[Hiring] Senior Virtualization Administrator @AIS (Applied Information Sciences)

Role Description

This position is contingent upon contract award. We are currently pursuing a proposal and are seeking qualified candidates to include in our submission and identify candidates for future hiring needs on the program once awarded.

At AIS, we are dedicated to providing our employees with diverse opportunities to grow their careers while supporting a variety of impactful projects. For this position, we are seeking a talented individual to join AIS as a Senior Infrastructure Engineer.

Core Knowledge & Skills

• Designs complex network and hybrid‑cloud solutions.
• Implements security controls, DR/BCP, and automated IaC with deployment pipelines.
• Performs advanced performance tuning.

Work & Complexity

• Solves complex issues and designs new infrastructure solutions.
• Performs capacity planning and leads advanced automation initiatives.

Quality & Independence

• Drives root‑cause analysis and enforces best practices and QA on changes.
• Optimizes for reliability and user experience; operates with high autonomy.

Teamwork & Communication

• Leads cross‑functional efforts and mentors juniors.
• Facilitates knowledge transfer and aligns stakeholders with technical plans.

Consulting & Engagement

• Provides strategic input on infrastructure initiatives.
• Recommends advanced technologies and manages vendor relationships.

Project Summary

AIS is currently bidding on a federal contract aimed at consolidating a hybrid environment to the cloud. This is a proposal effort, with the work expected to start in mid-to-late September. This position requires an Active Public Trust clearance (or higher), adjudicated within the last 5 years.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer and optimize the VMware vSphere environment — Install, configure, maintain, upgrade, and troubleshoot vSphere and ESXi infrastructure, ensuring high availability, security, reliability, and performance.
• Manage Windows Server infrastructure — Administer, configure, secure, tune, and troubleshoot Windows Server environments, including Server 2019, 2022, 2025, and newer platforms, as part of the organization’s hybrid infrastructure.
• Manage virtualization storage, snapshots, and backups — Administer SAN infrastructure such as NetApp, develop and maintain VM snapshot policies, and configure and monitor automated backup solutions such as Veeam to support data protection and recovery objectives.
• Support cloud migration and infrastructure consolidation — Provide senior-level virtualization and Windows expertise throughout the consolidation of on-premises and hybrid infrastructure into cloud-based environments, including assessment, migration planning, workload transition, and post-migration optimization.
• Ensure disaster recovery and high availability — Design, implement, maintain, and test virtualization and Windows infrastructure solutions that support business continuity, disaster recovery, fault tolerance, and high availability requirements.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize infrastructure performance — Proactively monitor VMware, ESXi, Windows Server, storage, and related infrastructure; identify performance bottlenecks; and implement tuning and optimization strategies to improve capacity, availability, and efficiency.
• Automate infrastructure administration and operational tasks — Develop and maintain PowerShell scripts and automation processes to streamline provisioning, configuration, monitoring, maintenance, reporting, and other repetitive infrastructure management activities.
• Maintain secure and compliant infrastructure operations — Apply best practices for Active Directory, DNS, TCP/IP, VLANs, subnetting, and other core networking services while ensuring infrastructure changes and operational procedures align with the security, documentation, and compliance requirements of regulated government environments.

Required For This Opportunity

• 6–8+ years recent experience as a senior vSphere administrator (min version 6.7).
• Expert-level installing, configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting vSphere.
• Expert-level provisioning, configuring, securing, and troubleshooting ESXi hosts.
• Experience creating and managing snapshot policies.
• Experience configuring and scheduling automated backups (e.g., Veeam).
• Experience administering SAN devices (e.g., NetApp).
• 5+ years recent experience as a senior Windows Server administrator (Server 2019, 2022, 2025, or newer).
• Expert-level installation, administration, configuration, tuning, and troubleshooting of Windows Server environments.
• Experience with performance monitoring, tuning, and optimization of VMware and Windows environments.
• Disaster recovery and high availability experience.
• Proficiency with PowerShell scripting.
• Knowledge of Active Directory and networking (IP addressing, subnetting, TCP/IP, VLANs, DNS).

Nice to Have Skills

• Experience working in regulated government environments.

Benefits

• The targeted base salary range for this role is $102,000-$154,000 per year.
• Final offer will be based on several factors, including skillset, competencies, level of experience, education, certifications, and location.
• Transparency in the hiring process and discussion of unique qualifications aligning with compensation structure during the interview process.