Head of IT

As we enter our next phase of growth and scale the Chaparral aircraft from flight testing into full-rate production, Elroy Air needs one person to own IT and security from the ground up. This is a true builder role: you'll be a team of one for the foreseeable future, operating as both the strategist setting direction and the hands-on operator keeping systems running day to day. You'll design and defend our network against real threats, and you'll build and maintain the CMMC compliance framework that lets us operate in export-controlled, government-adjacent environments, essentially standing up the function solo before it grows.

You'll work directly with engineering, security, legal, and leadership, with full ownership of decisions that in a larger company would be split across a team.

The Head of IT will build, lead, secure, scale, and create high-performing IT systems across the company. This role is responsible for architecting and operating our internal IT infrastructure, including corporate IT, identity and access management (physical and digital), endpoint systems, networking, and compliance frameworks required for export-controlled environments.

You will shape and build the systems that allow the company to mature and operate efficiently as we scale.

 

Security & network defense: architect and actively defend physical and cloud network infrastructure against intrusion; own logging, detection, and incident response.

Own end-to-end management of corporate IT infrastructure: physical networks, endpoint management, and SaaS management, maintaining successful compliance with strict security frameworks such as NIST SP 800-53

Develop and enforce IT policies and access control aligned with defense sector norms and requirements.

Architect and maintain secure physical network infrastructure across office, lab, and production environments

Partner with Engineering to support high-performance cloud computing, lab systems, and specialized environments.

Own and streamline IT elements of employee lifecycle, including automating critical aspects of onboarding / offboarding

Have a security-first approach while still enabling rapid execution

Use strong judgment balancing speed, cost, and risk

Are a clear communicator with both technical and non-technical teams

Have a builder mentality: you aren’t afraid to roll up your sleeves and create new systems or integrations when legacy ones aren’t working

Strong cloud experience (GCP and AWS)

Hands-on MDM and EDR implementation

Identity system automation (Okta, Azure AD) in regulated environments

Proven track record of automation and user lifecycle improvements in enterprise IT systems in a fast-paced environment

This role is hybrid on-site and requires close collaboration with engineering and lab environments