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INTRODUCTION

Hybrid onsite in Columbus, Ohio. Do not apply if you are not local to Columbus, Ohio. Our Columbus, Ohio client is growing their infrastructure team and has a contract-to-hire opportunity for a Senior Infrastructure Engineer - VMware / Windows Server who will define standards, automate the toil out of day-to-day operations, and be the senior escalation anchor when complex problems need someone who actually knows the stack. This role means genuine ownership of the virtualization platform, storage architecture, and Windows Server estate that everything else depends on. This role requires deep expertise in VMware virtualization, enterprise storage systems, Windows Server platform operations, backup technologies, and hybrid cloud ecosystems. You'll serve as a senior escalation point, mentor peers, and help define the standards and architectural patterns that the rest of the infrastructure team builds on.

Responsibilities

Infrastructure and cloud operations:

- Manage, maintain, and optimize VMware environments (ESXi, vCenter, vSAN, vSphere) and enterprise storage platforms across multiple data centers.
- Support hybrid architectures integrating on-premises infrastructure with cloud services (Azure/AWS).
- Administer and maintain Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy, and DNS/DHCP services.
- Manage Citrix environments including provisioning, application publishing, and performance tuning.
- Oversee backup and recovery systems, ensuring adherence to RTO/RPO requirements.
- Perform routine and advanced maintenance, patching, and lifecycle management for all core infrastructure systems.

Windows Server platform operations:

- Operate and support the Windows Server estate on physical and virtual platforms, including standardized builds, failover clustering, performance tuning, and tight alignment with VMware-hosted workloads.
- Deliver reliable Windows platform foundations: patch and compliance cycles, security baseline coordination, vulnerability remediation, and clear handoffs to application and platform teams.
- Maintain and evolve core Wintel-adjacent services in scope (for example DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, certificate services, and file/print where centrally managed).
- Partner with identity, collaboration, and endpoint teams on Active Directory structure, GPO standards, authentication patterns, and hybrid identity integration—bringing automation and IaC discipline to Windows platform management.

Service optimization and cost management:

- Analyze infrastructure performance and usage patterns to optimize resource allocation.
- Recommend cost-effective solutions for compute, storage, and cloud services.
- Identify opportunities for consolidation, automation, and modernization to increase efficiency and reduce operational cost.
- Partner with procurement and finance to forecast infrastructure capacity and budget requirements.

Security, compliance, and risk management:

- Ensure infrastructure adheres to security policies, compliance frameworks, and industry best practices.
- Implement and maintain hardening, patching, and vulnerability remediation processes.
- Support audits, system reviews, and DR/BCP planning.
- Enforce identity, access, and privilege management standards across systems.

Technical leadership and support:

- Serve as a senior escalation point for complex infrastructure issues and major incidents.
- Mentor junior engineers and provide technical guidance across teams.
- Lead or participate in infrastructure projects, migrations, and modernization initiatives.
- Define best practices, standards, and architectural patterns for platforms under ownership.

Performance monitoring and capacity planning:

- Monitor health, performance, and utilization of compute, storage, virtualization, and cloud environments.
- Develop and maintain dashboards and alerting systems to ensure proactive issue detection.
- Conduct long-term capacity planning aligned with business and growth needs.

Documentation and reporting:

- Create and maintain detailed technical documentation, diagrams, and runbooks.
- Produce reports on infrastructure performance, incidents, trends, and improvements.
- Document standard operating procedures and architectural designs.

Collaboration and stakeholder engagement:

- Work closely with application owners, security teams, and business stakeholders to deliver reliable services.
- Participate in change control, release planning, and cross-team coordination.
- Communicate complex technical topics in clear, business-friendly language.

Leveraging AI for infrastructure engineering

Senior engineers on this team use AI as a force multiplier—faster triage, better runbooks, less time grinding through repetitive work. We use enterprise-approved tools with peer review and change control built in, and we expect you to model good practice for the team.
- Use approved AI-assisted tooling to accelerate triage of logs and tickets, draft runbooks and post-incident summaries, and reduce repetitive investigation steps—always with engineer review and within change-control policy.
- Apply AI coding assistants and structured prompts responsibly to speed PowerShell, CLI, and infrastructure-as-code delivery, with peer review, secrets hygiene, and no sensitive data in unapproved tools.
- Partner with monitoring, observability, and security teams to explore intelligent alerting, anomaly detection, and noise reduction where those capabilities exist or are introduced.
- Improve knowledge base quality and discoverability by using AI-generated first drafts of documentation and architecture narratives, validated by subject-matter experts before publication.
- Model good governance: follow data-residency and acceptable-use policies, use only enterprise-approved AI services, and treat AI output as provisional until verified.

Experience

- 7–10+ years of experience in enterprise IT infrastructure engineering roles.
- Strong background managing VMware virtualization environments in medium to large enterprises.
- Hands-on experience operating Windows Server at scale: patching and lifecycle management, failover clustering, and tight integration with VMware virtualization and enterprise storage platforms.
- Hands-on experience with enterprise storage arrays (NetApp, Dell EMC, HPE, Pure, or similar).
- Solid understanding of hybrid cloud models, cloud networking, and identity integration.
- Experience supporting Active Directory, Citrix environments, and enterprise backup tools (Veritas, Commvault, Avamar, Rubrik, etc.).
- Proven history of driving infrastructure improvement projects and implementing scalable solutions.

EXPERT SKILLS

- VMware technologies: vSphere, ESXi, vCenter, vSAN, HA/DRS, VM migrations, resource pools, PowerCLI automation, and vSphere Lifecycle Manager for at-scale patch and baseline orchestration.
- Storage systems: SAN/NAS implementations, zoning/masking, replication, performance tuning.
- Windows Server and Active Directory: server operations at scale, domain services, GPO management, federation, authentication models, server hardening, and PowerShell/PowerCLI-aligned lifecycle automation.
- Backup and recovery: backup architecture, replication, DR failover and failback procedures.
- Virtualization and hybrid integration: multi-site clusters, hybrid clouds, virtual networking.

ADVANCED SKILLS

- Cloud platforms: Azure/AWS compute, storage, networking, identity integration, and monitoring.
- Networking fundamentals: VLANs, routing, firewalls, load balancing, virtual networking.
- Scripting and automation: PowerShell, CLI operations, infrastructure-as-code fundamentals.
- Performance and capacity management: trend analysis, resource forecasting, system optimization.
- Security and compliance: infrastructure hardening, vulnerability management, audit support.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted operations (for example, AIOps-style alerting or approved enterprise LLM tools) and safe adoption practices in regulated environments is a plus.