Location: Bengaluru

Experience: 5 – 8 Yrs

CTC: INR 18 – 22 LPA

Notice Period: Immediate Joiner to 15 days

Role Purpose

The IT Helpdesk & Infrastructure Manager is responsible for the day-to-day management of the IT Helpdesk and for providing strong hands-on 3rd line technical support across the organisation’s IT infrastructure.

The role combines people management, service management and senior technical support. The successful candidate will manage the Helpdesk team while also acting as the primary escalation point for complex infrastructure, Microsoft 365, networking, server, backup, disaster recovery and security issues.

The role will be responsible for ensuring that IT services are reliable, secure, recoverable and effectively supported across the business. This is a hands-on technical management role and requires someone who is comfortable both leading a support team and personally investigating and resolving complex technical issues.

Key Responsibilities

Helpdesk Management

• Manage the day-to-day operation of the IT Helpdesk.
• Lead, support and develop 1st and 2nd line support staff.
• Ensure tickets are logged, prioritised, categorised and assigned correctly.
• Monitor ticket queues, workloads, response times and resolution performance.
• Manage escalations and high-priority incidents.
• Ensure appropriate SLA targets are defined and achieved.
• Review ageing and overdue tickets.
• Improve ticket quality and user communication.
• Maintain Helpdesk procedures and knowledge-base documentation.
• Identify recurring incidents and work with technical teams to eliminate root causes.

3rd Line Technical Support

Provide strong hands-on 3rd line support and act as the senior technical escalation point for the IT team. Responsibilities include:

• Troubleshooting complex infrastructure and application issues.
• Microsoft Windows Server administration.
• Active Directory administration and troubleshooting.
• Group Policy administration.
• DNS and DHCP troubleshooting.
• Microsoft Entra ID administration.
• Microsoft 365 administration.
• Exchange Online administration.
• Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive support.
• Microsoft Intune and endpoint management.
• Microsoft Defender and endpoint security.
• Microsoft Azure infrastructure support.
• Virtualisation platform support.
• Server hardware troubleshooting.
• Network, firewall, VPN, Wi-Fi and switching troubleshooting.
• Identity, authentication and Multi-Factor Authentication issues.
• Certificate and authentication-related issues.
• PowerShell scripting and administration.
• Troubleshooting complex desktop and application issues.

The role holder will be expected to take ownership of major technical incidents and work through issues to resolution rather than simply escalating them externally.

Server & Infrastructure Management

• Support and maintain Windows Server environments, Active Directory Domain Services, DNS, DHCP and file/print services.
• Support virtual servers, virtualisation platforms, physical servers and server hardware.
• Maintain storage systems, network infrastructure, firewalls, switches, wireless infrastructure and VPN services.
• Support Azure services and infrastructure.
• Maintain monitoring systems and technical infrastructure documentation.
• Ensure systems are appropriately monitored, patched, maintained and supported.

Backup Management

Take operational responsibility for the organisation’s backup environment. Responsibilities include:

• Ensure all critical systems are appropriately backed up.
• Monitor backup jobs and investigate failures.
• Maintain appropriate backup retention policies.
• Ensure backups are encrypted and securely stored.
• Maintain off-site and/or cloud backup copies.
• Ensure backups are protected from ransomware and unauthorised access.
• Maintain immutable or offline backup capability where appropriate.
• Regularly test data and system restoration.
• Document backup procedures and maintain backup schedules.
• Monitor backup capacity and storage growth.
• Produce backup compliance and failure reports.
• Escalate unresolved backup failures.
• Ensure backup systems themselves are appropriately secured and monitored.

The successful candidate must understand that a successful backup job alone is not sufficient and that regular restore testing is essential.

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

• Maintain IT Disaster Recovery procedures and system recovery documentation.
• Identify critical systems and dependencies.
• Maintain Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs).
• Ensure appropriate recovery solutions exist for critical systems.
• Test disaster recovery processes regularly and coordinate technical DR testing.
• Document test results and corrective actions.
• Ensure recovery procedures remain current following system changes.
• Support Business Continuity planning.
• Maintain emergency contact and escalation procedures.
• Ensure critical infrastructure can be recovered following major incidents.
• Participate in tabletop and practical DR exercises.
• Report DR readiness, risks and gaps to senior management.

Cyber Security

• Microsoft Defender administration and monitoring.
• Endpoint security and antivirus/malware protection.
• Firewall and email security.
• MFA administration, Conditional Access and identity protection.
• Privileged access management and administrator account controls.
• Patch and vulnerability management.
• Security monitoring and investigation of suspicious activity.
• Phishing investigations and compromised account response.
• Device compliance and secure configuration.
• Security incident response, logging and monitoring.
• Access-control reviews and user account security.

Act as a senior technical resource during security incidents and support containment, investigation and recovery activities.

Vulnerability & Patch Management

• Monitor operating system and application patching.
• Ensure critical security updates are applied within agreed timescales.
• Identify unsupported systems and software.
• Manage vulnerability remediation and review vulnerability-scanning results.
• Track remediation actions and maintain patch compliance reporting.
• Escalate significant vulnerabilities and risks.
• Coordinate emergency patching where required.

Monitoring & Proactive Support

Ensure appropriate monitoring is in place across the IT environment, including:

• Server availability, CPU, memory and storage.
• Backup status and storage capacity.
• Network availability, firewall status and internet connectivity.
• Critical services, Domain Controllers, DNS and DHCP.
• Hardware health and security events.
• Certificate expiry and Azure services.

Use monitoring data to identify and resolve issues before they cause significant business disruption.

Major Incident Management

• Coordinate technical investigation and identify affected systems.
• Escalate appropriately and maintain communication with management and users.
• Coordinate internal and third-party technical resources.
• Restore service as quickly as possible.
• Document incidents and conduct root-cause analysis.
• Identify corrective and preventative actions.
• Ensure lessons learned are incorporated into future processes.

Team Leadership

• Manage and develop Helpdesk staff.
• Allocate workloads and provide technical coaching.
• Conduct one-to-one meetings and performance reviews.
• Define team KPIs and identify training requirements.
• Support recruitment and develop technical capability within the team.
• Promote knowledge sharing and ensure appropriate support coverage.
• Develop escalation paths between 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure IT operations support Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus requirements.
• Maintain access-control, secure configuration, patch-management and malware-protection controls.
• Ensure firewall, backup and recovery controls are followed.
• Support security incident response, asset management and joiner/mover/leaver processes.
• Maintain privileged access controls and appropriate audit evidence.
• Support internal and external audits and provide evidence when required.

IT Service Management

• Maintain effective Incident, Service Request, Problem, Change, Major Incident, Knowledge, Asset and Configuration Management processes.
• Ensure changes to infrastructure are appropriately assessed, documented and controlled.

Reporting & KPIs

Produce regular reporting covering:

• Tickets received, tickets resolved and ticket backlog.
• First response time, resolution time and SLA performance.
• Ageing tickets, reopened tickets and recurring issues.
• Major incidents and root-cause actions.
• Backup success/failure and restore testing.
• Patch compliance, vulnerability status and endpoint compliance.
• Security incidents and infrastructure availability.
• Disaster Recovery testing, capacity and infrastructure risks.

Provide clear recommendations where service, security or infrastructure improvements are required.

Essential Technical Experience

The successful candidate must have strong hands-on experience in:

• 3rd line infrastructure support.
• Microsoft Windows Server.
• Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS and DHCP.
• Microsoft 365, Exchange Online and Microsoft Entra ID.
• Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive.
• Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Defender.
• Networking, TCP/IP, VLANs, firewalls, VPNs and Wi-Fi.
• Virtualisation and server hardware.
• Backup technologies and Disaster Recovery.
• Cyber security, patch management and endpoint management.
• PowerShell and IT monitoring.

The candidate should be comfortable personally diagnosing complex technical issues rather than relying entirely on external support providers.

Desirable Technical Experience

• Microsoft Azure and Azure networking.
• Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery.
• Hyper-V, VMware or Proxmox.
• Veeam or comparable enterprise backup platforms.
• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Office 365.
• Microsoft Sentinel.
• Mimecast.
• Zabbix or comparable monitoring platforms.
• WatchGuard firewalls.
• UniFi networking.
• HP iLO and Dell iDRAC.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Business Central.
• SQL Server and Power BI.
• Freshservice.
• ITIL.
• Cyber Essentials Plus.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong Technical Capability: Able to operate confidently at 3rd line level and troubleshoot complex infrastructure problems.
• Leadership: Able to manage, motivate and develop a support team.
• Ownership: Takes responsibility for incidents and problems through to resolution.
• Security Mindset: Understands secure configuration, identity protection, patching, monitoring and backups.
• Resilience & Recovery: Understands backup, restore, disaster recovery and business continuity principles.
• Problem Solving: Uses structured troubleshooting and root-cause analysis.
• Communication: Able to communicate technical issues clearly to users, technical staff and senior management.
• Organisation: Able to manage competing incidents, operational responsibilities and projects.
• Continuous Improvement: Actively identifies opportunities to improve reliability, security, automation and user support.

Key Performance Indicators

• Helpdesk SLA performance.
• Ticket backlog and first-contact resolution.
• Major incident resolution.
• Infrastructure availability.
• Backup success rate and restore-test success.
• Disaster Recovery test completion.
• Patch compliance and vulnerability remediation.
• Endpoint compliance and security incident response.
• Recurring incident reduction.
• Helpdesk team development.
• Documentation quality.
• Infrastructure improvement delivery.

Qualifications

Relevant experience is more important than formal qualifications, although the following would be advantageous:

• Microsoft certifications.
• Azure certifications.
• Microsoft 365 certifications.
• ITIL Foundation.
• CompTIA Network+.
• CompTIA Security+.
• Cyber-security qualifications.

Role Summary

The IT Helpdesk & Infrastructure Manager is a senior hands-on technical management role responsible for the performance of the Helpdesk and the reliability, security and recoverability of the organisation’s core IT infrastructure.

The successful candidate must be capable of managing a support team while operating confidently at 3rd line technical level. They will be expected to take direct ownership of complex technical incidents, server and infrastructure support, backups, cyber security and Disaster Recovery, while ensuring that the IT Helpdesk provides a professional and effective service to the business.