improvement to turnaround time.

By your first 60 days...

• Publish the IT charter jointly with Cyber Enablement and Productivity Engineering: what each team owns, how tool requests flow across the three, and the escalation path to leadership risk tiers.

• Stand up the joint tool evaluation process with counterparts from both Cyber Enablement and Productivity teams.

• Establish baseline metrics: request turnaround time, device compliance rate, onboarding readiness, SaaS spend.

By your first 90 days...

• Own IT operations end-to-end with clear SLAs and a functioning enablement pipeline that teams trust.

• Deliver a 12-month IT roadmap covering scale to 150+ employees, AI tooling adoption, and team growth, backed by the metrics you established and aligned with Cyber Enablement and Productivity Engineering roadmaps.

General Interview Process

All of our interviews are held via Google Meet, and an active camera connection is required.

• Initial Meeting with People Operations team member (30 minutes)

• Hiring Manager interview (30 minutes)

• Meeting with the Director of Cyber Enablement (30 minutes)

• Meeting with the Director of Infrastructure Engineering (30 minutes)

• Culture fit interview with Phaidra’s co-founders (30 minutes)

We use Kula as our hiring platform. During your interview, Kula's AI Notetaker will record a transcript of the meeting to allow the interviewer to focus on the interview, not the note taking.

Base Salary

US Residents:

• Tier 1 (Largest highest-cost metros): 200,000 USD - 275,000 USD

• Tier 2 (Other major metros): 190,000 USD - 261,250 USD

• Tier 3 (Mid-sized metro areas): 180,000 USD - 247,500 USD

• Tier 4 (All other locations): 170,000 USD - 233,750 USD

Canada Residents:

• Tier 1 (Vancouver): 208,500 CAD - 286,687 CAD

• Tier 2 (Toronto): 194,600 CAD - 267,575 CAD

• Tier 3 (Montreal): 166,800 CAD - 229,350 CAD

• Tier 4 (Smaller cities / rural areas): 152,900 CAD - 210,237 CAD

UK Residents:

• Tier 1 (London): 125,800 GBP - 172,975 GBP

• Tier 2 (Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol): 118,400 GBP - 162,800 GBP

• Tier 3 (Smaller cities / rural areas): 111,000 GBP - 152,625 GBP

In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for equity. Final salary will be determined based on several factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, experience, expertise, education and location. In some cases, final compensation may fall outside the posted range. Salary ranges are regularly reviewed and may be adjusted in response to market trends.

Benefits & Perks

• Fast-paced, team-oriented environment where your work directly shapes the company’s direction.

• We are a 100% remote company. 

• Competitive compensation & meaningful equity.

• Outsized responsibilities & professional development.

• Training is foundational; functional, customer immersion, and development training.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance (exact benefits vary by region).

• Unlimited paid time off, with a required minimum of 20 days per year.

• Paid parental leave (exact benefits vary by region).

• Flexible stipends to support your workspace, well-being, and continued professional development.

• Company MacBook.

Please note: Not all of Phaidra’s benefits and perks listed above apply to temporary employees such as interns.

On being Remote

We take a thoughtful and intentional approach to remote collaboration. Inspired by pioneers like GitLab, we embrace proven best practices to foster an exceptional remote work environment. Our culture is documentation-first, and we prioritize asynchronous communication to support focus and flexibility across time zones. While we value independence, we stay closely connected through tools like Slack and video conferencing. Weekly all-hands meetings help us align and build strong relationships, and we regularly host virtual team-building activities and social events to maintain a sense of camaraderie.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Phaidra is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Phaidra is governed on the basis of merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. We welcome diversity and strive to maintain an inclusive environment for all employees. If you need assistance with completing the application process, please contact us at hiring@phaidra.ai.

E-Verify Notice

Phaidra participates in E-Verify, an employment authorization database provided through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA). As required by law, we will provide the SSA and, if necessary, the DHS, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization for those residing in the United States.

Additional information about E-Verify can be found here.

#LI-Remote

To be considered for any position at Phaidra, you must submit an online application. This role will remain open until it is filled.

Phaidra only hires individuals who are legally authorized to work in the specified location(s) above.

We do not provide employment sponsorship. Candidates requiring visa sponsorship, either now or in the future, are not eligible for hire.

Candidates who advance beyond the initial screening stage will be required to sign a Non-

Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in order to continue through the interview process.

All employment offers are contingent upon successful completion of employment authorization verification and applicable background checks, in accordance with local laws and company policies.

WE DO NOT ACCEPT APPLICATIONS FROM RECRUITERS.