---
title: 'Head of IT at Modal'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-it-modal-new-york-a8w16t8ptzer'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-03'
---

# Head of IT at Modal

- **Company:** Modal
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-03
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/modal/df9c593c-54db-4164-978c-deaea19536e7

## Job description

About Us: AI needs a new infrastructure layer. We're building it at Modal. Every era of computing brought new workloads that previous infrastructure couldn't support: mainframes, databases, and the cloud. Each time, the company that rebuilt the layer underneath defined the decade. AI is no different, except it touches everything instead of one slice, and the window to build the layer underneath it is open right now.

Our customers include category-defining companies like [Ramp](https://modal.com/blog/how-ramp-built-a-full-context-background-coding-agent-on-modal), Cognition, DoorDash, and Suno. They rely on Modal for instant GPU access, sub-second container starts, and native storage, so it's simple to serve low-latency inference, fine-tune models, and access production-ready sandboxes at scale.

We've passed $1B in annualized run rate, up 15x from a year ago. In October 2026 we raised a $750M Series D led by Accel at a $15.75B valuation.

Our team includes creators of popular open-source projects (e.g.,[Seaborn](https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn),[Luigi](https://github.com/spotify/luigi)), academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders with decades of experience.

About the Role: We’re looking for a Head of IT to build and own the systems that enable everyone at Modal to work effectively and securely. You’ll own our employee technology environment end-to-end, including identity and access, devices, internal systems, SaaS applications, and day-to-day IT operations. You’ll work closely with Security and Engineering to build an environment that is secure by default, easy to operate, and scales with the company. This is initially a hands-on role. You’ll build systems, automate workflows, and solve problems directly. As Modal grows, you’ll define how the IT function should scale and eventually build a team around it.

What You’ll Work On: Identity & Access

- Own employee identity and access across internal systems and SaaS applications
- Build scalable onboarding, offboarding, and access lifecycle workflows
- Improve SSO, MFA, least privilege, and access management in partnership with Security

Devices & Endpoints

- Own the lifecycle and security of employee devices
- Build and maintain device management, configuration, patching, and endpoint security
- Automate provisioning and make onboarding as close to zero-touch as possible

Internal Systems & Automation

- Own and improve the SaaS applications and internal systems we depend on
- Build integrations and automate workflows across identity, HR, finance, and other business systems
- Evaluate and deploy new internal capabilities, including AI tools and integrations
- Use APIs, scripting, and internal tooling to solve problems that don’t fit neatly into off-the-shelf products

IT Operations

- Own employee support, hardware, asset management, procurement, and relevant vendor relationships
- Build reliable, maintainable processes rather than scale through manual work
- Identify recurring problems and solve them at the system level

Build the IT Function

- Define the technical direction and operating model for IT at Modal
- Establish the systems and processes we’ll need as the company grows
- Determine when and where additional IT capacity is needed, and build the team over time

You May Be a Fit If:

- You’ve owned IT or corporate technology in a fast-growing technology company
- You have a strong understanding of identity, device management, SaaS administration, and endpoint security
- You have strong technical skills and are comfortable working with APIs, scripting, automation, and system integrations
- You’ve designed and automated employee lifecycle and access-management workflows
- You have good security judgment and experience working closely with Security and Engineering
- You can independently identify problems, make pragmatic technical decisions, and drive them through implementation
- You’re comfortable being hands-on today while building the systems and team needed as the company grows

## About Modal

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Modal provides high-performance AI infrastructure—a serverless, globally distributed GPU cloud for inference, training, sandboxes, and agent workloads.
- **Entity Type**: Private (raised over $466M, Series D from top-tier investors)
- **Headquarters**: New York, NY, USA (with offices in Stockholm, Sweden and San Francisco, CA, USA)
- **Founded**: Not publicly available in provided sources
- **Founders**: Erik Bernhardsson and Akshat Bubna

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Cloud infrastructure / AI compute / Developer tools
- Target customers: Developers and engineering teams building AI/ML products (B2B, from startups to enterprises)
- Mission or purpose: “Make it easier to iterate and ship applications for data, AI, and machine learning” and “Make cloud development work like magic.”

## Products & Services
- **[Modal Runtime](https://modal.com/)** – Serverless container platform with custom file system, scheduler, and container image builder. Sub-second cold starts and instant autoscaling from 0 to 1000+ GPUs.
- **[Modal Sandboxes](https://modal.com/)** – Isolated, ephemeral environments for running untrusted code (e.g., coding agents, RL rollouts). Programmatically spin up fresh environments with custom images.
- **[Modal Inference](https://modal.com/)** – Globally distributed inference with sub-10ms overhead latency, support for token streaming, WebRTC, WebSocket. Supports LLMs, audio, image/video generation.
- **[Modal Training](https://modal.com/)** – Fine-tuning and multi-node training on H100s, A100s, B200s with gang scheduling and InfiniBand networking. Single line of code to scale from single-GPU to multi-node clusters.
- **[Modal Batch / Async Inference](https://modal.com/)** – Run evaluations, embeddings, re-ranking, dataset generation at scale, thousands of GPUs fully parallel.
- **[Modal SDK](https://modal.com/)** – Python SDK that lets developers define infrastructure and workloads in code, then ship to the cloud.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: $4.65B (as of 2026, per [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-modal-2026))
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – over $466M (per [modal.com/company](https://modal.com/company))
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Creandum (per [modal.com/company](https://modal.com/company))
- **Growth Signals**: ~150 employees (2026); global offices in New York, Stockholm, San Francisco; rapid hiring across engineering, GTM, and G&A roles; strong traction in inference, training, and agent infrastructure.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep infrastructure stack**: Custom file system, container runtime, scheduler, and image builder built from scratch to optimize AI workloads.
- **Developer experience**: “Stay in Python, ship to the cloud” – composable primitives that specify everything from logic to hardware in one code file.
- **Instant elasticity**: Scale from zero to 1000+ GPUs in seconds, pay only for compute used (no reserved capacity).
- **Global GPU access with low latency**: Sub-10ms overhead for online inference via globally distributed compute.
- **Compliance and security**: SOC 2 and HIPAA compliant, data residency controls, battle-tested isolation for untrusted code.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI-native runtime**: Deepening support for inference, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and agent workflows.
- **Scaling for agents**: Developing sandboxes and execution layers purpose‑built for interactive coding agents and long‑running RL rollouts.
- **Expanding global capacity**: Adding GPU availability across more regions, leveraging elastic cloud capacity.
- **Enterprise readiness**: Investing in security, governance, team controls, and data residency to serve larger customers.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture and team**: Founded by engineers who created open‑source tools (Seaborn, Luigi); team includes academic researchers, olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering leaders. Flat, high‑trust environment.
- **Location / flexibility**: Offices in New York, Stockholm, and San Francisco; likely hybrid/remote‑friendly (many roles list multiple locations).
- **Compensation and growth**: Transparent salary culture (as highlighted in 2026 profile); strong growth trajectory backed by $466M in funding and a $4.65B valuation.
- **Perks**: $30/month free compute for personal projects (customer benefit, likely similar for employees); focus on developer experience and “magic.”

## Sources
1. [modal.com](https://modal.com/)
2. [modal.com/company](https://modal.com/company)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/modal](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/modal)
4. [linkedin.com/company/modal-labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/modal-labs)
5. [jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-modal-2026](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-modal-2026)

## Other roles at Modal

- [Talent Partner, Technical](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-partner-technical-modal-new-york-9gqq77qqdag1) — New York, NY
- [Member of Technical Staff - Storage (Stockholm)](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-storage-stockholm-modal-stockholm-24yjjh3wj6n2) — Stockholm, Sweden
- [GTM Engineer - Data Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-engineer-data-platform-modal-new-york-kjkbrxkqfe7z) — New York, NY
- [Member of Technical Staff - SDK (Stockholm)](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-sdk-stockholm-modal-stockholm-ks7rt2xw6atf) — Stockholm, Sweden
- [Talent Partner, GTM](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-partner-gtm-modal-san-francisco-1nm18692f4w7) — San Francisco, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff - Inference Runtime](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-inference-runtime-modal-san-francisco-cvzk20vkphfy) — San Francisco, CA
- [Legal Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/legal-operations-lead-modal-new-york-s5y3gn1e961k) — New York, NY
- [Senior Commercial Counsel](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-commercial-counsel-modal-new-york-grh0fxqa82by) — New York, NY
- [Field Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/field-marketing-manager-modal-san-francisco-0apep5s9tyq6) — San Francisco, CA
- [Global Workplace Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/global-workplace-lead-modal-new-york-4vjzkq1xtb4h) — New York, NY