Core Infrastructure Engineer – Professional

Piper Sandler Ltd.; Minneapolis, Northern (MN, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Piper Sandler is seeking a Core Infrastructure Engineer – Professional to join the Platform Engineering team in Minneapolis, MN. The role focuses on supporting and improving on-premises and cloud infrastructure, with opportunities to lead projects and advance technical expertise.

The ideal candidate has several years of hands-on experience in systems administration or infra engineering, with VMware, cloud, and Datadog proficiency.

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of hands-on experience in systems administration or infrastructure engineering.
• Experience with VMware technologies (vSphere, ESXi, vCenter).
• Proficient in at least one major cloud platform (AWS or Azure).
• Familiar with Datadog or similar monitoring/observability tools.

Responsibilities

• Administer, monitor, and troubleshoot VMware environments (vSphere, ESXi, vCenter).
• Maintain on-prem and cloud infrastructure across AWS/Azure/Google Cloud.
• Build dashboards and alerts in Datadog to improve observability.
• Lead small-to-medium infrastructure projects and document outcomes.

Skills

VMware administration

Cloud engineering

Datadog monitoring

Networking fundamentals

Infrastructure as code

Project leadership

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

PowerShell

Job description

**Job Description:**At Piper Sandler, we connect capital with opportunity to build a better future.We believe that diverse teams with unique backgrounds, skills and experiences yield more innovative solutions. This is reflected in our commitment to engage, hire, and retain bright, committed people to work in partnership within an inclusive environment that allows each person to achieve personal success and add value to our teams and communities.We are currently looking for a Core Infrastructure Engineer – Professional to join our Platform Engineering team in Minneapolis, MN.**About the Role**The Core Infrastructure Engineer – Professional will support and improve our on-premises and cloud infrastructure. This mid-level role is ideal for an engineer with several years of hands-on experience who can work independently, contribute to technical decisions, lead small-to-medium infrastructure projects, and continue developing their technical expertise.**What Success Looks Like**The successful candidate will keep critical infrastructure reliable, observable, and secure; respond effectively to operational issues; complete patching and maintenance on schedule; and independently deliver infrastructure projects. They will improve Datadog monitoring coverage, build useful dashboards, and create actionable alerts that help teams identify and resolve issues quickly. Over time, this engineer will become a trusted contributor to the company’s infrastructure architecture and technology strategy.**Responsibilities*** Administer, monitor, and troubleshoot VMware environments, including vSphere, ESXi, and vCenter.* Support physical and virtual servers, Windows and/or Linux operating systems, enterprise storage, backup platforms, and related infrastructure.* Maintain infrastructure across cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.* Use monitoring and observability tools such as **Datadog** to: + Create and maintain infrastructure and application monitors. + Build operational, capacity, availability, and service-health dashboards. + Configure actionable alerts, thresholds, notification routing, and escalation procedures. + Analyze metrics, logs, events, and performance trends. + Reduce alert noise and improve monitoring coverage.* Perform operating system and infrastructure patching, upgrades, lifecycle management, and vulnerability remediation.* Participate in a scheduled on-call rotation and respond to infrastructure incidents outside normal business hours when required.* Troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues, conduct root-cause analysis, and implement durable solutions.* Lead selected infrastructure projects, including requirements gathering, planning, implementation, testing, documentation, and operational handoff.* Monitor and manage infrastructure capacity, performance, availability, reliability, and security.* Maintain accurate technical documentation, operational procedures, asset information, and disaster-recovery plans.* Collaborate with security, networking, application, cloud, and business teams.* Automate routine operational tasks using scripting, configuration-management, and infrastructure-as-code tools.* Assist infrastructure leadership with architecture planning, technology roadmaps, budgeting, risk management, and the company’s overall infrastructure and cloud strategy.* Share technical knowledge and provide guidance to other team members.**Qualifications*** 3–6 years of experience in systems administration, infrastructure engineering, cloud engineering, or a similar role.* Hands-on experience administering VMware technologies such as vSphere, ESXi, and vCenter.* Strong knowledge of Windows Server and/or Linux administration.* Experience with enterprise storage technologies and concepts, including SAN, NAS, RAID, snapshots, replication, and capacity planning.* Working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform, preferably AWS or Microsoft Azure.* Hands-on experience with Datadog or a comparable monitoring and observability platform, including creating monitors, dashboards, alerts, and reports.* Ability to interpret infrastructure metrics, logs, events, performance data, and capacity trends.* Experience with server patching, upgrades, vulnerability remediation, monitoring, backup, recovery, and incident response.* Understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, routing, firewalls, and load balancing.* Demonstrated ability to lead infrastructure projects and coordinate work across technical teams.* Strong troubleshooting, documentation, communication, and organizational skills.* Willingness to participate in a scheduled on-call rotation.**Preferred Qualifications*** Experience managing Datadog configurations through APIs, Terraform, or other infrastructure-as-code tools.* Experience with Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, or similar automation technologies.* Familiarity with Active Directory, identity and access management, and Microsoft 365.* Experience supporting hybrid-cloud environments and cloud migrations.* Knowledge of high availability, disaster recovery, business continuity, and security best practices.* Relevant certifications such as VMware VCP, Microsoft Azure Administrator, AWS Solutions Architect, or equivalent.As a leading investment bank, we enable growth and success for our clients through deep sector expertise, candid advice and a differentiated, highly productive culture.Our human capital, technology, marketing and other corporate support teams work with our business partners to maximize each employee. We understand the dynamic nature of the industry and work alongside our company strategies. Learn more about our firm here.Piper Sandler values a strong culture dedicated to the emotional and physical well-being of our employees. Learn more about our commitment to our employee’s health, well-being, our benefits program and how we are here for our employees and their families today, tomorrow and beyond here.The anticipated starting salary range for individuals expressing interest in this position is $150,000–$225,000 per year per year. Placement within this range is dependent upon level of experience, location and other factors. This position is eligible for annual incentive compensation which will be a part of the total compensation. Total compensation for this position will be competitive with the market.All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran or status with regard to public assistance.