Director - Director of IT Services - MS - Medicaid

Director of IT Services-Medicaid (ID: 165756)

Duration: At least 1 Year from projected start date (Likely to extend at least two additional years depending on success)

Location: Jackson, Mississippi (Zip 39211)

Work Location: Walter Sillers Building, 550 High Street, Jackson, MS 39201 

Remote Option: 100% onsite required (Do NOT submit candidates requesting remote work)

Start Date: 10/19/2026 ASAP | End Date: 10/18/2027

Project Name: DOM Staff Aug for Dir. of IT Services

Shift: Mon - Fri, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CST (40 Hours/Week)

Overtime: Overtime Not Required

On-Call: Required (Available for after-hours support during major incidents, planned maintenance windows, and critical system events. Response time $\le$ 30 minutes for critical severity incidents)

Expenses Reimbursed: No | Travel: Occasional (In/Out of state)

Background Check: Standard Background Check

Position Overview & Purpose

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

• 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.

• 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.

DOM Technology Environment

Key Duties

• 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

• Report directly to the DOM Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or Chief Technology Officer (CTO) .

• Participate in DOM IT leadership meetings, weekly status report cadence, and executive briefings as required.

• Coordinate regularly with network administration, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, IT procurement, and application development teams.

Security and Compliance Requirements

• Pass a background investigation as required by the State of Mississippi and DOM prior to commencing work.

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

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

• Adhere to Mississippi ITS security policies, standards, and procedures.

• Complete all required security awareness training within thirty (30) days of onboarding and annually thereafter.

• Execute a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and any additional confidentiality agreements required by DOM.

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

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

Required Skills & Experience

(Candidates without these requirements reflected on their resume will NOT be presented to the manager)

• 10+ Years: Experience with progressive information technology, including significant experience managing enterprise IT operations and infrastructure.

• 8+ Years: Experience in leadership or management, including direct supervision of technical teams, managers, engineers, and support personnel.

• 2+ 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.

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

Preferred / Not Required Skills

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

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

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

• ITIL v4 Foundation or higher certification.

• Experience with identity and access management platforms.

• Experience with NoSQL databases and healthcare integration engines.

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

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

• Project Management Professional (PMP) or similar certification.

• Master's degree in a technology or management discipline.

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

Scoring Method

• Interview Score: 45%

• Cost Score: 35%

• Resume Score: 20%

• About our Company
  DataSoft Technologies is a highly recognized provider of professional IT Consulting services in the US. Founded in 1994, DataSoft Technologies, Inc. provides staff augmentation services for Information Technology and Automotive Services. Our team member benefits include:
  
  Paid Holidays/Paid Time Off (PTO)
  Medical/Dental Insurance Group
  Accident/Critical Illness Insurance
  Life Insurance
  401 (K)