City: Chicago
State/Province: IL
Country: United States
Division: Corporate
Job ID: 13606
Since 1952, Lawson Products has worked hard to make our customers' jobs easier by improving their operational efficiency, productivity and overall performance. As a leader in the MRO industry, we partner with customers to make sure they have the right maintenance and repair parts on hand when needed.
We’re looking for a motivated Director of IT Development Operations and Projects focused on overseeing enterprise-level IT development operations and the successful execution of strategic and tactical technology projects. Reporting to the CIO, this position leads cross-functional project teams, optimizes DevOps processes, and drives alignment between technology solutions and business objectives. The role ensures the organization delivers secure, scalable, and reliable systems through disciplined project execution, effective team management, and continuous improvement of development and delivery practices.
This role will work remotely from a home office, with approximately 10% travel. We offer 401k plus vision, dental and medical benefits, as well as a paid holiday and PTO package.
Responsibilities:
- Development Operations Strategy and Execution: Defines and executes the organization's development operations vision. Leads the implementation and continuous enhancement of code integration pipelines, automated deployment processes, release management, and infrastructure automation practices.
- IT Project Leadership: Manages the IT project portfolio, from inception to completion. Ensures projects are prioritized, resourced, executed on time, within budget, and meet or exceed business expectations.
- Governance and Standards: Establishes and maintains development operations governance, project management standards, templates, documentation practices, and tools to improve organizational efficiency and consistency.
- Cross-Functional Coordination: Collaborates closely with software engineering, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and business teams to align on delivery roadmaps, dependencies, and priorities.
- Quality Assurance Oversight: Oversees QA strategy, standards, and execution across the software development lifecycle. Ensures robust testing methodologies (manual and automated) are in place to maintain system reliability, performance, and security. Partners with QA leads to define metrics and drive continuous improvement in testing practices.
- Team Management: Leads, develops, and mentors a diverse team of project managers, development operations engineers, QA analysts, and business analysts. Promotes a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and operational excellence.
- Performance Monitoring and Reporting: Builds dashboards and reporting mechanisms for development operations metrics, project health indicators, QA effectiveness, and resource utilization. Provides executive-level updates and insights.
- Continuous Improvement: Leads retrospectives, implements lessons learned, and drives iterative process improvements across project delivery, development operations, and QA.
- Vendor and Tool Management: Selects and manages third-party tools and service providers supporting development operations, project delivery, and QA infrastructure. Ensures technology stacks meet evolving business needs.
- Other duties and responsibilities may be assigned as necessary.
Qualifications & Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred) with a minimum of 10 years of experience in IT program/project management and development operations leadership, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. PMP and/or Agile certification (e.g., PMI-ACP, SAFe, CSM) preferred.
- Strong knowledge of development operations tools and practices (e.g., CI/CD, automation frameworks, infrastructure as code)
- Demonstrated experience in enterprise IT project and program management
- Expertise in agile, waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies
- Excellent leadership and team development capabilities
- Strong analytical, decision-making, and stakeholder engagement skills
- Clear and professional verbal and written communication skills
- Proficient in Microsoft Office 365 and project portfolio tools (e.g., Smartsheet, MS Project, Jira)
Lawson Products is an Equal Opportunity Employer of women, minorities, protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.