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Appen

Director of IT & Automation – Appen

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Remote from
USA
Salary
USD 140k–150k / yr
Department
DevOps & Infrastructure
Employment
Full Time
Experience
Director
Published
Apply before
10 Nov 2026
Listing views
34
Application actions
1
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AI Summary

The role, at a glance.

Appen is seeking a senior IT leader to set the enterprise IT roadmap and lead support, security, endpoint management, automation, and service delivery. The Director will manage core platforms including Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday, Atlassian, AWS, Databricks, and Anthropic, with accountability for integrations and governance. The role owns IT contributions to SOC 2 and ISO 27001, major incident response, vendor strategy, and technology cost optimization. A central objective is applying AI, agents, and self-service workflows to improve onboarding, provisioning, help desk operations, and other IT processes. The successful candidate will build a high-performing team and communicate effectively with executive leaders, technical teams, Finance, and vendors.

Role DNA

A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.

Job Complexity

5/5
EasyHard

Pace & Pressure

5/5
RelaxedFast-paced

Autonomy Level

5/5
GuidedFull ownership

Communication Load

5/5
IndependentCollaborative
AI insightThis is a high-scope leadership role spanning operational IT, security governance, enterprise applications, cloud technology, commercial management, and AI-driven transformation. It requires both strategic decision-making and enough hands-on technical depth to challenge designs, resolve incidents, and lead a growing team.

Salary analysis

Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.

Estimated job medianBelow market
$145,000
US market range$150k–$210k
AI insightThe disclosed base-salary range is $140,000-$150,000 USD yearly, producing an offered base median of $145,000. For a US-based Director of IT with enterprise systems, security compliance, vendor ownership, cloud exposure, and automation leadership responsibilities, an estimated US market base-salary range is $150,000-$210,000 yearly; bonus, equity, company size, and location can materially affect total compensation. The posting also states a 20% target bonus, which is excluded from the base-salary figures.

Core skills

Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.

IT leadershipenterprise IT operationsMicrosoft 365 administrationAWSSaaS administrationSOC 2ISO 27001AI automationvendor managementincident response
Sample interview questions
How would you create an IT roadmap that balances operational reliability, security, and AI-enabled transformation?

I would begin with a current-state assessment covering service health, security risks, audit commitments, cost, technical debt, and employee pain points. I would prioritize a sequenced roadmap with clear outcomes: stabilize critical operations first, address material control gaps, then scale automation initiatives with measurable time, quality, and satisfaction improvements. Regular reviews with executive stakeholders would keep investments aligned with business priorities.

Describe an IT process you would target first for AI and automation, and how you would implement it safely.

I would often start with help desk triage and common access or onboarding requests because they are high-volume and measurable. I would map the process, identify approved knowledge sources and low-risk actions, implement human review and role-based permissions, then pilot the workflow with monitoring for accuracy, escalation rates, and security exceptions. Successful patterns could then be extended to provisioning and vendor administration.

What is your approach to preparing IT for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 audits?

I translate control requirements into accountable operational processes, evidence sources, and testing cadences. This includes maintaining access reviews, endpoint compliance, change records, incident documentation, vendor due diligence, and risk registers. I use recurring control-owner reviews and remediation tracking so audit readiness is continuous rather than a one-time exercise.

How would you manage a major incident affecting identity, Microsoft 365, or a critical SaaS platform?

I would establish clear incident roles, stabilize the service, assess business impact, and communicate concise updates on a defined cadence. After restoration, I would lead a blameless review that identifies root causes, gaps in detection or runbooks, and prioritized preventive actions. I would ensure owners and dates are assigned, with leadership visibility until remediation is complete.

How do you approach vendor rationalization and technology cost optimization without disrupting teams?

I would inventory applications, license usage, renewal dates, integrations, business owners, and risk profiles to identify overlap and underutilization. Decisions would be based on total cost, adoption, security, operational impact, and migration effort rather than price alone. I would involve affected teams early, plan transitions carefully, and track realized savings alongside service-quality outcomes.

This analysis is generated from the job description. Salary estimates, role characteristics and sample answers are guidance, not employer-provided facts.
Opportunity details

About this role.

About the Role

Appen is looking for a Director of IT & Automation to lead our IT function and help shape how a modern, AI-native company operates.

This is a senior leadership role combining technical depth, operational judgement and people leadership. You will work closely with the CPTO and senior leaders across the business to align technology, risk, service and investment priorities.

You will build and lead a high-performing team across IT support, enterprise technology and automation, hiring technically strong, proactive people who use AI to improve how they work and creating a culture of ownership, continuous improvement and practical problem-solving.

We want someone who sees AI as a genuine lever for changing how IT operates, not simply another tool to add to the stack. You should be comfortable moving between strategy and execution, getting into the technical detail when a problem requires it.

What You’ll Own

IT Leadership & Operations

  • Set the IT roadmap across enterprise technology, support, security and automation.
  • Lead IT support, endpoint management and major incident response.
  • Shape the IT operating model and team as Appen grows.

Enterprise Technology

  • Own the health, configuration and integration of Appen’s core enterprise technology environment.
  • Provide technical leadership across Microsoft 365, including administration, identity, access and security.
  • Oversee our broader enterprise technology environment, including Salesforce, Workday, Atlassian, AWS, Databricks and Anthropic, ensuring platforms are well integrated, governed and fit for purpose.

Security & Governance

  • Own IT’s role in SOC 2 and ISO 27001, including controls, audit readiness, evidence and remediation.
  • Maintain appropriate security, access and endpoint controls across the IT environment.
  • Identify technology and operational risks before they become incidents.
  • Establish practical governance for AI use across IT, balancing adoption with security, privacy and compliance.

AI & Automation

  • Make AI and automation core tools for improving IT operations and employee experience.
  • Identify opportunities to eliminate manual work and apply AI, automation, agents and self-service to areas such as help desk triage, onboarding, provisioning, IT administration and vendor management.
  • Use tools such as Claude, Cowork, agents and AI-enabled workflows to build and improve solutions.
  • Partner with Engineering and Product on larger automation initiatives.

Vendors & Commercial Management

  • Manage Appen’s technology vendor portfolio, including selection, negotiation, performance and renewals.
  • Drive licence rationalisation, vendor consolidation and technology cost optimisation.
  • Maintain clear visibility of technology spend and partner with Finance on investment decisions.

Team Leadership

  • Build and develop a high-performing IT team across support, enterprise technology and automation.
  • Create a culture where people solve problems rather than simply manage them.

What We’re Looking For

  • 8+ years in IT, including significant leadership experience.
  • Proven experience leading IT, including IT support and service delivery, in a fast-paced technology, software or services environment.
  • Hands-on knowledge of Microsoft 365 and enterprise IT administration.
  • Technical credibility across enterprise SaaS, cloud infrastructure, endpoints, identity and integrations.
  • Able to diagnose problems, challenge technical decisions and understand how systems actually work.
  • Experience with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and IT security governance.
  • Commercial acumen across vendor management, negotiation and technology spend.
  • A demonstrated track record of turning AI and automation into working solutions for real IT problems, with examples of processes you have automated, redesigned or eliminated.
  • Executive presence and the ability to build credibility with senior leaders, technical teams and vendors.
  • Proactive, resourceful and comfortable operating with ambiguity.

Particularly valuable: Deep AWS experience, cloud cost management, experience administering Salesforce, Workday or Atlassian, familiarity with Databricks or Anthropic, and DevOps/SRE exposure.

About Appen

Appen has been a leader in AI training data for over 30 years. We specialise in human generated data to train, fine tune, and evaluate models across generative AI, large language models, computer vision, and speech recognition. Our AI assisted data annotation platform and global crowd of more than 1 million contributors in over 200 countries support model pre-training, supervised fine tuning, evaluation and benchmarking, safety and red teaming, and multilingual global expansion.

$140,000 to $150,000 base salary plus 20% target bonus

The total compensation for this full-time role will include base salary and performance-based incentive. Actual compensation is determined based on role, level, experience and technical expertise. Appen offers a benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, retirement plan options and paid time off.

Compensation

Additional Information

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