Active Directory Lead​/Manager

Overview

This range is provided by Revel IT. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range
: $/yr - $/yr

6 months Contract to Hire with conversion salary $120-150k

Job Title:

Active Directory Technical Manager/Lead

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Active Directory Technical Manager to join our Cloud Infrastructure team. This is a pivotal role for an experienced technical lead ready to step into a more formal management position while remaining hands-on. You will oversee the day-to-day operations, migrations, and optimizations of our extensive on-premises Active Directory environment, which is over 20 years old and includes legacy domains from multiple migration and M&A activities.

With 80% of our setup being hybrid (on-prem AD integrated with Entra  cloud connectivity), you ll bridge traditional infrastructure with modern cloud capabilities. This position reports to the Sr. Director of Cloud and involves leading a small team of AD specialists, while contributing directly to complex projects.

As someone with lead experience but not yet in a full managerial role, you ll act as a player-coach: guiding team members, driving technical decisions, and diving into troubleshooting when needed. If you thrive in environments with high complexity—such as multi-domain forests, trust relationships, and large-scale workstation/server migrations, this is your opportunity to make a significant impact.

• Lead the planning, execution, and optimization of Active Directory operations, with a strong emphasis on on-premises domain management, including domain controllers, forests, sites, services, and Group Policy Objects (GPOs).
• Oversee ongoing domain migrations, including workstation (35,000+ endpoints), server, and application transitions from legacy domains to a consolidated, modern structure; address stalled initiatives by implementing automation and best practices.
• Manage hybrid AD configurations, ensuring seamless synchronization between on-prem AD and Entra  tools like Azure AD Connect; handle identity federation, conditional access policies, and cloud integration for 20% of cloud-native workloads.
• Provide technical leadership to a team of 5-10 AD engineers: mentor juniors, conduct code/script reviews, assign tasks, and foster a collaborative environment without formal managerial authority.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex AD issues, such as replication failures, schema extensions, security vulnerabilities (e.g., Kerberos, LDAP hardening), and integration with legacy M&A domains.
• Develop and maintain documentation, scripts (Power Shell preferred), and automation for AD health monitoring, backup/recovery, and compliance (e.g., with tools like ADDS, Data Dog, or third-party solutions).
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (security, applications, networking) to assess dependencies, mitigate risks during migrations, and ensure minimal downtime in critical operations.
• Stay ahead of AD best practices, including security enhancements (e.g., Privileged Access Management), and evaluate emerging tools for hybrid environments.
• Contribute to project planning, such as creating roadmaps for domain consolidation and hybrid expansion, while providing regular updates to senior leadership.

• Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 7+ years of hands-on experience with on-premises Active Directory, including:
• Deep expertise in AD architecture: designing, deploying, and managing multi-domain/forest environments, trusts, and schema modifications.
• Proven track record in AD migrations: using tools like ADMT, Quest Migration Manager, or Power Shell for large-scale user/object migrations, SID history preservation, and domain consolidation.
• Extensive troubleshooting of on-prem AD issues:
  Replication (DFS-R/SYSVOL), DNS integration, certificate services (AD PKI), and performance optimization in long-established environments.
• Experience with Group Policy management, including inheritance, filtering, and troubleshooting in complex setups.
• 3+ years of…