[Hiring] Manager / Sr. Manager, Technical Operations @Spark Advisors

Role Description

Spark Advisors is building the technology backbone for a modern Medicare distribution platform — supporting thousands of independent agents with compliant, AI-augmented tools. We're looking for a hands-on leader to own Technical Operations: the intersection of IT, security, DevOps, and infrastructure that keeps our AWS-native platform reliable, compliant, and secure as we scale.

This is a foundational hire. You'll be the first dedicated owner of this domain, building out policy, tooling, and a team as appropriate, while working shoulder-to-shoulder with engineering leadership on a live, regulated production environment. You'll report directly to the CTO and have significant influence over how the function is structured and staffed.

AI is core to how we operate, not a side initiative. We expect this function to run lean by design — using AI agents and tooling to extend what a small team can own, from infrastructure and security operations to how the broader org works day to day. You'll be expected to bring a point of view on where AI genuinely replaces manual toil versus where it adds risk, and to build the function with that judgment baked in from day one.

What You'll Do

• AI-Enabled Operations
  • Apply AI/agentic tooling to DevOps and infrastructure work; automated remediation, anomaly detection, capacity and cost optimization, and agent-assisted incident response and runbook execution.
  • Apply AI to InfoSec; AI-assisted log/alert triage, compliance evidence collection, vulnerability prioritization, and phishing/threat detection — while maintaining human sign-off on anything security-critical.
  • Drive org-wide AI enablement for technical operations: evaluate and roll out agentic tooling to support the broader organization.
  • Set guardrails for safe AI adoption in a regulated environment — data handling, auditability, and model/tool vetting — so speed doesn't come at the cost of compliance.
• DevOps & Infrastructure
  • Own the reliability, scalability, and cost-efficiency of our AWS-native infrastructure (Lambda, Step Functions, Kinesis, Connect, Bedrock, and related services).
  • Drive CI/CD maturity, infrastructure-as-code practices (SAM/CloudFormation/Terraform), and environment consistency across dev/staging/prod.
  • Own observability: logging, monitoring, alerting, and incident response processes; drive down MTTR.
  • Manage on-call rotations and runbooks; be a calm, decisive presence during incidents.
• Information Security & Compliance
  • Own the security posture of a HIPAA- and CMS-regulated platform: policies, controls, risk assessments, and audit readiness.
  • Lead SOC 2 / HIPAA compliance programs, vendor security reviews, and incident response.
  • Partner with engineering on secure-by-default practices (secrets management, least-privilege IAM, PHI handling, encryption at rest/in transit).
  • Own security awareness training and access governance across the company.
• IT Operations
  • Manage corporate IT: employee onboarding/offboarding, endpoint management, SSO/identity (Okta or similar), device security, and helpdesk support.
  • Own vendor and SaaS management, including procurement, licensing, and access reviews.
  • Build scalable, self-serve IT processes appropriate for our headcount.
• Leadership & Cross-Functional Partnership
  • Build and lead a small, high-leverage team as the function grows — hire well, and know when not to hire, favoring automation and good tooling over headcount.
  • Partner closely with the VP of Engineering, Data Engineering, and Product on shared infrastructure needs.
  • Represent technical operations to the board, auditors, and enterprise customers/partners when needed.
  • Set and report on operational KPIs; uptime, deployment frequency, MTTR, security findings closure rate.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a technical operations, DevOps, infrastructure, or security leadership role, ideally with 2+ years managing people or leading cross-functional initiatives.
• Deep hands-on experience with AWS; IAM, networking, serverless, and container services.
• Direct experience with security compliance frameworks (SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001) — you've been through an audit, not just read about one.
• Strong infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD chops.
• Experience operating in a regulated or high-stakes environment such as healthcare, fintech, insurance is a strong plus.
• A builder's mindset: comfortable with ambiguity, allergic to unnecessary process, and biased toward reversible, incremental decisions.
• Excellent judgment under pressure — you're often the person who is calm when something breaks in production.
• Clear communicator who can translate technical risk into business terms for non-technical stakeholders.

Compensation

Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our company’s size and industry, and are one part of the total compensation package that also includes equity, benefits, and other opportunities at Spark. In accordance with New York City, Colorado, California, and other applicable laws, Spark is required to provide a reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role. Individual pay decisions are ultimately based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, geography, and balancing internal equity. A reasonable estimate of the current salary range is listed below. We expect most candidates to fall in the middle of the range. We also believe that your personal needs and preferences should be taken into consideration, so we allow some choice between equity and cash.

• Base Salary: $170,000 — $215,000 USD

Benefits

• Equity compensation
• Health care, including dental and vision through our PEO Sequoia
• Flexible work location; co-working available
• 401k
• Paid Time Off
• Monthly Remote Work Stipend (help cover costs of home-office needs)
• Paid Parental Leave
  • Up to 14 weeks for birthing parents
  • Up to 8 weeks for non-birth parents
• 11 paid holidays
• 2 week sabbatical at 5 years of employment
• Wellbeing Perks through SpringHealth, OneMedical, PerkSpot, and SoFi