Red Hat Infrastructure Architect

The Senior Consultant - VMware to Red Hat OpenStack/OpenShift Virtualization Migration architects and leads the technical transition from legacy VMware environments to modern Red Hat platforms. This is a highly technical, hands-on staff augmentation role designed for a seasoned infrastructure professional who has successfully directed production-grade platform migrations within enterprise environments. The consultant evaluates target architectures (including Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift - RHOSO - and OpenShift Virtualization), designs target-state network and storage architectures, develops migration runbooks, and leads execution waves while collaborating with executive leadership to manage risk and license cost avoidance., * Lead a thorough platform evaluation between Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift (RHOSO) and OpenShift Virtualization, providing strategic recommendations based on workload profiles and infrastructure goals.

• Design the target-state infrastructure architecture, including advanced networking (Neutron/OVN or OpenShift SDN), storage systems (Ceph/Cinder or CSI-backed storage), multi-tenancy models, and high-availability control planes.
• Collaborate with network security teams to integrate segmentation, firewalling, and compliance policies into the modern target environment.

Migration Strategy & Hands-On Execution

• Own the end-to-end migration strategy and sequencing, including pilot workload selection, wave planning, fallback procedures, and cutover windows.
• Execute migrations using Red Hat’s migration tooling, such as the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV) or the Ansible-based OpenStack VMware migration toolkit.
• Troubleshoot and resolve critical migration blockers for complex enterprise workloads (including custom network routing, storage dependencies, and legacy application constraints).

Operations, Governance, & Leadership

• Establish Day 2 operational guidelines, covering patch management, automated backups, disaster recovery (DR), capacity management, and system monitoring.
• Mentor and direct supporting engineering teams tasked with executing migration waves.
• Author detailed technical documentation, migration runbooks, and knowledge transfer plans to enable internal teams to operate the platform post-engagement.
• Interface directly with enterprise leadership to present progress, technical risks, budget considerations, and licensing tradeoffs, including VMware license cost avoidance.

• 8 or more years of professional experience in infrastructure or virtualization engineering, with 3 or more years of hands-on experience utilizing Red Hat OpenStack Platform, RHOSO, and/or OpenShift Virtualization.
• Demonstrated experience leading at least one large-scale VMware-to-Red Hat migration in a production enterprise environment (such as telecommunications, internet service providers, or highly regulated industries).
• Deep technical expertise in OpenStack core services, including Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Keystone, and Glance.
• Strong Kubernetes and OpenShift fundamentals, including experience with OpenShift operators.
• In-depth knowledge of Software-Defined Networking (SDN), including OVN, Neutron networking, and VLAN/overlay network design.
• Proven experience with storage architectures, including Ceph, Cinder-backed storage, or equivalent enterprise CSI-backed storage.
• Hands-on experience deploying and configuring Red Hat’s migration tooling, such as the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV) or Ansible-based migration playbooks.
• Strong Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system administration and Ansible automation capabilities.
• Proven ability to design high-availability (HA) control planes and resilient architectures for mission-critical infrastructure.
• Excellent stakeholder communication skills with experience presenting technical findings, risk analyses, and project statuses to executive leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced certifications, such as Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) or equivalent credentials.
• Professional experience supporting telecommunications, internet service provider (ISP), or network operations environments.
• Prior experience managing VMware license cost-avoidance business cases and licensing models.
• Familiarity with GPU or accelerator virtualization (such as NVIDIA or AMD frameworks) for AI and high-performance workloads.
• Experience integrating modern virtualization platforms with existing enterprise Identity and Access Management (IAM) and security frameworks., * Polished professional with exceptional advisory and consulting capabilities to guide senior leadership through strategic choices.
• Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills to systematically troubleshoot and resolve complex technical blockers.
• Collaborative team player with the leadership capability to mentor and coordinate distributed engineering teams.
• High degree of operational accountability, with a self-motivated approach to managing and delivering complex infrastructure deliverables.

• Competitive salary