Principal Systems Architect – Hybrid Cloud & Compute Platform

SanMar; Issaquah (WA); Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and its

401k plan and matches

Life insurance

Disability coverage

Paid maternity/paternity leave

Pet insurance

Job summary

SanMar seeks a Principal Systems Engineer to own the architecture and modernization of the Compute platform across Windows Server, Linux, VMware and Azure. You will codify infrastructure with Terraform and Ansible, and manage Azure DevOps pipelines for secure, compliant changes.

Hybrid work in Issaquah, WA with on-site presence Tue-Thu; senior expert expected to lead end-to-end infrastructure projects, mentor engineers, and drive platform performance and resilience.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree Computer Science, Information Technology, or related discipline, a relevant certification, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of hands on enterprise infrastructure experience, or equivalent.
• Deep expertise in at least two of Windows Server/Directory services, Linux, VMware, and Azure.
• Experience designing and operating infrastructure in Microsoft Azure (identity, networking, governance).
• Hands on experience building infrastructure as code with Terraform and configuration management with Ansible or equivalent.
• Experience delivering infrastructure through CI/CD pipelines with version control, peer review, and automated policy or security checks (Azure DevOps & Repos a plus).
• Strong automation and scripting ability (PowerShell, Bash, Python).
• Experience running a container platform in production (registry, orchestration, underlying infra).
• Experience with enterprise storage protocols (SAN, NAS, vSAN, iSCSI, NFS, SMB).
• Track record of infrastructure architecture and modernization, mentoring and documentation.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, standards, and reference designs for SanMar's Compute platform across Windows Server, Linux, VMware, and Azure.
• Design, build, and operate infrastructure in Azure, including landing zones, RBAC, networking, cost and capacity management.
• Codify infrastructure as code with Terraform and Ansible, via Azure DevOps pipelines with version controlled changes and security checks.
• Architect and administer Windows Server and directory services at scale (AD, Entra ID, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, PKI, failover clustering).
• Engineer and operate Linux as a first class platform (build standards, configuration, patching, hardening, performance).
• Architect and operate VMware estate (vSphere, vCenter, ESXi, vSAN) with capacity planning and hardening.
• Own the container platform (image supply chain, registry, orchestration, and infra for containers).
• Lead hybrid cloud direction for Compute (onsite vs Azure) and identity, backup, recovery consistency.
• Define server/os/hypervisor lifecycle, patch/firmware strategy, hardware refresh, end of support remediation.
• Drive observability, monitoring, backups, DR across Compute platforms with regular recovery testing.
• Lead end-to-end complex infrastructure projects (requirements to post-launch).
• Lead major incident response and postmortems and implement platform improvements.
• Evaluate platform tech and manage vendor relationships.
• Develop architecture docs, runbooks, and knowledge transfer materials.
• Mentor Systems Engineers and set technical bar via reviews.
• Communicate risk, decisions, and status to engineering and IT leadership.
• Perform other duties and comply with policies.

Skills

Windows Server

Linux

VMware

Microsoft Azure

Terraform

Ansible

CI/CD pipelines

PowerShell

Python

Scripting (PowerShell/Bash/Python)

Container platforms

Education

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent in Computer Science / IT

Tools

Azure DevOps

Azure Repos

vSphere / vCenter / ESXi / vSAN

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

SanMar seeks a Principal Systems Engineer to own the architecture and modernization of the Compute platform across Windows Server, Linux, VMware and Azure. You will codify infrastructure with Terraform and Ansible, and manage Azure DevOps pipelines for secure, compliant changes.

Hybrid work in Issaquah, WA with on-site presence Tue-Thu; senior expert expected to lead end-to-end infrastructure projects, mentor engineers, and drive platform performance and resilience.