Data Center Engineer / Architect

GovCIO; Hampton (VA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

GovCIO is hiring a Data Center Engineer in Hampton, VA for a fully onsite role. You will design and lead end-to-end migrations from on-premises to on-premises, with a focus on consolidations and hybrid/cloud-adjacent moves.

The position requires a Bachelor’s degree with 12+ years of experience and Top Secret/SCI clearance. Expertise in virtualization, storage, security, and DR strategies is essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required with 12+ years of experience.
• Top Secret/SCI clearance required for the role.

Responsibilities

• Design and lead end-to-end data center migration strategies.
• Assess environments to create migration roadmaps and execution plans.
• Architect target-state data center designs aligned with security and compliance.
• Collaborate with infra, network, storage, security, and app teams.
• Establish standards and frameworks for ongoing operations and scalability.
• Lead technical decisions across virtualization, storage, and networking.
• Oversee migration execution, cutover planning, validation, and post-migration optimization.
• Identify and mitigate performance, availability, data integrity, and security risks.
• Produce architecture diagrams, runbooks, migration plans, and handoff materials.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineering teams.
• Investigate capabilities of company services and competing solutions.

Skills

Data center infra

Virtualization platforms

Large-scale migrations

Cloud/hybrid architectures

Storage architectures

Networking

Backup/DR strategies

Security/compliance

Standards & docs

Automation (PowerShell)

Automation (Ansible)

IAT Level II (DoD)

Education

Bachelor’s Degree with 12+ yrs experience

Tools

PowerShell

Ansible

Job description

Overview

GovCIO is currently hiring for Data Center Engineer to support a moderinization effort. This position is located in Hampton, VA and will be a fully onsite position.

Responsibilities

• Design and lead end-to-end data center migration strategies, including on-premises to on-premises transitions, data center consolidations, and hybrid or cloud-adjacent migrations.
• Assess current data center environments, dependencies, and risks to create detailed migration roadmaps and execution plans.
• Architect target-state data center designs that align with business objectives, security standards, and compliance requirements.
• Collaborate closely with infrastructure, network, storage, security, and application teams to coordinate and execute migration activities.
• Establish standards, best practices, and architectural frameworks to support ongoing data center operations and future scalability.
• Lead technical decision-making across virtualization platforms, storage solutions, networking architectures, backup strategies, and disaster recovery planning.
• Oversee migration execution, including cutover planning, validation activities, and post-migration optimization.
• Identify and mitigate performance, availability, data integrity, and security risks throughout the migration lifecycle.
• Produce comprehensive documentation such as architecture diagrams, runbooks, migration plans, and operational handoff materials.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to engineering and operations teams.
• Investigates the technical capabilities of company services and competing equipment and/or solutions.
• Stays abreast of developments in hardware and software.
• Generates quantifiable requirements based on customer description, system planning and design, and ensures requirements comply through formal verification methods.
• Translates high level product development strategies into network and system requirement specifications and works with other engineering disciplines to develop lower-level detailed implementation requirements.
• Establishes and coordinates development of standards, practices, and procedures as related to the network and system development.
• Designs interfaces and brings network and system elements together so they work as a whole.
• Assesses performance using evaluation criteria and technical performance measures.
• Provides customer liaison and support for business development activities and to understand and shape requirements.
• Coordinates the planning, design, and installation of equipment, using knowledge of engineering and programming as well as sophisticated instruments and computers.
• Participates in system conceptual design and documentation of the design concepts.
• Designs, creates, and builds network services, equipment and devices.

Qualifications

Required Education and Experience

Bachelor’s Degree with 12+ yrs experience

• Clearance Required: Top Secret/SCI

Required Skills

• Deep expertise in data center infrastructure, including compute, storage, and networking
• Strong understanding of virtualization platforms (VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, etc.)
• Proficiency in designing and executing large-scale data center migrations
• Knowledge of cloud platforms and hybrid/cloud-adjacent architectures
• Experience with storage architectures (SAN, NAS, object storage)
• Advanced networking knowledge, including routing, switching, firewalls, and load balancing
• Familiarity with backup, recovery, and disaster recovery strategies
• Strong understanding of security frameworks, compliance requirements, and risk mitigation
• Ability to develop architectural standards, frameworks, and documentation
• Experience with automation and orchestration tools (PowerShell, Ansible, etc.)
• Proficiency in dependency mapping, workload analysis, and capacity planning
• DoD 8140 IAT Level II certification (Security+ CE,CCNA-Security,CySA+,CND)

Preferred Skills And Experience

• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and troubleshooting skills
• Excellent communication and cross-team collaboration skills
• Ability to lead technical teams and provide mentorship
• Experience with DOD Networks (NIPR, SIPR, JWICS)
• Experience working in fast-paced, transformation-driven environments

Posted Salary Range: USD $230,000.00 - USD $240,000.00 /Yr.