Manager, Desktop & Applications Engineering

Manager, Desktop & Applications Engineering

Location: New York, NY (Hybrid)


Candidates must come from regulated professional services industry like financial or legal.

No third party candidates or agencies please.

Overview

A global professional services organization is looking for a Senior Desktop & Applications Engineering Manager to take ownership of its end user computing environment. This role sits within a larger IT leadership structure and carries real accountability, not just oversight. You'll drive the desktop and application strategy, lead a team of engineers and analysts, and be the person who makes sure the environment actually works for a demanding, high-expectation user base.

This is a hands-on leadership role. The right candidate knows how to build and run a high-functioning team, isn't afraid to roll up their sleeves on complex escalations, and brings a strong point of view on modern endpoint management and M365 delivery.

What You'll Own

Your core focus will be the health, stability, and continuous improvement of the desktop environment and enterprise application portfolio. That means leading the full application lifecycle from packaging and deployment through patching and end-of-life, owning Level 3 escalation resolution, and driving a cloud-first, modern management approach to endpoints using Microsoft Intune, Group Policy, and related tooling.

You'll also serve as the internal authority on a specialized application stack that includes document management, digital dictation, workflow, time capture, and PDF platforms, making sure updates are tested thoroughly and rolled out without disrupting productivity.

On the M365 side, you'll oversee configuration and governance of the full suite including Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Edge, and Office add-in integrations. Virtualization experience across AVD, Citrix, Hyper-V, or VMware is a plus.

Your team will look to you for mentorship, clear expectations, and a culture where accountability and continuous improvement are the norm, not the exception.

What We're Looking For

• 7-10 years of progressive experience in desktop engineering, application integration, or systems engineering, with demonstrated team leadership.
• Candidates must come from a regulated industry environment. Legal, financial services, or similarly compliance-driven backgrounds are required. We are unable to consider candidates without that context.
• Strong technical depth across Windows OS, registry management, Group Policy, Intune, PowerShell, and SQL is expected. Familiarity with tools like ControlUp, Windows Performance Analyzer, FSLogix, and Ivanti AppSense is a plus.
• You communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, you document thoroughly, and you solve problems before they become incidents.