Windows Server Team Lead

As a Windows Server Team Lead, you will work within Infrastructure to design, build, and operate scalable systems that support the business. Your focus will be on Windows server platforms, identity services, automation, and reliability engineering across on‑prem Windows environments and hybrid cloud integrations.

What You'll Do

• Lead and develop a team of Windows Server engineers, setting priorities and focusing effort on high‑impact reliability and platform initiatives.
• Design and implement high‑performance Windows Server solutions with a strong emphasis on availability, operational excellence, and latency‑sensitive trading workloads.
• Drive automation and infrastructure‑as‑code practices to improve deployment consistency, reduce manual work, and scale operations.
• Lead Active Directory modernization and hybrid identity initiatives, ensuring secure, reliable access across the firm.
• Partner closely with Security, Infrastructure, and Development teams to plan and deliver changes safely and predictably.
• Improve incident response through clear leadership during events, root cause analysis, and durable preventative follow‑ups.
• Contribute to resource management, forecasting requirements, and enhancing performance to support peak market activity.
• Produce and maintain documentation (runbooks, diagrams, post‑incident reviews) to support knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.
• Participate in an on‑call rotation and provide leadership during critical incidents as needed.

What We're Looking For

• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to lead, mentor, and collaborate across technical teams.
• A pragmatic approach that balances fast delivery with long‑term maintainability and operational excellence.
• Ability to triage and resolve issues end‑to‑end, including clear ownership of root cause and prevention.
• 8+ years of hands‑on Windows Server administration experience in critical, high‑availability environments.
• Deep expertise in Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, and Failover Clustering, including performance tuning and resolving complex challenges.
• Proven leadership experience running infrastructure teams (or acting as a senior technical lead), with a record of developing engineers and driving standards.
• Strong PowerShell scripting/automation skills; experience with infrastructure‑as‑code tools and/or configuration management (or demonstrated willingness to adopt and lead these efforts).
• Willingness to participate in an on‑call rotation and lead through high‑severity incidents.
• Meticulous attention to procedure, change management, and meeting service expectations.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with enterprise platforms such as SCCM/MECM, endpoint/server monitoring, backup systems, and/or load balancers.
• Familiarity with ITIL concepts, operational workflows, project management, and DevOps/CI/CD practices.
• Experience supporting financial services infrastructure, trading systems, or market data platforms.
• Exposure to modern deployment approaches (e.g., containerization, orchestration).

Work Location and Collaboration

This role is based in Chicago, working closely with Infrastructure, Security, Networking, and Development teams for high‑bandwidth collaboration. We value face‑to‑face teamwork and pragmatic flexibility.