R&D IT Infrastructure Specialist

Purpose of the Role

The R&D IT Infrastructure Manager will be responsible for planning, deploying, operating, and continuously improving IT infrastructure services that support research, engineering, product development, testing, simulation, laboratory, and innovation environments. The role requires a strong blend of infrastructure technology expertise, project execution capability, operational governance, cybersecurity awareness, and stakeholder management to ensure reliable, secure, scalable, and high-performance IT services for R&D teams.

• Own the end-to-end management of IT infrastructure services for R&D facilities, including network, compute, storage, backup, collaboration, endpoint, and laboratory IT environments.
• Partner with R&D, engineering, product development, manufacturing, cybersecurity, enterprise IT, and external vendors to understand business requirements and translate them into infrastructure solutions.
• Lead infrastructure projects for new R&D labs, test environments, engineering work spaces, simulation platforms, and specialized technology zones.
• Ensure high availability, performance, reliability, and security of critical infrastructure supporting R&D workloads, design applications, test systems, and engineering data platforms.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure roadmaps aligned with R&D growth plans, technology refresh cycles, cybersecurity standards, and business continuity requirements.
• Manage IT assets, lifecycle planning, capacity planning, licensing coordination, inventory governance, and infrastructure documentation.
• Drive incident, problem, change, and service request management in line with ITIL-aligned practices and internal governance standards.
• Coordinate with cybersecurity teams to implement access controls, segmentation, vulnerability remediation, patching, monitoring, and compliance requirements for R&D environments.
• Manage vendors, service providers, OEMs, and implementation partners to ensure timely delivery, SLA compliance, cost optimization, and quality of service.
• Support audits, risk assessments, compliance reviews, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity testing for R&D IT infrastructure.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives, including automation, monitoring, AIOps, standardization, documentation, and operational excellence.
• Mentor and guide infrastructure engineers, support teams, and project resources involved in R&D infrastructure delivery and operations.
• Partner with scientific, engineering, and laboratory teams to support the onboarding, integration, and operation of laboratory equipment, instrument control systems, and integration with LIMS and scientific data platforms.
• Lead IT infrastructure readiness and handover activities for new laboratories, test facilities, manufacturing pilot environments, and R&D equipment deployments, ensuring infrastructure dependencies are identified and resolved prior to go‑live.
• Collaborate with R&D leadership to prioritize infrastructure investments, manage demand, and align infrastructure roadmaps with organizational goals.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electronics, Engineering, or a related discipline; master's degree preferred.
• 8-10 years of experience in IT infrastructure, site IT operations, technology project management, or enterprise infrastructure delivery.
• Minimum 3-5 years of experience managing infrastructure teams, vendors, or cross‑functional technology programs.
• Experience supporting R&D, engineering, manufacturing, laboratory, simulation, automotive, battery, electronics, or industrial technology environments is preferred.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise networking, data center infrastructure, server and storage platforms, virtualization, cloud services, endpoint management, backup, monitoring, and disaster recovery.
• Experience in laboratory commissioning, technology onboarding, operational readiness, and infrastructure deployment within R&D or manufacturing facilities.
• Good understanding of cybersecurity principles, network segmentation, identity and access management (IAM), vulnerability remediation, and compliance…