Operational Lead – D2D Ops (VMware, Storage, Backup, DBaaS, Monitoring)

Rackspace; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A global IT services company is seeking an experienced Operational Lead to manage day-to-day IT infrastructure operations. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in VMware and incident management, ensuring SLA adherence and operational stability. This role involves leading a team and ensuring effective communication and documentation practices while optimizing system performance.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of IT infrastructure experience, including operational leadership roles.
• Solid understanding of DBaaS operational models and support practices.
• Experience leading technical teams in high-availability environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead daily operations for VMware and enterprise storage platforms.
• Ensure SLA adherence and rapid resolution of incidents.
• Oversee infrastructure health and monitoring.

Skills

Operational excellence

Incident management

VMware expertise

Database Management

Infrastructure monitoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field

Tools

VMware vSphere

Zabbix

SolarWinds

Ansible

Job description

We are looking for an experienced Operational Lead – Day-to-Day (D2D) Operations to oversee and manage the core IT infrastructure services, including VMware, Storage, Backup, DBaaS, and Monitoring. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in operational excellence, incident management, and proactive infrastructure support. This role demands a hands-on leader who can drive operational stability, optimize system performance, ensure service continuity, and lead a team of technical experts across multiple domains.

Responsibilities

• Lead daily operations for VMware, enterprise storage, backup, database-as-a-service (DBaaS), and infrastructure monitoring platforms.
• Ensure SLA adherence and rapid resolution of incidents, problems, and service requests.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to address performance, capacity, and availability concerns.
• Oversee infrastructure health, stability, and monitoring using industry-standard tools.
• Drive incident root cause analysis and implement permanent fixes.
• Manage patching, upgrades, and lifecycle management of infrastructure components.
• Define and maintain operational procedures, runbooks, and SOPs.
• Collaborate with architects and service owners to ensure alignment with infrastructure standards.
• Maintain and report on KPIs, operational metrics, and service availability dashboards.
• Lead the shift operations and participate in on-call escalation rotations.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, automation, and process enhancements.
• Mentor and guide operational support engineers and junior administrators.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field.
• 8+ years of IT infrastructure experience, including operational leadership roles.
• Strong hands-on expertise in VMware vSphere environments (ESXi, vCenter).
• Deep understanding of enterprise storage platforms (e.g., Pure Storage, Dell EMC, NetApp).
• Experience with backup technologies (e.g., Veeam, Commvault, Networker).
• Solid understanding of DBaaS operational models and support practices (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL).
• Expertise in infrastructure monitoring solutions (e.g., Zabbix, SolarWinds, Nagios, Prometheus).
• Experience leading technical teams in high-availability and production environments.
• Strong troubleshooting and incident resolution capabilities.
• Familiarity with ITIL processes, especially incident, change, and problem management.
• Excellent documentation, coordination, and communication skills.

Additional skills (Nice to have)

• VMware certifications (VCP or higher).
• Backup & Storage certifications (Veeam, Dell, NetApp, Pure Storage, etc.).
• Familiarity with public cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP).
• Experience with automation tools (Ansible, PowerShell, Python).
• ITIL Foundation certification.
• Exposure to service management platforms (ServiceNow, Remedy).
• Familiarity with storage performance testing and analysis tools.
• Background in database storage optimization (Oracle, SQL Server, etc.).
• Experience with data governance and compliance requirements.
• Knowledge of data lifecycle management and information lifecycle management.