About this role
QuantumScape is on a mission to transform energy storage with solid-state lithium-metal battery technology. The company’s next-generation batteries are designed to enable greater energy density, faster charging and enhanced safety to support the transition away from legacy energy sources toward a lower carbon future. What we need: QuantumScape is seeking a strategic, execution-focused Senior Director of Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Operations to define and deliver the enterprise infrastructure vision, operating model, and multi-year roadmap that support our current priorities and ambitious growth. This is a senior leadership role with significant scope, organizational ownership, and executive visibility. You will own enterprise networking, identity, endpoints, service desk, collaboration, on-premises systems, hybrid cloud connectivity, and the infrastructure supporting R&D labs and manufacturing. You will serve as a trusted senior advisor to the CIO and CISO, a key partner to engineering, operations, and business leaders, and the organizational leader responsible for developing the talent, architecture, and investment strategy that scales with QuantumScape's future. This is a builder's role. You will address today's operational gaps while building the organization, culture, and infrastructure designed for tomorrow's commercial production, AI adoption, and increasingly complex technology environment. Above all, you believe that great infrastructure is invisible — and that every interaction with IT is an opportunity to earn trust and delight the people we serve. What You'll Lead: Enterprise infrastructure strategy and operations across networking, identity, endpoints, service desk, collaboration, on-premises platforms, and hybrid connectivity. Enterprise networking modernization including multi-site LAN/WAN, Wi-Fi, SD-WAN, Palo Alto firewalls, segmentation, and zero-trust access spanning corporate, R&D, lab, and manufacturing environments. Identity and endpoint services including SSO/MFA, MDM, EDR, ThreatLocker, and full device lifecycle management for office, lab, and shop-floor users. Service management and customer experience including measurable SLAs, self-service capabilities, proactive communications, automation, and continuous improvement. Lab and manufacturing IT infrastructure, instrumentation networks, OT/IT integration, and infrastructure readiness for the transition from pilot to commercial production. Cloud and platform partnership including hybrid connectivity, IAM integration, network architecture, cross-environment governance, and alignment with GCP Platform Engineering and Kubernetes. Automation, observability, infrastructure-as-code, SRE practices, and AI-enabled operations that move the organization from reactive to proactive. Organizational design, leadership development, succession planning, workforce strategy, and the growth of managers and senior technical leaders. What you'll do: Define and execute a multi-year enterprise infrastructure and operations strategy aligned with company growth, R&D, manufacturing, cybersecurity, AI, and business priorities. Serve as the senior infrastructure advisor to the CIO and CISO, executive leadership, and functional leaders — communicating strategy, investment needs, risks, resilience, and measurable outcomes. Own operational performance across enterprise infrastructure and service delivery including availability, MTTR, change success, customer satisfaction, capacity, resilience, and lifecycle health. Modernize enterprise networking, identity, endpoints, collaboration, and on-premises infrastructure while maintaining business continuity and minimizing operational disruption. Partner with InfoSec to embed zero-trust, identity, endpoint, vulnerability, data protection, export control, and BC/DR requirements into infrastructure strategy and operations. Partner with R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, and business functions to support lab instrumentation, OT/IT convergence, pilot operations, and future production scale. Provide executive sponsorship for major incidents, problem management, resilience improvements, disaster recovery, and business continuity readiness. Lead the responsible use of AIOps, agentic workflows, anomaly detection, capacity forecasting, policy-as-code, self-service, and automation to improve reliability, productivity, and employee experience. Develop and govern the infrastructure portfolio, annual operating plan, capital plan, budget, forecasting, sourcing strategy, vendor performance, contracts, and technology lifecycle investments. Build, coach, and retain a high-performing organization — developing managers and senior technical leaders, establishing clear accountability, and creating succession and career development plans. Establish governance and operating rhythms for architecture, service management, change, incidents, capacity, risk, investment, and cross-functional decision-making. Drive strong cross-functional collaboration and influence across Engineering, Operations, Finance, People and Culture, and the broader leadership team to align priorities and build trust. Skill's you'll need: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field; master's degree preferred. 15+ years of progressive IT experience including 8+ years leading enterprise infrastructure, cloud, networking, service delivery, or IT operations organizations at scale. Demonstrated success leading managers and senior technical leaders across multiple infrastructure disciplines and building organizations for growth. Proven ability to create and execute multi-year technology strategies, operating models, and investment roadmaps in complex enterprise environments. Deep expertise in enterprise networking, identity, endpoint management, service management, on-premises platforms, hybrid connectivity, resilience, and lifecycle management. Strong financial and commercial leadership including significant budget ownership, capital planning, forecasting, sourcing, and vendor governance. Executive presence and communication skills with a track record of influencing senior leaders, aligning cross-functional stakeholders, and translating technical complexity into business decisions. Demonstrated use of AI, automation, observability, and data to produce measurable gains in reliability, customer experience, productivity, and cost. Working knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks and controls including NIST CSF, ISO 27001, zero trust, EDR, vulnerability management, and business continuity/disaster recovery. Working knowledge of cloud networking, GCP or comparable cloud platforms, Kubernetes concepts, IAM integration, and hybrid architecture. Nice to have: Experience scaling enterprise IT in a pre-commercial, growth-stage, manufacturing, or R&D-intensive organization. Experience supporting R&D, lab, manufacturing, OT/IT, or other operationally critical environments. Experience with GCP, GKE, hybrid cloud architecture, infrastructure-as-code, SRE, observability, and modern service management practices. Familiarity with OT/ICS environments, lab equipment, MES, and production-line connectivity constraints. Hands-on familiarity with Microsoft 365, Atlassian, ManageEngine, Palo Alto, Cisco, and ThreatLocker. Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CCNP, ITIL, PMP, Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect, or CKA. A customer-focused leadership philosophy and a track record of building trust through reliable services, transparent communication, and genuine partnership. Personal fluency with modern AI tooling and a bias toward experimentation — someone who measures success by the careers built and trust earned, not just the tickets closed. ONSITE: This position is required to work onsite 5 days per week to meet the minimum essential duties and requirements of this position. As an on-site R&D and manufacturing operations organization, in-person face to face interaction is essential to building authentic relationships, trust, teamwork, and collaboration. Compensation & Benefits: Expected salary range for this role is from $222,900 to $300,000, and a final salary will be determined by the candidate's experiencen educational background and internal equity. QuantumScape also offers an annual bonus and a generous RSU/Equity package as part of its compensation plan. In addition, we do offer a tremendous benefits plan including employee paid health care, Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), and other benefits. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation.