IT Lead

ABOUT DISTYL AI Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations. We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations — both for our partners and for Distyl itself. Our work spans research into self-constructing systems, the development of the most reliable execution of AI systems, and products that transform mission-critical workflows. As a result, Distyl's technologies affect some of the world's largest operations — from hundreds of millions of consumer interactions to tens of millions of supply chain transactions and millions of patient journeys. Distyl is backed by leading investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and the board-members of 20+ F500s. The results reflect this approach: a 100% production deployment success rate for our customers and one of the few enterprise AI companies to run a profitable business. WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR As Head of IT, you will build and lead Distyl's global IT organization during a period of rapid growth. Reporting to executive leadership, you will own the strategy, systems, security controls, compliance programs, and operational processes that enable Distyl to scale from approximately 180 employees today to 500+ employees globally. This is a highly hands-on leadership role. You will lead a small but growing team, personally execute critical initiatives, and establish the foundations of a world-class IT organization capable of supporting enterprise customers, international expansion, and increasingly sophisticated security and compliance requirements. Distyl operates a highly customer-facing, forward-deployed model, partnering directly with Fortune 50 enterprises to deploy AI systems in complex and highly regulated environments. Our employees regularly work within customer environments and handle sensitive enterprise data, creating unique challenges around endpoint security, compliance, access governance, secure collaboration, and customer security requirements. You will oversee employee technology, identity and access management, endpoint security, corporate networking, SaaS governance, office technology, compliance programs, and corporate security operations across the United States and international markets. You will play a critical role in supporting our NYC and San Francisco hubs while helping establish and scale Distyl's international footprint. The ideal candidate combines strong technical depth, exceptional operational discipline, proven experience building IT organizations in high-growth technology companies, and the ability to balance strategic leadership with hands-on execution. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES IT LEADERSHIP & ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT - Build and lead Distyl's IT organization, including hiring, coaching, and developing a high-performing team - Establish a culture of operational excellence, accountability, responsiveness, and attention to detail across the IT organization - Define the long-term IT strategy, operating model, budget, and roadmap - Build an IT organization capable of supporting a global workforce of 500+ employees - Develop strong relationships with stakeholders across Engineering, Security, Legal, Finance, People, and Operations SECURITY & RISK MANAGEMENT - Establish and maintain strong controls across identity, devices, networks, SaaS platforms, emerging AI technologies, and corporate infrastructure - Lead initiatives to improve endpoint security, access governance, device compliance, and network security - Establish governance around corporate and customer data, including data handling standards, secure transfer mechanisms, retention policies, and access controls - Develop and maintain business continuity, disaster recovery, and incident response cap