IT Manager

Work with cutting edge technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world's most challenging technical problems in the Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems. Working with high profile customers across militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters in Pyrmont, Sydney. There are approximately 360 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 400 staff by end of 2025. Overseas on the ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Denmark, Germany and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

The IT team is responsible to support DroneShield's staff with its technology needs, including office network, endpoint management and overall system maintenance. IT is more than just tickets, the focus for the IT teams is on building services, tools and processes that achieve our user experience, scalability and security goals for the organisation.

The IT team works closely with Security and Platform teams to ensure the strategies are aligned and we can deliver solutions that are secure and enable our product platform.

The successful candidate will lead the IT team to its next phase, leading the team, managing projects, hiring and shaping the IT strategy for the years ahead. The ideal candidate will look for opportunities where better process and automations can deliver disproportionate impact on IT output. DroneShield is an engineering led organisation, and the ideal candidate will improve the User Experience for Engineers across the organisation.

Primary responsibilities include technical leadership such as owning IT asset management, office network, helpdesk, troubleshooting software and hardware and device management. It also includes people leadership such as managing, mentoring and expanding the current IT team.

The role will require the candidate to be versed in several disciplines ranging from M365, End User Computing, Networking, Internal Application hosting and Cloud infrastructure. This role requires experience with either programming or advanced scripting.

Strong communication and leadership skills and being a hands-on engineer are a must have.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations

• Contribute to the planning, design, and delivery of IT infrastructure projects and strategic initiatives.
• Support innovation through research, vendor engagement, and pilot programmes.
• Analyse support ticket trends and collaborate on scalable, proactive solutions to reduce recurring issues.
• Implement and build IT hardware, cloud, internal core services and software solutions for end users and enterprise systems
• Involvement with Networking architecture and operations
• Drive continual improvement and automation to reduce reactive and repetitive tasks.
• Provide technical guidance and act as a subject matter expert across various IT domains.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align IT solutions with business needs.
• Manage and mentor team members
• Work on architecting Global Solutions for the growing company and set standards for IT across the DroneShield Group in Australia and internationally

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• BS degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience working with Engineering lead organisations and improving Engineering user experience
• Demonstrated experience working in IT with focus on constantly improving the status quo
• On-the-tools engineering experience – must be hands-on
• Excellent communication skills to explain complex technical concepts.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Create and execute an IT strategy for the next 2 years
• Proven ability to lead teams and managing people effectively
• Minimum 8 years' experience in related roles. Roles could include:
• • IT Infrastructure Specialist
• Systems Administrator
• IT Engineer or Manager
• Knowledge of the following is essential:
• • Expertise in Microsoft 365, EntraID, Azure, and the broader Microsoft ecosystem.
• Strong proficiency in PowerShell and other scripting languages for automation and systems management.
• Working in and managing OSX, Windows environments and preferably Linux
• Solid understanding and hands on experience with networking concepts, firewalls, VPNs, routers/switches and cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure cloud)
• Endpoint (laptops/mobile) management tools (e.g. Intune, SCCM, JAMF) and identity platforms (e.g. Azure EntraID).
• Core networking and system services such as Spanning Tree, DNS and DHCP
• Managing Atlassian suite (JIRA, Confluence)
• Support processes and measuring customer success
• Troubleshooting skills and a methodical approach to problem-solving
• System monitoring
• Knowledge of the following is desirable:
• • Familiarity with Next Generation AI and ability to automate tasks
• Working with Security teams and implementing security controls and processes
• Integrating and Managing various SAAS services
• Security standards such as the Essential 8, ISM, ISO 27001 and NIST 800-53

Note for recruitment agencies: we do not accept floated candidates from external recruiters unless they were instructed to do so.