Server Engineer

Salary: $85,288.00 - $122,601.49

About the role

This position is responsible for designing, implementing, administering, and optimizing the City's enterprise private cloud infrastructure and Windows Server environment. Primary responsibilities include administering VMware vSphere virtualization platforms, Windows Server operating systems, Active Directory services, enterprise storage, disaster recovery, and business continuity solutions supporting mission-critical applications across the organization. The role provides advanced engineering, automation, lifecycle management, performance optimization, and technical leadership for the City's on-premises compute infrastructure while ensuring high availability, security, resiliency, and operational excellence.

This position serves as the senior engineering resource responsible for designing, implementing, administering, and continuously improving the City's enterprise private cloud infrastructure and Windows Server environment. The engineer provides technical leadership for highly available, secure, and resilient compute platforms supporting critical business and public safety systems.

This position participates in an on-call rotation as needed to perform planned maintenance activities and respond to critical service-impacting incidents outside normal business hours.

Responsibilities

• Administer VMware vSphere enterprise virtualization environments, Windows Server operating systems, and Active Directory Domain Services
• Manage enterprise storage platforms, server hardware, backup and disaster recovery technologies, and private cloud infrastructure supporting production, disaster recovery, development, and test environments
• Perform physical and virtual server provisioning, operating system deployment, patch management, performance tuning, capacity planning, lifecycle management, and infrastructure modernization
• Develop enterprise standards, technical documentation, operational procedures, and engineering best practices
• Administer enterprise disaster recovery and business continuity technologies, including VMware Site Recovery Manager, Zerto, backup platforms, replication technologies, disaster recovery planning, testing, and recovery validation
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery runbooks and participate in annual business continuity exercises
• Administer enterprise storage infrastructure including Dell PowerStore storage arrays, SAN technologies, storage networking, replication, snapshots, storage provisioning, and performance optimization
• Provide advanced administration of Microsoft Active Directory including Domain Services, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, certificate services, authentication services, and identity integration
• Evaluate emerging technologies, develop infrastructure roadmaps, and implement infrastructure automation through PowerShell and Infrastructure-as-Code principles
• Participate in architecture reviews, provide Tier III/IV escalation support, mentor junior engineers, and collaborate with cybersecurity, networking, database, cloud, and application teams
• Support planned maintenance windows and respond to major incidents outside normal business hours

Requirements

• High School Graduate or Equivalent and five (5) years of related work experience
• OR 2 Year College Degree and three (3) years of related work experience
• OR Bachelor's Level Degree and one (1) year of related work experience or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience

Skills

• 5+ years administering enterprise Windows Server environments supporting mission-critical business systems
• 5+ years administering enterprise VMware virtualization environments
• Expert knowledge of VMware vSphere 8 and Microsoft Windows Server
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services and enterprise PowerShell automation
• Expert knowledge of enterprise disaster recovery methodologies and storage platforms
• Expert knowledge of disaster recovery and replication technologies
• Experience administering enterprise backup and recovery platforms
• Experience supporting enterprise storage area networks (SAN) and high-availability clustered environments
• Experience administering enterprise server hardware platforms
• Experience supporting environments with hundreds of virtual servers and mission-critical workloads
• Experience participating in enterprise disaster recovery planning and testing
• Experience performing root cause analysis and complex enterprise troubleshooting
• Experience working within ITIL or mature enterprise operational processes

Preferred Qualifications

• VMware Certified Professional (VCP-DCV) or VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP)
• 8+ years administering enterprise Windows Server environments supporting mission-critical business systems
• 8+ years administering enterprise VMware virtualization environments
• Experience with VMware vSphere 9 and Dell PowerStore enterprise storage platforms
• Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate
• Expert knowledge of Zerto disaster recovery and replication technologies
• Experience administering hybrid cloud environments and Infrastructure as Code
• Experience with Ansible, Terraform, or similar automation platforms
• Experience administering Microsoft Failover Clustering and SCOM or enterprise monitoring platforms
• Experience administering enterprise PKI environments
• Experience with CIS hardening and security baselines
• Experience supporting CJIS, PCI, or similar regulatory environments

Benefits

The City of Charlotte provides a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees. Learn more about the City of Charlotte’s benefits.