Technology Operations Lead

About Mercor

Mercor is training models that predict how well someone will perform on a job better than a human can. We use our platform to source, vet, and onboard expert contractors who help train AI models in a wide variety of domains. Our technology is so effective it’s used by all of the top 5 AI labs.

We scaled from $1–500M in revenue run rate in the last 17 months, making us the fastest growing company in the world. Our growth is accelerating: 11% week-over-week in July, 18% in August, and 19% in September. The team is small, profitable, and growing as fast as we can hire exceptional people.

We're hiring our first IT Operations Lead to own the reliability, security, and scalability of our identity, endpoint, and IT infrastructure systems. You'll partner directly with the Head of IT to transform reactive support into strategic, automated systems that prevent problems before they occur — balancing speed, security, and an exceptional user experience for technical teams building the future of AI.

You'll be based in our San Francisco office, collaborating closely with Security, Engineering, and People Ops.

In This Role, You Will:

Handle day-to-day operations and incident response

• Triage and resolve Tier 2/3 tickets with a focus on automation and improving response and resolution times

• Manage and troubleshoot Apple devices at hyper-scale

• Trace root causes across complex, multi-system failures (Rippling → Okta → Kandji → Google Workspace), identify patterns in recurring tickets, and propose automation or self-service solutions

• Analyze downstream impacts before making changes; map dependencies and blast radius for SSO, MDM, and access-control changes

• Build and maintain runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and knowledge base articles that elevate team capabilities

• Lead small projects that address operational pain points (BYOD policies, international provisioning, compliance evidence collection)

• Translate technical issues for non-technical stakeholders (People Ops, Finance, Legal) during incidents and changes

• Mentor future IT team members on troubleshooting methodology and systems thinking

• Participate in an on-call rotation and help establish sustainable escalation procedures as the team grows

You May Be a Good Fit If You:

• 5–7 years in IT Operations or Technical Support roles, ideally supporting technical teams (SaaS, cloud, AI/ML environments)

• Systems thinker who naturally traces dependencies, considers second-order effects, and asks "why did this break?" not just "how do I fix it?"

• Strong incident management skills: triage, root-cause analysis, blameless postmortems, pattern recognition

• Understanding of compliance controls (access management, logging, change management)

• Clear communicator who can explain technical issues to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders and write excellent documentation

• Self-directed with a bias to action and strong judgment on when to escalate versus resolve independently

• Solves problems others gave up on through creative, systematic troubleshooting

• Thinks through second- and third-order effects before making changes

• Documents solutions that help everyone, not just yourself

• Builds trust through technical competence and calm, clear communication under pressure

Strong Candidates May Also Have Experience With:

• Expert troubleshooting across the Apple ecosystem, including MDM (Kandji, Jamf, Intune)

• Advanced Google Workspace and Okta administration (SAML/OIDC, lifecycle automation, SCIM provisioning)

• Multi-cloud Support (AWS, Azure, GCP)

• Network troubleshooting (DNS, VPNs, VLANs)

• Scripting and automation (Python, Bash) and APIs for repetitive tasks and integrations, plus low-code automation tools (Okta Workflows, Zapier)

What Makes This Role Unique

You'll spend most of your day handling tickets and incidents — but you won't just fix problems, you'll ask why they exist and work to prevent them. If you see the same issue three times, you'll write the runbook, propose the automation, or flag the upstream fix. As we scale, you'll hire and mentor the next IT Operations team members, shaping how we support a fast-growing AI company.

Benefits

• Generous equity grant vested over 4 years

• A $20K relocation bonus (if moving to the Bay Area)

• A $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)

• A $1K monthly stipend for meals

• Free Equinox membership

• Health insurance