Senior IT Operations Specialist in Arlington, Texas at First Rate Inc

ABOUT FIRST RATE

At First Rate, we help financial institutions transform complexity into confidence through innovative WealthTech solutions, services, and data insights. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Arlington, Texas, First Rate serves clients around the world while remaining privately held, entrepreneurially driven, and focused on building long-term relationships.

Our culture is guided by four core values: Love, Give, Serve, and Enjoy. These values shape how we support one another, serve our clients, and invest in our communities. We believe meaningful work and meaningful lives go hand in hand, creating an environment where co-workers can grow professionally, make an impact, and enjoy the journey.

To retain profitable and referenceable clients through the delivery of cohesive team-based customer service experience and audited performance reporting data to Service Bureau clients that is defined by quality, accuracy and timeliness.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As our Senior IT Operations Specialist, you’ll help keep our people productive and our technology secure, reliable, and running smoothly. You’ll own daily help desk operations, resolve complex technical issues, administer Microsoft 365 and other core IT systems, and support infrastructure, security, and technology projects. We’re looking for an experienced, service-minded professional who takes ownership, communicates clearly, and enjoys finding better ways to work. This is an on-site position requiring five days per week in the office.

STRATEGIC WORK:

1. Help translate the IT Operations Architect’s technology roadmap, security requirements, and operating standards into repeatable daily practices and documented procedures.
2. Identify recurring incidents, aging technology, capacity constraints, security gaps, and process inefficiencies; recommend prioritized improvements supported by ticket, monitoring, asset, and risk data.
3. Contribute technical analysis, implementation planning, testing, change documentation, user communication, and post-implementation review for infrastructure, Microsoft 365, endpoint, security, and business-application projects.
4. Maintain operational readiness and continuity by ensuring current system documentation, administrative access, vendor contacts, recovery procedures, inventories, and escalation paths are available to authorized personnel.
5. Serve as the IT Operations Architect’s operational backup when the Architect is unavailable, making routine operational decisions and escalating material risk, cost, security, compliance, or business-impact decisions to designated leadership.
6. Support secure, scalable technology operations that align with company objectives, the Information Security Policy, and applicable compliance obligations.

TACTICAL WORK:

Help Desk and Employee Support

1. Own the daily help desk queue from intake through closure, including prioritization, troubleshooting, escalation, user communication, and resolution documentation.
2. Provide Tier 1 through Tier 3 support for company devices, peripherals, conference-room technology, connectivity, collaboration tools, and approved business applications.
3. Complete employee onboarding, transfers, and offboarding, including device preparation, account and access changes, software installation, security configuration, and equipment recovery.

Microsoft 365 and Identity Administration

1. Independently administer approved functions in Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams, and related security platforms.
2. Manage routine user, group, license, mailbox, permission, device-enrollment, compliance, and application-deployment requests in accordance with authorization and least-privilege requirements.
3. Troubleshoot identity, authentication, email, collaboration, sharing, and endpoint-compliance issues; escalate suspected compromise or data exposure immediately.

Infrastructure and Security Operations

1. Perform routine, authorized administration and troubleshooting of switches, wireless networks, servers, backups, endpoint-management tools, and monitoring platforms using approved change-control practices.
2. Monitor and maintain network, server, endpoint, backup, patching, antivirus/EDR, and security health; investigate, remediate, document, or escalate exceptions.
3. Monitor DNS filtering, spam filtering, data loss prevention (DLP), managed detection and response/extended detection and response (MDR/XDR), sign-in alerts, and other security alerts; investigate, remediate, document, or escalate exceptions in accordance with approved incident-response procedures.

Asset, Vendor, and Project Support

1. Maintain accurate technology asset, software, license, warranty, configuration, and lifecycle records.
2. Manage technical vendor cases and assist the IT Operations Architect with research, testing, implementation, migration, deployment, user communication, and project documentation.
3. Maintain current runbooks, system inventories, network diagrams, change records, vendor contacts, and support procedures.

BENEFITS & PERKS*

We believe in investing in our co-workers by providing benefits that support health, financial well-being, personal growth, and life outside of work.

Highlights include:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage available from your date of hire
• Company-funded Health Savings Account (HSA) contributions
• Industry-leading 401(k) match
• Profit sharing opportunities
• Paid parental leave
• Choice Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Company-paid life and disability insurance
• Unique employee perks including charitable giving, retreats, and long-service sabbaticals

*Benefits and eligibility are subject to applicable plan documents and company policies

Education and Experience

• Seven to ten years of progressively responsible IT support, help desk, systems administration, network support, or closely related experience.
• Bachelor’s degree, associate degree, or equivalent professional experience in information technology, computer science, information systems, or a related discipline.
• CompTIA A+ certification is required.

Technical Skills

• Advanced hands-on support for Windows and macOS laptops, desktops, mobile devices, peripherals, printers, conference-room technology, and common business applications.
• Administration and troubleshooting experience with Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams, identity, access, endpoint compliance, and security platforms.
• Working knowledge of corporate networking, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, switching, routing fundamentals, wireless, VPN, firewalls, internet circuits, and structured troubleshooting.
• Experience administering or supporting Windows servers, directory services, Group Policy or equivalent controls, virtualization, backup and recovery, monitoring, patching, endpoint management, antivirus/EDR, and secure remote support.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex incidents methodically, analyze logs and alerts, isolate root causes, implement safe routine changes, validate results, and clearly document technical work.
• Experience with ticketing, asset-management, remote-monitoring, documentation, and change-management systems.

Professional Characteristics

• Strong ownership, follow-through, judgment, attention to detail, and ability to prioritize competing requests in a service-oriented environment.
• Clear and professional written and verbal communication with employees, leadership, vendors, and technical specialists.
• Ability to work independently within delegated authority while recognizing when risk, impact, cost, security, or policy requires escalation.
• Discretion and integrity when handling privileged access, confidential information, security events, and company assets.
• Ability to remain organized and effective during outages, urgent incidents, competing priorities, and project deadlines.