Director of IT Services

Location R2R attached required.

Last 5 digit of SSN required with submission.

Likely to extend at least two additional years depending on the success of the resource. 100% onsite in Jackson, MS - do NOT submit candidates that will request remote work. This should be a quick turnaround, they need someone asap.

Walter Sillers Building, 550 High Street, Jackbon, MS 39201 and Remote

On-Call Details: The consultant shall be available for after-hours support during major incidents, planned maintenance windows, and critical system events. Response time shall not exceed thirty (30) minutes for critical severity incidents.

Position Description and Job Skill Set:

The State of Mississippi Division of Medicaid (DOM) administers the state's Medicaid program, providing healthcare coverage to eligible Mississippians. DOM's Office of Information Technology Management supports the agency's mission through enterprise technology services spanning cloud infrastructure, networking, service desk operations, cybersecurity, application integration, and vendor management.

DOM is undergoing a significant technology modernization effort that includes migration of enterprise workloads to cloud platforms, implementation of federal interoperability mandates, adoption of cloud-native services, and restructuring of IT service delivery operations. These concurrent transformation initiatives require sustained, senior-level technical leadership to ensure continuity of operations, effective vendor coordination, and successful execution of modernization objectives.

The purpose of this Statement of Work (SOW) is to procure staff augmentation services for one (1) Director of IT Services to provide executive-level leadership and operational oversight for DOM's enterprise IT Infrastructure Management (ITIM) and Delivery Services functions. The contractor shall serve as a key member of DOM's IT leadership team, reporting to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and shall be responsible for the day-to-day management of infrastructure operations, cloud services, vendor relationships, service desk operations, and technology modernization initiatives.

KEY DUTIES:

The consultant shall perform the following duties on an ongoing basis:

• Manage daily IT infrastructure operations, ensuring availability and performance of all enterprise systems and services.

• Triage, assign, and track service tickets submitted for DOM cloud, hosting, and network services.

• Coordinate with network and systems administration teams on DNS changes, firewall rules, account provisioning, and access management.

• Lead incident response for major technology outages and service disruptions, including root cause analysis and corrective action.

• Manage vendor relationships through regular status calls, performance reviews, and escalation management.

• Review and contribute to Statements of Work, procurement documents, and contract renewals.

• Conduct interviews and manage hiring processes for infrastructure and client support positions.

• Develop and update Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all ITIM service areas.

• Prepare and deliver weekly status reports to IT leadership.

• Manage bi-annual assessment artifact collection and compliance documentation.

REPORTING STRUCTURE:

• The consultant shall report directly to the DOM Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

• The consultant shall participate in DOM IT leadership meetings, weekly status report cadence, and executive briefings as required.

• The consultant shall coordinate regularly with network administration, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, IT procurement, and application development teams.

SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS:

• The consultant shall pass a background investigation as required by the State of Mississippi and DOM prior to commencing work.

• The consultant shall comply with all HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule requirements, including safeguarding of Protected Health Information (PHI) and electronic PHI (ePHI).

• The consultant shall comply with CMS Acceptable Risk Controls for Automated Medicaid Program Eligibility (ARC-AMPE) and all applicable federal security requirements.

• The consultant shall adhere to Mississippi ITS security policies, standards, and procedures.

• The consultant shall complete all required security awareness training within thirty (30) days of onboarding and annually thereafter.

• The consultant shall execute a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and any additional confidentiality agreements required by DOM.

• The consultant shall not remove, copy, or transmit DOM data, documents, or systems information without prior written authorization.

• Upon termination or completion of the engagement, the consultant shall return all DOM property, credentials, and access shall be revoked within one (1) business day.

Required Skills/Experience:

The successful resource will have five or more years of experience with the following skills:

Qualification

Requirement

Experience with progressive information technology, including significant experience managing enterprise IT operations and infrastructure.

10 Years

Experience in leadership or management, including direct supervision of technical teams, managers, engineers, and support personnel.

8 Years

Demonstrated experience managing enterprise cloud environments, with specific experience in Amazon Web Services (AWS) including

EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, and Landing Zone architectures.

2 Years

Strong understanding of enterprise networking, including LAN/WAN, DNS, load balancing, wireless infrastructure, and telecommunications.

2 Years

Experience with enterprise monitoring and observability platforms.

2 Years

Experience managing IT service desk operations, including service-

level management, incident management, and customer satisfaction measurement.

2 Years

Experience with IT vendor management, contract oversight, SOW development, and procurement support.

2 Years

Experience managing data protection and backup solutions.

2 Years

Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles, compliance frameworks, and IT governance in a regulated environment.

2 Years

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability

to translate technical issues into business-level communications for executive audiences.

2 Years

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related field; or equivalent work experience.

Bachelors or Higher

Preferred/Not RequiredPreferred/Not Required

Preferred/Not Required:

Business Skill Set

Requirement

Experience working in state or federal government IT environments, preferably within a Medicaid, healthcare, or human services agency.

No minimum requirement

Experience with CMS interoperability mandates, including FHIR APIs and federal healthcare data exchange standards.

No minimum requirement

AWS certifications: Solutions Architect, SysOps Administrator, or Cloud Practitioner.

No minimum requirement

ITIL v4 Foundation or higher certification.

No minimum requirement

Experience with identity and access management platforms.

No minimum requirement

Experience with NoSQL databases and healthcare integration engines.

No minimum requirement

Experience with infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps practices.

No minimum requirement

Experience managing technology migrations from on-premises data centers to cloud environments.

No minimum requirement

Project Management Professional (PMP) or similar certification.

No minimum requirement

Master's degree in a technology or management discipline.

No minimum requirement

Experience with HIPAA Security Rule compliance and CMS ARC-AMPE security requirements.

No minimum requirement

SCOPE OF SERVICES:

The consultant shall provide leadership and operational management across the following functional domains: Enterprise Cloud Services; Network, Voice & Telecommunications; IT Service Desk & End-User Support; Infrastructure & Operations; Cyberscurity Partnership & Compliance; Vendor & Contract Management; and IT Services Management & Governance. The scope encompasses both ongoing operational responsibilities and active modernization initiatives.

Enterprise Cloud Services

Provide strategic and operational leadership for DOM's enterprise cloud environment, including infrastructure provisioning, platform services, identity integration, monitoring, and capacity management.

Oversee cloud migration activities, including coordination with cloud professional services teams, managed migration vendors, and DOM internal teams.

Establish and enforce governance for cloud adoption, architecture standards, cost management, security compliance, and operational procedures.

Manage cloud account provisioning, vendor onboarding to cloud environments, and service ticket workflows for cloud service requests.

Develop strategies for disaster recovery, high availability, and technology resiliency within cloud environments.

Monitor cloud consumption, performance, and costs; identify and implement optimization opportunities.

Provide strategic and operational leadership for DOM's enterprise cloud environment, including infrastructure provisioning, platform services, identity integration, monitoring, and capacity management.

Network, Voice & Telecommunications

Direct enterprise network and telecommunications operations supporting statewide Medicaid business functions, including LAN/WAN, wireless, Internet connectivity, remote access, and unified communications.

Oversee load balancing and DNS provisioning for application environments.

Coordinate with telecommunications carriers, managed service providers, and technology vendors to ensure service-level requirements are met.

Lead modernization of network infrastructure to support cloud services, mobility, and evolving security requirements.

Manage network access restoration and firewall rule change requests through ITS coordination.

IT Service Desk & End-User Support

Lead the enterprise IT service desk and end-user support organization, including client support technicians and supervisory staff.

Establish and monitor service desk KPIs: first-contact resolution, response times, resolution times, backlog management, and customer satisfaction.

Oversee incident escalation, major incident management, and post-incident review processes.

Manage ITS Service Center ticket workflows for DOM, including cloud and hosted application service categories.

Develop self-service capabilities, knowledge management, and automation to improve employee technology experience.

Infrastructure & Operations

Provide leadership for enterprise infrastructure operations, including compute, storage, virtualization, operating systems, backup, monitoring, and related platforms.

Ensure critical infrastructure is monitored and maintained to established availability and performance standards.

Lead infrastructure modernization and technology lifecycle management, including hardware refresh strategies and capacity planning.

Establish effective backup, recovery, redundancy, and disaster recovery capabilities.

Manage assessment artifact collection and compliance documentation for infrastructure domains.

Cybersecurity Partnership & Compliance

Partner with the CIO/CTO and cybersecurity teams to ensure infrastructure and services meet state and federal security requirements.

Ensure IT operations comply with HIPAA, CMS, and Mississippi ITS security policies.

Support implementation of security controls across cloud, network, infrastructure, and endpoint environments.

Participate in risk assessments, audits, compliance reviews, vulnerability remediation, and security initiatives.

Coordinate with the Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) and ITS on shared security documentation and architecture standards.

Vendor & Contract Management

Provide executive oversight of technology vendors, managed service providers, and cloud partners.

Lead vendor coordination for active contracts and procurement activities, including SOW development, brand specification forms, and contract negotiations.

Monitor vendor performance, deliverables, financial commitments, and contractual compliance.

Manage vendor escalations and remediation of significant service issues.

Support IT procurement processes, including solicitation review, proposal evaluation, and vendor selection.

IT Service Management & Governance