Senior Manager IT Operations

About us:

One team. Global challenges. Infinite opportunities. At Viasat, we’re on a mission to deliver connections with the capacity to change the world. For more than 35 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the globe communicate. We’re looking for people who think big, act fearlessly, and create an inclusive environment that drives positive impact to join our team.

What you'll do:

The Senior Manager, IT Operations is responsible for ensuring the operational integrity, reliability, and compliance of Global IT systems, platforms, and applications. This role leads the execution of day-to-day IT operations, ensuring systems are configured, patched, monitored, and maintained in a consistent, secure, and highly predictable manner.

Serving as a critical part of the operational backbone of Global IT, this role drives disciplined execution of core run processes through a combination of standardized practices, automation-first strategies, and tightly governed managed service providers. The Senior Manager ensures that platforms operate within defined availability, recovery, and compliance standards while maintaining audit readiness across regulated and non-regulated environments.

This leader operates in a “run and reliability” capacity, focusing on stability, compliance, and scalability rather than product or experience ownership. By employing automation, AI-driven insights, and strong operational governance, the role enables resilient, secure environments that reduce risk and support enterprise innovation.

This is a site‑based role, employees work 3+ days (60%+) per week from a Viasat office or work location within a standard five‑day workweek.

The day-to-day:

Operational Execution & Reliability

Lead operational run processes including monitoring, alerting, incident coordination, and problem management

Ensure systems meet defined availability, performance, and recovery objectives

Drive consistency and rigor in operational execution across platforms and services

Automation & AI-Driven Operations

Drive automation-first operations to reduce manual tasks and improve efficiency

Utilize AI-driven insights for predictive detection, alert noise reduction, and root cause analysis

Configuration Management & CMDB

Own and govern the enterprise CMDB as the authoritative system of record for IT assets and service relationships

Ensure configuration accuracy, lifecycle tracking, and dependency mapping

Enable operational, risk, and audit use cases through high-quality configuration data

Patch, Vulnerability & Compliance Operations

Oversee execution of patching, vulnerability remediation, and configuration compliance activities

Ensure consistent alignment to security and compliance standards

Maintain audit-ready evidence in partnership with Security and Governance functions

Enable controlled self-healing and autonomous remediation where appropriate

Managed Services & Outsourcing Execution

Manage delivery of operational services through managed service providers

Define and enforce SLAs, KPIs, and operational standards

Monitor vendor performance, drive accountability, and lead continuous improvement initiatives

Regulated & Restricted Environment Operations

Ensure compliance with U.S. regulatory requirements including FOUO, CUI, and ITAR

Enforce operational controls requiring U.S.-based execution by authorized personnel

Maintain strict access controls, segregation of duties, and auditability of operations

Operational Readiness & Resilience

Ensure production readiness through operational acceptance and readiness reviews

Partner with platform and engineering teams to embed operability, resilience, and supportability by design

Support disaster recovery and continuity planning

What you'll need:

8–10+ years of experience in IT operations, infrastructure, or service management

Demonstrable experience leading operational processes such as incident, problem, and organisational change

Strong expertise in IT operations disciplines including monitoring, patching, vulnerability management, and configuration management

Experience managing and governing CMDB platforms and asset lifecycle processes

Demonstrated experience managing third-party managed service providers

Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements (e.g., ITAR, CUI, FOUO or similar frameworks)

Experience implementing automation and using AI/analytics for operational improvement

Solid understanding of IT infrastructure, cloud environments, and enterprise platforms

Excellent leadership, organizational, and stakeholder management skills

Ability to drive operational rigor and continuous improvement at scale

U.S. Citeizenship required

What will help you on the job:

Experience operating in large, global enterprise IT environments

Familiarity with ITSM frameworks such as ITIL

Experience with modern monitoring, observability, and AIOps platforms

Exposure to DevOps practices and infrastructure-as-code methodologies

Experience supporting regulated or government-compliant environments

Certifications such as ITIL, CISSP, CISM, or cloud platform certifications

Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making capabilities

Experience implementing self-healing and autonomous operations capabilities