Lead Systems Engineer

Arnold-; Boston (MA); Remote; USD 124,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Arnold & Porter LLP is seeking a Lead Systems Engineer to modernize and support our global legal practice infrastructure. You will lead migrations, strengthen recovery capabilities, and develop production automation across on-premises, colocation, hybrid, and Azure environments.

As a senior hands-on leader, you will mentor colleagues, drive engineering standards, and collaborate with Architecture, Network Engineering, Information Security, and application teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience considered.

Responsibilities

• Lead infrastructure implementations from requirements to deployment and handoff.
• Advance Azure environment with compute, storage, identity, monitoring, security and availability.
• Plan and execute migrations across on-premises and Azure platforms.
• Develop automation and IaC for provisioning, patching, validation, and operations.
• Support Windows Server, AD, DNS, DHCP, DFS, virtualization, and enterprise storage.
• Improve backup, replication, DR, and failover across environments.
• Investigate production issues, perform root-causes, and guide corrective actions.
• Apply hardening, least privilege, and governance in production changes.
• Provide technical leadership through reviews, documentation, and coordination with teams.

Skills

PowerShell

Azure

Automation

Windows Server

Active Directory

Networking

Security

Migration

SRE practices

Education

Bachelor’s degree in IT/CS/Engineering

Tools

Terraform/Bicep

Ansible

Git

Docker

Python

Pester

Azure Kubernetes Service

Job description

Build resilient infrastructure. Lead complex engineering. Put advanced automation into practice.

Arnold & Porter is seeking a Lead Systems Engineer to help modernize and support the global infrastructure behind our legal practice. If you enjoy solving difficult systems challenges, building reliable automation, and taking complex infrastructure projects from planning through production, this role offers the opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

As a senior, hands-on technical leader, you will engineer solutions across on-premises, colocation, hybrid, and Microsoft Azure environments. You will lead migrations, strengthen recovery capabilities, and develop production automation while working closely with Architecture, Network Engineering, Information Security, and application teams.

This is an individual contributor leadership role with no direct reports, ideal for an experienced engineer who wants to remain deeply technical while mentoring colleagues and influencing engineering standards.

This role may work fully remote in a firm approved U.S. state.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead infrastructure implementations. Take ownership of assigned solutions from requirements and design validation through deployment, testing, operational handoff, and ongoing support.
• Advance our Azure environment. Deploy and optimize production infrastructure spanning compute, storage, identity integration, monitoring, security, governance, and availability.
• Deliver complex migrations. Plan and execute workload moves across on-premises, virtualized, hosted, and Azure platforms, including dependency mapping, testing, cutover, rollback, and stabilization.
• Build powerful, reusable automation. Develop PowerShell modules, API integrations, and infrastructure-as-code that improve provisioning, configuration, patching, validation, and operations. Establish standards for secure, tested, and maintainable code.
• Engineer core enterprise platforms. Support Windows Server, applicable Linux systems, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, DFS, virtualization, compute clusters, and enterprise storage.
• Strengthen reliability and recovery. Improve backup, replication, disaster recovery, and failover capabilities; validate recovery against business requirements; and enhance monitoring, performance, and capacity planning.
• Solve challenging production issues. Serve as a senior escalation resource, investigate failures across interconnected platforms, and lead root-cause analysis and lasting corrective actions.
• Integrate security into delivery. Apply hardening, least privilege, vulnerability remediation, logging, and governance requirements through disciplined production changes.
• Provide technical leadership. Mentor engineers, conduct design and code reviews, maintain clear documentation, and coordinate technical dependencies across teams and vendors.
• Apply approved AI engineering tools. Use authorized assistants to support scripting, testing, troubleshooting, and documentation while validating results and protecting confidential information.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 or more years of hands-on enterprise infrastructure engineering experience, including five or more years as a senior engineer or technical lead.
• A demonstrated record of delivering complex production implementations, upgrades, migrations, and recovery solutions in large organizations operating across locations and time zones.
• Advanced PowerShell engineering expertise, including reusable modules, advanced functions, remoting, and API integrations. Experience owning production automation used across multiple teams is essential.
• Strong software engineering practices for automation, including version control, peer review, automated testing, structured error handling, logging, secure secrets management, and controlled releases.
• Advanced practical knowledge of Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, DFS, authentication, and server security, along with working knowledge of Linux and hybrid identity.
• Hands-on Azure infrastructure experience, including IaaS workloads, storage, networking dependencies, RBAC, policies, monitoring, availability, and migration tools.
• Strong experience with enterprise virtualization, clustering, SAN/NAS storage, Fibre Channel/iSCSI connectivity, replication, and performance troubleshooting.
• Practical knowledge of hybrid networking dependencies, including TCP/IP, routing, private DNS, firewalls, private endpoints, and ExpressRoute/BGP concepts.
• Experience implementing and testing backup, restore, disaster recovery, and failover capabilities across on-premises and cloud environments.
• Sound judgment, clear communication, and the ability to investigate unfamiliar systems, explain technical tradeoffs, and develop supportable solutions.

A bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related field is preferred; equivalent relevant experience will be considered. Experience in legal services or another security-sensitive or regulated environment is also preferred.

Additional experience with Bash, Microsoft Graph, Terraform/Bicep, Ansible, Git, Docker, Python, Pester, Desired State Configuration, or Azure Kubernetes Service is welcome. Familiarity with firm-approved AI coding assistants is helpful; expertise in a particular AI product is not required.

About Arnold & Porter

Arnold & Porter is an international law firm with offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The firm advises clients on complex regulatory, litigation, and transactional matters across a broad range of industries, including many of the world’s leading companies and organizations.

The anticipated base salary for this position is $124,489 to $160,000. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job.

The firm may provide a discretionary bonus annually.

Arnold & Porter is an equal opportunityemployer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy and childbirth (including breastfeeding and related medical conditions), age, marital or partnership status, familial status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family leave status, citizenship status, immigration status, ancestry, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state or federal laws, rules or regulations. Our Firm's equal opportunity policy applies to all employment practices and terms and conditions, including, without limitation, recruitment, employment, assignment, training, compensation, benefits, promotions, disciplinary action and terminations. For purposes of the firm's Anti-discrimination and Anti-harassment Policies, the term "race" includes, without limitation, traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks, and twists.

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For our EEO Policy Statement, please click here . If you would like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant under the law, please click Know Your Rights .

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP uses E-Verify, which is a web-based system, to confirm the eligibility of our employees to work in the United States. As an E-Verify employer, we verify the identity and employment eligibility of newly hired employees by electronically matching information provided by employees on the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, against records available to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We use E-Verify because we are a federal contractor containing the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) E-Verify clause. Please see the posters for details regarding E-Verify or contact Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP’s Human Resources Department for more information. E-Verify Participation Poster and Right-to-work Poster .