Interim/Freelance Director of IT, Security & Infrastructure (d/f/m)
Our story:
Every year millions of people are either filing their taxes in fear or giving up on their tax refund altogether. We're working on fixing that. Our intuitive app enables anyone, regardless of education or background, to file their taxes with newfound confidence.
Spread across Germany, Spain and the UK, the team at Taxfix Group with its brands Taxfix and Steuerbot, is a compassionate group of solution-finders. We speak our minds openly, and with over 400 professionals, including tax experts, developers, and IT security experts, we're rich in ideas and voices. The group has facilitated more than 3.5 billion euros in tax refunds for its customers since its founding in 2016.
The opportunity:
Taxfix is building something most companies only talk about: a fully agentic infrastructure layer that every team in the company will depend on. And right now, IT is either the foundation that makes that possible - or the bottleneck that slows it down.
As our Director of Security & IT, you are the difference between those two outcomes. This is not a traditional IT Director role. You won't be managing tickets or keeping the lights on. You'll be building a platform function from the ground up - one that gives every hybrid human-agent team at Taxfix the speed, security, and confidence to move without friction. Reporting to our Chief People Officer and working closely with our Systems Engineer and cross-functional partners across Engineering, Legal, Finance, and People Ops, you'll define the infrastructure and security foundation that turns our agentic ambitions into reality.
The best outcome in this role isn't that IT stays out of the way - it's that IT raises the bar for how the whole organization operates. You'll set standards that others build to, make calls that shape Taxfix's security posture for years, and build the infrastructure layer that our agentic ambitions depend on. This role comes with real authority and real accountability. If you want to be the person who defines what modern IT looks like at a company that's genuinely building the future of work - this is that job.
This is an interim position on a freelance basis.
Your responsibilities:
Own the vision and roadmap for Taxfix's internal infrastructure and tooling layer, driving the transition from IT as a ticket-resolving function to an internal platform product that enables every hybrid human-agent team to move faster and more securely.
Lead and develop the IT team - including helpdesk, systems engineering, and the incoming Security & Platform Engineer - ensuring clear ownership, structured growth paths, and a high-performing team culture through a period of significant structural change.
Own all core IT operations: device management (MDM), identity and access management, workplace technology, SaaS tooling, third-party network provider relationship, and hardware provisioning - maintaining reliability, cost controlling and service quality while progressively raising the bar on what "good" looks like.
Set the security strategy and posture for Taxfix's systems and agent ecosystem, embedding security continuously into platform infrastructure rather than applying it as a gate at the end.
Work closely with our Systems Engineers and the agentic framework team to build and document the agentic platform layer - including secure sandboxes, credential vaults, and CI/CD pipelines - ensuring infrastructure decisions support the organisation's agentic ambitions.
Own IT-specific risk management, compliance controls, and audit readiness across internal systems and infrastructure, partnering with Legal, Compliance, and enterprise risk owners on GDPR/DSGVO, SOC 2, and applicable financial regulatory requirements.
Manage supplier relationships and lead the build and lead the build/buy/partner evaluation, making a long-term recommendation grounded in both technical and business considerations.
Be the business-facing voice for IT in leadership conversations - translating infrastructure and security decisions into clear business terms and building trusted relationships with Engineering, Legal, Finance, and People Ops.
Define and track platform health metrics, service quality, and internal adoption - including establishing internal NPS for IT services as a baseline, driving measurable reductions in ticket volume and mean time to resolution, and reporting transparently on the agentic infrastructure layer.
Your profile:
You have proven experience leading an IT or infrastructure function at a scale-up or regulated tech company - including ownership of core IT operations such as helpdesk, MDM, identity management, and workplace technology. You know what it takes to run these reliably while simultaneously raising the ambition of what the function can be.
You have built or are capable of building a platform mindset in a team that has historically operated as a support function - you understand what that shift requires culturally, structurally, and in terms of how success gets measured.
You bring strong enough technical depth to have credible, substantive conversations with engineers - you can interrogate technical decisions, ask the right questions, and know when to push back.
You are security-literate and have hands-on experience setting security strategy: you understand the threat landscape, have navigated compliance and audit obligations in a regulated environment, and know what good security posture looks like at both the infrastructure and application layer.
You have experience with agentic or AI infrastructure, or you bring genuine curiosity and a track record of fast learning in emerging technical domains - this space is moving quickly, and so are we.
You have managed vendors and external partners, including evaluating and making build/buy/outsource decisions, and you're comfortable owning those relationships end to end.
You are familiar with the compliance and data obligations that come with operating in a regulated environment - financial services, tax, or similar - and you've translated those obligations into practical infrastructure and process decisions.
You are comfortable with ambiguity and energised by the opportunity to help shape a function that is being designed in real time - you don't wait for a playbook; you help write it.
You grow the people around you: you see early-career team members and ambitious engineers as people to invest in, and you create the conditions for them to do their best work.
You are ego-light: you are comfortable with invisible success - the best outcome is that teams don't notice IT because everything works - and you are willing to tell leadership when a request isn't feasible and explain why in terms that land.
Why Taxfix?
A chance to do meaningful, people-centric work with an international team of passionate professionals.
Holistic well-being with free mental health coaching sessions.
A monthly allowance to spend on an extensive range of services that you can use and roll over as flexibly as you like.
Employee stock options for all employees-because everyone deserves to benefit from the success they help to create.
30 annual vacation days and flexible working hours.
A generous learning budget to support your personal and professional development and guidance from our internal L&D experts.
Work from abroad for up to six weeks every year. Just align with your team, and then enjoy your trip.
Plenty of opportunities to socialise as a team. In addition to internal meetups, our international team hosts regular get-togethers-virtually and in person when possible.
Free tax declaration filing, of course, through the Taxfix app-and internal support for all personal tax-related questions.
Have a four-legged friend in your life? We’re happy to have dogs join us in the office.
Excited? So are we. Learn more about Team Taxfix on our blog and get a glimpse of our culture.
At Taxfix, we believe that incredible things happen when you have a wealth of perspectives and experiences. We're proudly committed to equal employment and development opportunities no matter your gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, colour, disability, or place of origin. To help mitigate any potential unconscious biases, we ask that you refrain from including your picture, age, or marital status on your CV. Let your experiences speak for themselves.
Not sure if you meet all the requirements for this role? Please apply anyway. You might bring something special to the team that we hadn't considered previously.