🌍 About the Company

Our client is a fully licensed EU bank that provides modern banking infrastructure for FinTech companies, payment institutions, e-commerce businesses, and other digital-first companies.

Combining traditional banking expertise with a FinTech-native approach, the bank provides solutions including Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), e-commerce acquiring, payment infrastructure, safeguarding accounts, lending, and business banking services.

💼 About the Role

As Head of IT Operations, you will own the Bank's production infrastructure, IT service management, operational resilience, and end-user technology environment.

In a highly regulated banking environment, you will ensure critical technology services remain secure, available, resilient, and compliant. The role combines infrastructure leadership, IT operations, cybersecurity controls, business continuity, vendor management, and regulatory engagement.

You will work closely with Engineering, Information Security, Risk, Compliance, and business stakeholders to ensure the Bank's technology environment can reliably support its continued growth.

🔍 Responsibilities

• Own the Bank's production infrastructure, including servers, networks, cloud and on-premise environments, infrastructure architecture, and capacity planning;

• Lead IT Service Management (ITSM) processes, including incident, problem, and change management in line with ITIL principles;

• Establish and maintain effective on-call, escalation, and major incident management structures;

• Own system reliability and operational resilience, including monitoring, alerting, disaster recovery, business continuity planning, and regular testing;

• Take responsibility for infrastructure and operational security controls, including patch management, vulnerability management, access controls, and infrastructure hardening;

• Ensure IT operations meet relevant banking, regulatory, audit, and ICT risk requirements, including DORA and applicable local regulatory requirements;

• Coordinate IT-related regulatory and audit activities, including communication with auditors and regulators, evidence collection, remediation planning, and implementation of corrective actions;

• Manage relationships with infrastructure, data centre, cloud, software, and licensing vendors, ensuring appropriate service levels, controls, and commercial oversight;

• Own end-user IT services, including helpdesk, workplace technology, device management, and employee IT support;

• Define and monitor operational performance and service availability through relevant SLAs, KPIs, and operational metrics;

• Partner closely with Engineering and other technology teams to ensure controlled and reliable production deployments and ongoing system stability;

• Lead and continuously improve IT operational processes, documentation, controls, and ways of working.

🎓 Requirements

• Strong experience in IT infrastructure and operations leadership, ideally within banking, financial services, FinTech, payments, or another highly regulated environment;

• Proven experience managing business-critical production environments across cloud and/or on-premise infrastructure;

• Strong knowledge of IT Service Management and ITIL-aligned practices, particularly incident, problem, and change management;

• Solid understanding of networking, servers, cloud infrastructure, monitoring, capacity planning, and operational security;

• Hands-on experience with disaster recovery, business continuity, operational resilience, and recovery testing;

• Strong understanding of infrastructure security controls, including patching, vulnerability management, identity/access management, and security remediation;

• Experience working with IT audits, regulatory requirements, and evidence-based technology controls;

• Knowledge of ICT risk and regulatory frameworks relevant to EU financial institutions, including DORA, would be highly valuable;

• Experience managing technology vendors, third-party providers, contracts, and service levels;

• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to work effectively across Engineering, Security, Risk, Compliance, Audit, and senior leadership;

• Professional working proficiency in English.

🤝 Key Competencies

• Operational Ownership - takes responsibility for stable, secure, and reliable technology services;

• Risk & Resilience Mindset - balances operational performance with security, regulatory, and business continuity requirements;

• Leadership & Decision-Making - creates accountability and stays decisive during critical situations;

• Stakeholder Collaboration - works confidently across Engineering, Security, Risk, Compliance, auditors, and external partners

✨ The Employer Offers

• Modern office in the centre of Riga with a hybrid working model;

• Opportunity to directly contribute to the Bank's technological development and future digital initiatives;

• Dynamic working environment with a supportive management team that values innovation;

• Collaborative, supportive, and innovation-driven working environment;

• Health insurance after the probation period;

• Long-term career growth within a stable organisation committed to continuous technological development.

If you know how to keep critical technology secure, resilient, and reliable while navigating the demands of a regulated banking environment, this role gives you the ownership to shape IT operations where technology performance directly impacts the business