Director of IT in London

We power people’s progress. At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact. We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale.

Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

You'll lead Preply's IT team: a lean, high-performing group that keeps a fast-moving, globally distributed company running every day. With strong foundations already in place, the next chapter is about introducing more AI-native workflows, automation, strengthening operational excellence, and evolving IT into a more strategic function. This is the role that will lead that transformation.

You’ll be both the architect and the hands-on operator: setting the vision and tooling strategy for the whole organization, while staying close enough to the systems to script, automate, and build alongside your team. You’ll report into senior technology leadership and work directly with C-level stakeholders to make IT a measurable driver of efficiency, cost control, and employee experience.

The stack you'll operate:

• Identity and access: Okta as the identity platform, covering SSO, SCIM provisioning and conditional access across SaaS.
• Endpoint: a fleet of roughly 700 Macs managed with Jamf, with zero-touch enrollment and compliance baselines.
• Workplace: Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom (meetings, rooms and AV), Atlassian (Jira, Confluence)
• AI: Claude Enterprise, OpenAI, Cursor and Gemini deployed across the company, with intake, approval and allow-listing run jointly with Security
• Automation and infrastructure: Okta Workflows, scripting and API-driven automation.

What you’ll be doing:

1. Strategy, vision and business enablement
   • Own and evolve a multi-quarter IT roadmap tied directly to Preply’s business goals, treating IT as an enabler of growth rather than a cost center.
   • Set the tooling strategy and standards across the organization: decide what we adopt, consolidate, and retire, and articulate why.
   • Operate fluidly across altitudes: set direction with leadership one moment, and make sharp technical calls the next.
   • Plan ahead, anticipating what a fast-scaling company will need from IT 12 to 18 months out, and building toward it. Implement control adequate for a pre-IPO level company.
2. AI-native operations and automation
   • Bring an AI-first, automate-first mindset to how IT runs: provisioning, access, support deflection, and asset reconciliation.
   • Lead by example. Build and ship automations yourself, and show both your team and the wider company what good looks like.
   • Continuously surface AI tooling that makes employees’ lives easier, with a clear, opinionated view on where it adds value and where it’s just noise.
   • Bring those AI-native ways of working to the rest of the organization, not just to IT.
3. Team leadership and capability maturity
   • Lead, grow, and mature a lean IT team into a senior, process-driven function.
   • Raise the technical bar across the team, coaching toward more technical, AI-fluent ways of working.
   • Stay hands-on where it counts: scripting, automation, and MDM and identity configuration.
   • Build the operating rhythm (SLAs, runbooks, prioritization) that lets the team scale its impact without scaling headcount one-for-one.
4. Global infrastructure, fleet and workplace technology
   • Own international fleet and device lifecycle end to end, from procurement and enrollment to retirement, across multiple countries.
   • Run identity, access, and endpoint management to a high standard of reliability for a distributed workforce.
   • Manage the Barcelona hub’s on-site technology: the office network, meeting-room AV, and video conferencing tools and devices.
   • Own the IT services behind company off-sites and events, from connectivity and AV to on-the-ground support, wherever the company gathers.
   • Treat IT’s own security and compliance hygiene (endpoint compliance, identity hygiene, least privilege on IT-managed systems) as a core operating principle.
5. Procurement, software spend and FinOps
   • Own visibility into what Preply spends on IT, SaaS, and software tools, and help Finance understand, forecast, and plan that spend.
   • Partner with Finance and Procurement on contracts, renewals, and vendor rationalization.
   • Drive cost and compliance efficiency: eliminate shadow IT, consolidate overlapping tools, and negotiate from a position of data.
6. Data, dashboards and stakeholder management
   • Build dashboards and reporting that give leadership a clear, current view of IT health, spend, and the status of every initiative.
   • Provide crisp, proactive follow-ups on where things stand, so leadership never has to chase.
   • Manage and influence C-level stakeholders directly, translating technical reality into business decisions.
   • Make decisions from data, not anecdotes.
7. Partnership with Security
   • Co-own the identity lifecycle in Okta: joiner, mover and leaver flows, periodic access reviews, least privilege and separation of duties.
   • Enforce endpoint compliance baselines in Jamf and keep control evidence audit-ready.
   • Implement and operate the ITGC controls behind SOX readiness and SOC 2, at the standard expected of a company at Preply's stage.
   • Share ownership of AI tool governance: evaluation, approval and allow lists for anything new entering the environment.

What you need to succeed:

• 5+ years leading and growing IT teams or functions in a fast-scaling technology company.
• A true architect and operator: you set strategy and stay hands-on. You’re still comfortable scripting, automating, and configuring MDM and identity systems yourself.
• Deep experience running international fleet and device management, identity, and endpoint management (e.g. Jamf, Okta, or equivalents).
• A strong command of SaaS and software spend management and FinOps practices, and comfort partnering with Finance on cost visibility and forecasting.
• An AI-first, automate-first operator: you’ve used AI to remove toil, and you bring a clear, opinionated point of view on tooling.
• A proven ability to manage and influence senior, C-level stakeholders.
• A data-driven approach: you rely on dashboards and reporting that drive real decisions, and you plan ahead.
• You treat IT’s own security and compliance hygiene as non-negotiable.
• Professional fluency in English.

Nice to have:

• Experience in a remote-first or globally distributed company.
• Familiarity with a modern cloud, identity, and endpoint stack (e.g. GCP, AWS, Okta, Jamf, Jira, Confluence, Slack).
• A track record of maturing an early-stage IT function into a structured, senior team.
• Hands-on experience with office IT: on-site networking, meeting-room AV and video conferencing, and the technology behind off-sites and company events.

Why you’ll love it at Preply:

• An open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture;
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com, Learning & Development budget and time off for your self-development;
• A competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance and health insurance;
• Access to free mental health support platforms;
• The opportunity to shape the lives of learners and tutors through language learning and teaching in 175 countries (and counting!).

Our Principles:

• Care to change the world - We are passionate about our work and care deeply about its impact to be life changing.
• We do it for learners - For both Preply and tutors, learners are why we do what we do. Every day we focus on empowering tutors to deliver an exceptional learning experience.
• Keep perfecting - To create an outstanding customer experience, we focus on simplicity, smoothness, and enjoyment, continually perfecting it as every detail matters.
• Now is the time - In a fast-paced world, it matters how quickly we act. Now is the time to make great things happen.
• Disciplined execution - What makes us disciplined is the excellence in our execution. We set clear goals, focus on what matters, and utilize our resources efficiently.
• Dive deep - We leverage business acumen and curiosity to investigate disparities between numbers and stories, unlocking meaningful insights to guide our decisions.
• Growth mindset - We proactively seek growth opportunities and believe today's best performance becomes tomorrow's starting point. We humbly embrace feedback and learn from setbacks.
• Raise the bar - We raise our performance standards continuously, alongside each new hire and promotion. We build diverse and high-performing teams that can make a real difference.
• Challenge, disagree and commit - We value open and candid communication, even when we don’t fully agree. We speak our minds, challenge when necessary, and fully commit to decisions once made.
• One Preply - We prioritize collaboration, inclusion, and the success of our team over personal ambitions. Together, we support and celebrate each other's progress.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:

Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.