Chief Information and Operations Officer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Formulate and implement a technology strategy that aligns with the organization's mission, business objectives, growth priorities, contractual obligations, and risk profile.

• Design and sustain a multi-year platform roadmap influenced by the needs of partners and customers.

• Establish technology budgets, set investment priorities, develop capacity plans, staffing models, and vendor strategies.

• Assess emerging technologies that can enhance the platform, security, and operational capabilities.

• Oversee platform architecture, engineering, modernization, and associated secure data infrastructure.

• Spearhead the development of researcher workspaces, data pipelines, analytical tools, automation, and AI-driven capabilities.

• Convert government, researcher, and partner needs into technical specifications and development strategies.

• Transition new capabilities into secure, dependable, documented, and supportable production environments.

• Manage end-to-end platform operations and researcher services, encompassing onboarding, access, workspace and data provisioning, technical support, offboarding, service levels, and escalation protocols.

• Guide the journey towards achieving FedRAMP High authorization, including security controls, governance, documentation, resource allocation, and cross-functional collaboration.

• Integrate FedRAMP continuous monitoring into daily operations.

• Cultivate relationships with government sponsors, assessors, and partners concerning FedRAMP, NIST, FISMA, and contractual obligations.

• Ensure reliability, availability, performance, and cloud cost management across production environments.

• Set standards for release and change management, monitoring, incident response, backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity.

• Direct the secure ingestion, processing, provisioning, and governance of sensitive administrative data.

• Supervise internal applications, identity and access management, collaboration tools, end-user technology, and service management practices.

• Build and lead a technology team composed of employees, contractors, consultants, and vendors.

• Assist in business development and proposal activities by evaluating feasibility, security, capacity, cost, and delivery.

• Communicate priorities, risks, and trade-offs to non-technical audiences.

• Report directly to the CEO and provide advice to the Board of Directors and Technology Advisory Board.

• Lead a nonprofit platform that aids government agencies in utilizing administrative data to enhance public decision-making.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

• Minimum of 12 years of progressively responsible experience in technology.

• Proven leadership experience in a CIOO, CTO, vice president, senior director, or similar role.

• Demonstrated experience in leading or playing a significant role in a FedRAMP Moderate or High authorization initiative.

• In-depth knowledge of FISMA, NIST, and federal security requirements.

• Experience in building and operating secure cloud platforms that manage sensitive or regulated data.

• Familiarity with FedRAMP-authorized or comparable NIST- or FISMA-aligned environments.

• Strong understanding of cloud architecture, cybersecurity, software and product development, data platforms, production operations, and disaster recovery.

• Proven track record of leading multidisciplinary teams across engineering, cloud operations, cybersecurity, data engineering, product delivery, and internal IT.

• Excellent executive communication skills.

• Ability to balance security, cost, usability, reliability, and organizational capacity effectively.

• Willingness to engage hands-on in a small, mission-driven organization.

• Must meet applicable U.S. citizenship or permanent residency requirements for federal security and access.

• Willingness to travel approximately 20% of the time.

• Beneficial but not mandatory: technology leadership experience in or for federal government settings; experience in the public or research sectors; hands-on experience with System Security Plans, control implementation, POA&M remediation, continuous monitoring, government sponsors, or third-party assessors; knowledge of AWS GovCloud architecture, security, and identity and access management; experience with secure research data environments, data enclaves, or sensitive administrative or longitudinal data platforms.

• An advanced degree in a technical or related field is advantageous but not required.

🏝️ Benefits

• Medical plan options with employer contributions toward premiums.

• Dental and vision insurance.

• HSA available with eligible plans.

• 403(b) retirement plan with a 3% employer match.

• Additional 3% employer retirement contribution that does not require an employee contribution.

• 15 to 25 days of paid time off based on years of full-time professional experience.

• 14 paid holidays.

• Paid sick, family, and bereavement leave.

• Short- and long-term disability insurance.

• Potential eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

• $1,500 annual professional development reimbursement.

• $100 monthly reimbursement for eligible remote-work expenses.

• Remote work arrangement.

• Approximately 20% travel.