Principal VMware Systems Support

The Principal VMware Systems Support role serves as the technical lead for the design, implementation, modernization, migration, administration, and optimization of enterprise VMware infrastructure across on-premises and cloud environments. This position is heavily focused on infrastructure project execution, workload transformation initiatives, disaster recovery planning, and operational excellence. 

The successful candidate will lead complex infrastructure projects involving VMware platforms, storage, compute, networking, cloud integration, workload migrations, and business continuity solutions. The role requires extensive experience implementing enterprise virtualization best practices, automating administrative processes through scripting and orchestration tools, and developing operational runbooks that improve reliability, efficiency, and supportability. 

In addition to providing advanced systems administration support, this individual will serve as a trusted technical advisor, leading infrastructure modernization initiatives, establishing standards, and ensuring VMware environments meet business, security, compliance, availability, and recovery requirements. 

Core Responsibilities 

Leadership & Strategy 

• Provides technical leadership for enterprise VMware infrastructure initiatives across multiple business units and locations. 

• Serves as a senior technical resource and mentor, providing guidance to systems administrators, engineers, and project teams. 

• Establishes infrastructure standards, operational best practices, governance models, and support frameworks. 

• Drives infrastructure modernization strategies and aligns technical roadmaps with business objectives. 

• Evaluates emerging virtualization, cloud, automation, and disaster recovery technologies and recommends adoption where appropriate. 

Project Delivery & Infrastructure Modernization 

• Leads end-to-end planning, design, implementation, and execution of complex infrastructure projects. 

• Develops and executes modernization strategies for VMware-based environments supporting enterprise workloads. 

• Leads workload migration initiatives between legacy and modernized infrastructure platforms, including:  

• Legacy to next-generation on-premises environments 

• On-premises to cloud platforms 

• Hybrid cloud transformation projects 

• Creates migration roadmaps, implementation schedules, dependency analysis, cutover plans, rollback procedures, and validation criteria. 

• Coordinates project activities across infrastructure, security, application, storage, networking, and business teams. 

• Conducts architecture assessments and provides recommendations to improve performance, scalability, resiliency, and operational efficiency. 

• Ensures successful operational transition of newly implemented solutions into production support teams. 

VMware Infrastructure & Technical Leadership 

• Designs, implements, and supports enterprise VMware environments including:  

• VMware vSphere 

• ESXi 

• vCenter 

• vSAN 

• VMware clustering technologies 

• Provides expert guidance on infrastructure architecture, capacity planning, performance optimization, and lifecycle management. 

• Leads troubleshooting and root cause analysis of critical production incidents affecting VMware infrastructure. 

• Develops and validates high-availability architectures supporting enterprise business requirements. 

• Partners with security teams to ensure compliance with corporate, regulatory, and industry standards. 

Automation & Optimization 

• Drives automation initiatives to improve operational efficiency, system consistency, and service reliability. 

• Leverages scripting and automation technologies including PowerCLI, PowerShell, Python, Ansible, and infrastructure automation platforms. 

• Designs and implements automated provisioning, monitoring, compliance validation, patching, reporting, and remediation processes. 

• Optimizes enterprise virtual environments through performance tuning, capacity management, and automated workload management. 

• Establishes operational metrics, dashboards, and monitoring strategies to proactively identify risks and improvement opportunities. 

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity 

• Leads disaster recovery planning activities for VMware and related infrastructure platforms. 

• Develops, maintains, and continuously improves disaster recovery strategies, recovery procedures, and business continuity plans. 

• Establishes Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) aligned with business requirements. 

• Plans, coordinates, executes, and documents recurring disaster recovery exercises and failover testing activities. 

• Validates backup, replication, and recovery solutions across on-premises and cloud environments. 

• Identifies recovery gaps and develops remediation plans to improve resiliency and recovery readiness. 

• Ensures disaster recovery runbooks remain current, tested, and operationally effective. 

Operational Excellence & Documentation 

• Develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards, operational procedures, implementation guides, and support documentation. 

• Creates and maintains detailed runbooks for deployment, migration, disaster recovery, infrastructure maintenance, and operational support. 

• Implements industry best practices for VMware administration, infrastructure management, and service delivery. 

• Leads initiatives to improve system reliability, operational maturity, compliance, and supportability. 

• Supports audit, compliance, and security review activities. 

Operational Support 

• Provides advanced support for enterprise VMware infrastructure, including incident resolution, problem management, maintenance, and lifecycle activities. 

• Performs root cause analysis and drives permanent corrective actions. 

• Evaluates system health, capacity, utilization, and performance trends. 

• Provides recommendations to improve platform availability, resilience, and operational efficiency. 

Education 

• Required: Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of relevant experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience. 

• Preferred: Master's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. 

Experience 

• 10+ years of enterprise infrastructure and systems administration experience with a strong emphasis on VMware technologies. 

• Extensive experience designing, implementing, and supporting large-scale VMware environments. 

• Demonstrated experience leading infrastructure implementation and modernization projects. 

• Proven experience planning and executing enterprise workload migrations across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. 

• Strong experience with disaster recovery planning, business continuity strategies, and recovery testing. 

• Extensive experience developing operational procedures, standards, and technical runbooks. 

• Expert knowledge of VMware high-availability and clustering technologies. 

• Experience with Microsoft Server technologies, including Failover Clustering. 

• Experience with Linux platforms and clustering technologies. 

• Experience integrating VMware environments with enterprise storage, backup, networking, and monitoring solutions. 

• Experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Microsoft Azure, AWS, or hybrid cloud solutions. 

• Demonstrated expertise in automation, orchestration, and scripting using PowerCLI, PowerShell, Python, Ansible, or similar technologies. 

• Strong knowledge of infrastructure security, compliance, and systems lifecycle management. 

Certifications 

Preferred certifications include: 

• VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) 

• VMware Certified Professional (VCP) 

• VMware Cloud certifications 

• Microsoft Azure Administrator or Architect 

• AWS Solutions Architect 

• ITIL Foundation or higher 

Competencies 

• VMware Architecture & Engineering (Expert) 

• Infrastructure Design & Modernization (Advanced) 

• System & Technology Integration (Advanced) 

• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity (Advanced) 

• Enterprise Automation & Orchestration (Advanced) 

• Technical Project Leadership (Advanced) 

• Hybrid Cloud Technologies (Advanced) 

• Operational Excellence & Process Improvement (Advanced) 

Additional Requirements 

• U.S. Citizenship and U.S. residency required. 

• Ability to support restricted and regulated environments. 

• Ability to lead infrastructure projects spanning multiple teams, technologies, and geographic locations. 

• Occasional after-hours support required for migration activities, disaster recovery testing, and major infrastructure implementations. 

This revision positions the role as a senior infrastructure modernization and implementation leader, rather than a traditional operational VMware administrator, which aligns better with project-based delivery, workload migrations, DR leadership, automation, and enterprise transformation initiatives.