Director of IT Services

Director Of It Services

Jackson, Mississippi 1+ year Contract Need Locals or nearby areas

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

Scope Of Services

The contractor 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; Cybersecurity 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

Establish operational governance processes for incident, problem, change, configuration, request, and service-level management. Develop and maintain an enterprise service catalog defining technology services, ownership, service levels, and support models. Develop dashboards and executive-level reporting that communicate IT service health, risks, performance trends, and improvement initiatives. Lead Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) development and maintenance for ITIM domains. Facilitate weekly status reporting and leadership coordination meetings.

Technology Environment

The contractor shall possess working knowledge and demonstrated proficiency with the following platforms, tools, and systems that comprise DOM's current and target-state technology environment. Platform Usage at DOM

Cloud & Infrastructure Platforms

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Primary enterprise cloud platform. Active migration from on-premises virtualization. Includes EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, Landing Zone, and multiple workload accounts.

Cohesity

Enterprise cloud backup, data management, and data protection services.

Vmware

Legacy virtualization platform (active migration to AWS). Includes vSphere, vCenter, and related management tools.

Microsoft Azure / M365

Azure AD / Entra ID for identity services. Microsoft 365 for enterprise productivity, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams.

Monitoring, Observability & Security

Dynatrace

Enterprise application performance monitoring and observability platform.

Cloudflare

CDN, DDoS protection, and web application firewall services.

Microsoft Security

Monthly security update release management and distribution across DOM endpoints.

Networking & Identity

F5 Big-Ip

Load balancing, DNS provisioning, and application delivery for critical environments.

Auth0

Identity and authentication platform for API access management and portal authentication.

Cisco Meraki

Wireless access point infrastructure and lifecycle management.

Active Directory / Entra ID

Enterprise directory services and identity governance.

Applications, Databases & Integration

Marklogic

NoSQL database for clinical and provider data management and integration.

Gitlab

Source code management and CI/CD pipelines.

Fhir Apis

Federal interoperability APIs for Patient Access, Provider Directory, and Prior Authorization.

Cloverleaf

Integration engine for healthcare data exchange.

Collaboration & Service Management

Its Service Center

Mississippi ITS enterprise ticketing system for cloud, hosted application, DNS, firewall, and account provisioning requests.

Smartsheet

Project tracking, scheduling, and workflow management.

Microsoft SharePoint

Document management for project artifacts, meeting recordings, and compliance documentation.

Lexmark Cloud Print

Enterprise cloud print management solution.

Key Duties

The Contractor 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,