System Engineer - Infrastructure

12-month contract role based in Bellevue and Everett, starting immediately at $70/hr.

About the Role

A hands-on, end-to-end owner of physical compute, storage, and power infrastructure spanning a small/medium data center and several local MDF/IDF spaces. You will report directly to the Senior IT Infrastructure Manager and collaborate closely with the networking team.

Responsibilities

• Maintain and operate a medium-sized private data center, including rack management, cabling, and capacity planning.
• Support and manage multiple local MDF (Main Distribution Frame) and IDF (Intermediate Distribution Frame) spaces across company locations.
• Perform regular site walkthroughs and inspections to ensure physical infrastructure integrity.
• Coordinate with facilities and site management teams on space, power, and cooling requirements.
• Manage UPS systems and PDUs (Power Distribution Units) across the data center and MDF/IDF locations.
• Monitor UPS health, battery status, load levels, and runtime; coordinate battery replacements and preventive maintenance.
• Respond to power alarms, perform load balancing, and support planned maintenance windows involving power systems.
• Maintain documentation of power circuits, load maps, and single-line diagrams.
• Monitor data center and MDF/IDF environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, and airflow.
• Respond to environmental alerts and escalate to facilities or management as appropriate.
• Deploy, configure, and maintain VMware vSphere/ESXi environments including vCenter management.
• Manage physical server hardware lifecycle: procurement support, racking, cabling, firmware updates, and decommissioning.
• Monitor host performance, resource utilization, and capacity; proactively address bottlenecks.
• Troubleshoot hardware failures including CPUs, memory, storage controllers, NICs, and drive arrays.
• Coordinate with vendors (primarily HPE) on hardware support and RMA processes.
• Administer SAN, NAS, local storage solutions, and cloud archives; manage volumes, datastores, and provisioning.
• Monitor storage health, performance, capacity, and plan and execute expansions as needed.
• Manage storage replication and snapshots in coordination with retention policy and backup strategy.
• Partner closely with the networking team on rack and cabling coordination, infrastructure changes, and joint projects.
• Support change management processes including maintenance windows, change tickets, and post-implementation reviews.
• Contribute to IT documentation including runbooks, asset inventories, and infrastructure diagrams.
• Participate in on-call rotation for after-hours infrastructure emergencies.
• Administer enterprise backup solutions for servers, VMs, and Microsoft Office 365/Azure assets.
• Schedule, monitor, and validate backup jobs; ensure recovery objectives (RTO/RPO) are consistently met.
• Perform and document restore tests on a regular cadence per policy.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree, or equivalent work experience.
• 6+ years of hands-on experience in a data center or enterprise infrastructure role.
• Proficiency with VMware vSphere/ESXi and vCenter administration.
• Experience managing physical server hardware from major vendors (HPE preferred).
• Working knowledge of SAN/NAS storage platforms and concepts (iSCSI, NFS, FC).
• Experience administering enterprise backup solutions and validating recovery procedures.
• Hands-on experience with APC UPS systems or similar enterprise UPS platforms.
• Familiarity with PDU management and power capacity planning.
• Comfort working in data center environments including structured cabling, rack management, and physical hardware installation.
• Strong troubleshooting skills with an ability to diagnose and resolve complex hardware and infrastructure issues.
• Ability to lift and rack equipment up to 50 lbs. and work in physically demanding data center environments.
• Ability to diagnose and resolve complex technical issues quickly, while leveraging IT change management processes.

Qualifications

• VMware VCP (vSphere) certification or equivalent experience.
• APC/Schneider Electric product certifications or formal training.
• Experience with environmental monitoring tools (Sunbird, or similar).
• Exposure to DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) tools.
• Familiarity with ITIL practices and formal change management processes.
• Experience in a multi-site or campus environment.
• Scripting or automation skills (Ansible, PowerShell, Bash) for infrastructure tasks.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical users.
• Experience partnering cross-functionally with networking, application, and cloud technical teams.
• Strong communication skills, high degree of trust and integrity, ability to communicate openly and display respect, and a desire to foster teamwork.

Pay

$70 per hour.