Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Email Migration to Microsoft 365

Project Manager USA, Inc.(DBA PM America); Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Project Manager USA, Inc. (PM America) seeks a Subject Matter Expert to lead end-to-end email migration to Microsoft 365 for a 12-month contract. The role spans onsite and remote work in Washington, DC and Gaithersburg, MD, overseeing six lifecycle phases with governance, risk, and stakeholder reporting.

The expert will architect the migration, configure EV to M365, manage waves, and verify compliance, eDiscovery, and decommissioning activities. Strong FedGov project experience is required.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8–10+ years of IT Project Management in complex enterprise data migrations.
• Proven track record leading federal civilian agency IT projects.
• Familiarity with PMBOK and MS Project/Jira/Visio/Power BI.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end migration lifecycle across six phases: Assessment, Design, Pilot, Production Migration, Validation, Decommissioning.
• Design migration architecture connecting Enterprise Vault to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online & Purview.
• Manage ingestion pipelines, target quotas, and ingestion configurations via Graph/PowerShell.
• Coordinate governance, schedule tracking, risk management, and weekly stakeholder reporting.
• Ensure data fidelity, legal hold fidelity, and eDiscovery parity before/after data movement.

Skills

PMBOK

MS Project

Jira

Power BI

Enterprise Vault

Transvault

Exchange Online

Entra ID

PowerShell

Data migration

Education

PMP (Project Management Professional)

Transvault Certified Master

Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert

CEDS (Certified E-Discovery Specialist)

Tools

Transvault Migration Engine

Microsoft Purview

Exchange Online

Job description

Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Email Migration to Microsoft 365

Job Description

Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Email Migration to Microsoft 365

Onsite Location

Onsite & Remote Work Mix, Washington, DC & Gaithersburg, MD

Position Type

Contract Position

Duration

12 Months

Role Overview

• Serves as the primary operational contact and governance lead responsible for end-to-end execution, schedule tracking, and risk management across all six phases of the project lifecycle.
• Lead technical authority responsible for designing the overall migration architecture, ingestion pipeline, target tenant mapping, and network performance strategy.
• Subject matter expert responsible for extracting source data from on-premises EV archive, managing migration waves, and decommissioning legacy infrastructure.
• Target environment engineers responsible for preparing, configuring, and optimizing the M365 environment to receive migrated email archives.
• Compliance specialist responsible for maintaining chain-of-custody integrity, verifying legal hold fidelity, and performing eDiscovery search parity testing before and after data movement.

• Direct and coordinate project execution across Assessment, Design, Pilot, Production Migration, Validation, and Decommissioning phases.
• Maintain dedicated governance threads and weekly reporting with Customer’s technical and business stakeholders.
• Track critical path items, including EV Health Check findings, pilot go/no-go decisions, and final reconciliation gates.
• Manage deliverable sign-offs, risk registers, and scope changes.

• Design the end-to-end migration architecture connecting Enterprise Vault (EV) to Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online & Purview).
• Establish network throughput models, bandwidth requirements, and target M365 throttling mitigation strategies.
• Define target mailbox structures, metadata mappings, and automated validation scripts.
• Author solution architecture diagrams, network flows, and data security models.
• Perform pre-migration EV Health Checks, archive sizing, item count inventories, and index validation.
• Install, configure, and operate Transvault extractors and EV connect engines in a read-only source setup.
• Execute pilot (1–5 TB) and phased wave production migrations (~170 TB total across user and journal archives).
• Perform delta synchronizations, server/database cleanup, service shutdowns, and post-migration decommissioning of EV infrastructure.
• Prepare target Exchange Online mailboxes, Purview archive mailboxes, and Entra ID identity/user mappings.
• Manage ingestion pipelines, target quotas, and Microsoft Graph / PowerShell ingestion configurations.
• Schedule wave executions within established maintenance windows to ensure zero impact on live production users.
• Monitor ingestion logs and optimize pipeline performance.
• Conduct pre-migration and post-migration eDiscovery baseline searches to verify data fidelity and accessibility.
• Maintain message-level auditing, granular error logs, and chain-of-custody documentation for all ~170 TB of data.
• Validate that legal holds, retention policies, and compliance settings in Microsoft Purview match EV settings.
• Investigate, log, and disposition migration exceptions or corrupt items.

Required Qualifications & Skills

Experience

• Minimum 8–10+ years of IT Project Management experience managing complex enterprise data migrations and cloud transformations.
• Proven track record leading federal civilian agency IT projects.
• Proficiency in project management frameworks (PMBOK) and tools (MS Project, Jira, Visio, Power BI).
• Familiarity with federal IT compliance, FISMA, and record retention lifecycle mandates.
• Minimum 8+ years as a Cloud Solutions Architect specializing in enterprise messaging and archive migrations.
• Hands-on architecture experience with Symantec/Veritas/Arctera Enterprise Vault and M365 enterprise tenants.
• In-depth expertise in Transvault Migration Engine, Exchange Online, Microsoft Purview, Entra ID, and Azure infrastructure.
• Advanced PowerShell scripting for target preparation and batch automation.
• Minimum 5–7 years of specialized hands‑on experience managing and migrating Veritas/Arctera Enterprise Vault environments.
• Experience handling multi-terabyte enterprise archive extractions and exception remediation.

• Minimum 5+ years of systems engineering experience focusing on Microsoft 365 enterprise administration and Exchange Online.
• Exchange Online, Microsoft Purview, Entra ID, PowerShell automation, Azure Active Directory Connect, TLS/Firewall networking.
• Minimum 4–6 years in digital forensics, eDiscovery management, or IT compliance within a legal or federal environment.
• Microsoft Purview (eDiscovery Standard/Premium & In-Place Hold), Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator, Audit Log analysis, Power BI reporting.

Certifications

• PMP (Project Management Professional) required. CSM or PgMP preferred.
• Microsoft Certified: Cybersecurity Architect Expert, Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert, or Transvault Certified Master.
• Microsoft Certified: Messaging Administrator Associate or Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Associate.
• Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) or Microsoft Certified: Information Protection and Compliance Administrator Associate preferred.

Security Clearance

• Public Trust / Moderate Risk Background Investigation (MBI) or ability to obtain.