Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer

Wilson Elser - Business & Legal Professionals; United States; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan

Paid time off

Corporate discounts

Job summary

Wilson Elser in the United States seeks a Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer to lead Azure, SQL Server, and virtualization operations across hybrid environments. You will own migrations, DR planning, backups, and certificate management while guiding incident responses and cross-team collaboration.

The role requires strong Windows Server, PowerShell, AD, and Office 365 experience, with a track record of delivering resilient, documented IT infrastructure in a large firm setting.

Qualifications

• Broad hands-on knowledge of Server Infrastructure and Cloud technologies.
• Experience with data privacy practices and ability to research new tech.
• Analytical, proactive, and able to prioritize in high-pressure settings.

Responsibilities

• Own Azure estate administration, migrations, and security controls.
• SQL Server platform ownership: upgrades, Always On, backups, DR runbooks.
• Manage VMware vSphere/vCenter across sites and DR testing.
• Administer storage arrays (Pure Storage, HPE 3PAR) and firmware lifecycle.
• Dell OpenManage deployment, firmware, and hardware remediation.
• Monitor with SolarWinds; tune alerts and reduce noise.
• Manage enterprise certificates lifecycle and renewal calendar.
• Act as escalation lead for major incidents and publish RCAs.

Skills

Azure

SQL Server

VMware

Windows Server

PowerShell

Active Directory

Office 365

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

College/University degree in related field

7+ years hands-on infrastructure engineering

Tools

Dell OpenManage

VMware vCenter

Pure Storage

HPE 3PAR

SolarWinds

Intune

Jira

LanSweeper

Veeam

Active Directory and Exchange On-Premises

Job description

Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer

Dallas, Texas; Houston, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington

Wilson Elser , we are redefining what it means to work at a national law firm. With more than 1,400 attorneys across 46 offices nationwide, we are recognized among the top 100 law firms by The American Lawyer and ranked #30 in the National Law Journal’s survey of the nation’s largest law firms.

Our continued success is built on a culture of collaboration, innovation, client service, and mutual respect. We are committed to fostering an environment where employees are empowered to grow their careers, contribute meaningfully, and thrive professionally.

The Position

The Sr. Infrastructure Operations Engineer will work as part of a dynamic team to provide high quality engineering, implementation, and support across all areas of the Windows platform, virtualization, storage, SQL Server, and cloud infrastructure — both on premises and in Azure.

This role serves as the senior technical escalation point for the Infrastructure Operations team: the engineer other engineers turn to when an incident exceeds the team’s depth, and the person accountable for the design, resilience, and documented recoverability of the firm’s virtualization, storage, SQL, and cloud platforms. This role provides expert guidance during complex incidents that exceed the team's standard support capabilities.

This role is also the firm’s designated Operations SQL SME, as defined in the SQL Responsibilities Rider to the Infrastructure Operating Model Charter and provides technical leadership for SQL Server operational support, availability, performance, maintenance, and recovery.

This individual must be a great communicator, work well within a team, and be a self-starter able to own and independently lead projects from planning through completion.

Critically, this individual is to strengthen the overall capability of the Infrastructure Operations team by eliminating single points of failure. This includes creating and maintaining high-quality operational documentation, developing repeatable procedures that other engineers can confidently execute, and actively cross‑training teammates. The objective is to build a resilient, knowledge‑sharing organization where critical expertise is institutionalized rather than dependent on any one individual. Deep expertise held privately by one person is expressly not the goal of this role.

Key Responsibilities:

• Primary owner — Azure: administer, and support the firm’s Azure estate, including Landing Zone, IaaS/PaaS, Entra ID / AAD Connect synchronization, SSO, Conditional Access, and MFA; lead workload migrations from on-premises to Azure.
  Strong hands‑on experience with Microsoft SQL Server (2014 through 2022) — required. Must be able to plan and execute SQL version upgrades and failover‑cluster node‑evict/rebuild procedures, and to distinguish platform‑owned SQL work from application‑owned SQL work.
• Primary owner and designated SME — SQL Server platform: own the SQL Server platform end to end as defined in the SQL Responsibilities Rider — installation, patching, and version/edition upgrades; Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering, and DR runbooks; backups, restores, and validated recovery testing; Serve as first‑touch triage for all SQL tickets entering the Operations queue and route application‑owned SQL work to the appropriate application team.
• Primary owner — VMware and VMware SRM: administer vSphere/vCenter across multiple sites; own DR replication and recovery plans in Site Recovery Manager, including scheduled failover testing and validated recovery documentation.
• Primary owner — Storage: administer Pure Storage and HPE 3PAR arrays — provisioning, capacity and performance management, firmware lifecycle, and replication.
• Primary owner — Dell server hardware: Dell OpenManage and Dell blade chassis — firmware lifecycle, hardware fault remediation, and vendor RMA coordination.
• Primary owner — Monitoring: SolarWinds — node coverage accuracy, alert tuning, and reduction of alert noise so that alerts are trusted and actioned.
• Primary owner — Enterprise application certificates: full lifecycle management, a maintained renewal calendar, and prevention of expiry‑driven outages.
• Secondary owner: Active Directory and Exchange On‑Premises - (on‑premises), providing depth behind the existing primary owners.
• Escalation point: serve as the senior technical escalation for the Infrastructure Operations team; take ownership of major incidents, drive root cause to closure, and publish a written RCA.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Microsoft‑driven server OS technologies Windows Server 2012/2016/2019/2022, including in‑place upgrades and failover‑cluster methodologies (a Windows Server 2012 end‑of‑life refresh, including 14 SQL cluster nodes, is currently in flight).
• Hands‑on experience with Azure, PaaS, IaaS, and workload migrations to Azure — required.
• Administration experience of the Virtualization (Azure and on‑prem VMware) environment across multiple sites — required. HyperV experience a plus.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Active Directory (Group Policies, ACL management, etc.), PowerShell scripting.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Office 365; EOL as well as Exchange on‑prem with experience implementing and migrating to Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive.
• 1Password, Barracuda, Atlassian Jira project and issue management for daily work, LanSweeper, Dell hardware, OpenManage Enterprise, Intune, Pure Storage, SolarWinds, Varonis, Veeam experience a plus.

Qualifications

• Broad hands‑on knowledge of Server Infrastructure and Cloud technologies and other industry-standard techniques and best practices.
• Knowledge of applicable practices and laws relating to data privacy and protection.
• Ability to conduct research into new technologies and products as required.
• High level of analytical and problem‑solving abilities.
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high‑pressure environment.
• Highly self‑motivated and directed.
• Ability to work within a team‑oriented, collaborative environment and independently when applicable.
• Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communications skills.
• Strategic and creative thinking.
• Strong documentation required and Visio diagram experience a plus.
• Communicate with management, peers, and office administrators, and demonstrate strong customer service skills.
• This position is dedicated to the infrastructure team to perform all activities associated with managing, supporting, and troubleshooting in a large, complex, and widely distributed environment.
• Participate in a weekly on‑call rotation that begins at 8AM Mondays and rotates with the team every 4‑5 weeks
• College or University degree in a related field or 10+ years equivalent work experience.
• Certifications in ITIL, Agile, and/or other technical acumen (Microsoft, Azure, O365) a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience; a minimum of 7 years of hands‑on infrastructure engineering experience, including at least 3 years in a senior or escalation capacity.
• Broad hands‑on knowledge of server infrastructure, SQL Server, and cloud technologies, and other industry‑standard techniques and best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to act as a final technical escalation point — calm, methodical, and decisive under major‑incident pressure.
• Ability to produce documentation another engineer can execute without assistance — this is a primary measure of success in this role.
• Relevant certifications preferred: Microsoft Azure Administrator (AZ-104) or Azure Solutions Architect (AZ-305); Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate (DP-300) or equivalent SQL Server credential; VMware VCP-DCV; ITIL Foundation.

Wilson Elser offers a competitive salary and benefits package designed to support our attorneys both professionally and personally.

A variety of factors are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to experience, education, licensure and/or certifications, geographic location, market demands, other business and organizational needs, and other factors permitted by law. Final salary wages offered may be outside of this range based on other reasons and individual circumstances. This position is considered full‑time and therefore qualifies for benefits including 401(k) retirement savings plan, medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

Salary Range:

$120,000 - $165,000 USD

Why Should You Apply?

• Benefits:Outstanding benefits package, including 401k match and generous PTO plan
• Career Growth:Ample opportunities for professional development and advancement
• Employee Perks:Access to corporate discount plans and other benefits

Wilson Elser is committed to a collegial work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. It is the Firm's policy that employment will be based on merit, qualifications, and competence. Further, employment decisions will be made without regard to an applicants race, color, age, sex, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity, physical or mental disability, status as a victim of domestic violence, sex offenses, or stalking, past or present service in the uniformed services or application or obligation to serve in the uniformed services, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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