Senior Infrastructure Engineer - AIX & Linux

*contract to hire

*Hybrid onsite in Columbus, Ohio

Our Columbus, Ohio client is growing their infrastructure team and has a contract-to-hire opportunity for a Senior Infrastructure Engineer - AIX & Linux who is hungry to own their platform and drive real change. As the Senior Infrastructure Engineer for AIX and Linux, you'll set the direction for UNIX/Linux compute at enterprise scale, build automation that genuinely eliminates toil, and bring hybrid cloud instincts to a team that's actively modernizing

.

You'll own reliability, security, and performance across AIX, Linux, VMware, storage, and DR—partnering closely with Security, AppDev, Data, and Networking. If you love deep-dive performance troubleshooting, have strong opinions about platform standards, and get excited about what modern tooling can do for infrastructure operations, this role was built for yo

u.

Responsibilit

iesAIX, Linux, and platform lifecy

• cleLead lifecycle management for AIX (LPARs, VIO, NIM) and Linux (RHEL/SLES/Ubuntu): provisioning, patching, kernel updates, tuning, and OS hardeni
• ng.Maintain platform standards: golden images, baselines, and configuration drift detecti
• on.Tune OS and kernel parameters, multipathing, and I/O stacks for latency-sensitive workloa

ds.Virtualization, storage, and hybrid cl

• oudAdminister and optimize VMware vSphere (ESXi, vCenter, DRS/HA, vMotion), HMC, and shared storage patterns including vSAN or enterprise arra
• ys.Operate hybrid IaaS/PaaS workloads in AWS/Azure: compute, storage, networking, identity integrations; apply landing zones and guardrai
• ls.Enforce configuration management with Ansible, Terraform, and Git-based pipelines for repeatable deploymen

ts.Service optimization and cost managem

• entAnalyze utilization and recommend rightsizing, reservations or savings plans, storage tiering, and archival strategi
• es.Automate to eliminate toil: scheduled automation, self-healing playbooks, autoscaling where appropria
• te.Track and report cloud spend and data center TCO; propose optimizations and lifecycle retiremen
• ts.Standardize images and baselines to reduce variance and operational overhe

ad.Security, compliance, and risk managem

• entApply CIS benchmarks and vendor hardening guides for AIX, Linux, VMware, and cloud workloads; meet patch and vulnerability SL
• As.Integrate IAM and RBAC patterns across on-premises and cloud; enforce MFA, least privilege, and key rotati
• on.Implement encryption in transit and at rest, certificate lifecycle, and secrets management (for example HashiCorp Vault, cloud KM
• S).Design, test, and exercise BC/DR runbooks including multi-site failover and restore validati

on.Technical leadership, observability, and capac

• ityProvide architectural guidance on AIX/Linux modernization, VMware consolidation, storage rationalization, and cloud adopti
• on.Evaluate new tools through pilots and structured production onboardi
• ng.Build observability across metrics, logs, and traces (for example Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, SolarWind
• s).Forecast compute, memory, network, and storage growth; drive procurement and expansion planni

ng.Documentation, reporting, and collaborat

• ionMaintain architectural diagrams, runbooks, service catalogs, and CMDB or asset recor
• ds.Produce operational health, capacity, and cost dashboards; communicate risk registers and remediati
• on.Document incidents, RCAs, lessons learned, and onboarding guid
• es.Partner with Security, AppDev, Data, and Networking; coordinate vendors and MSPs to SL
• Os.Champion AIX-to-Linux modernization and cloud migration pathways; own the platform rationalization roadmap and drive lifecycle retirements proactively. Champion reliability, automation, and continuous improvement as cultural defaults, not afterthough

ts.Leveraging AI for UNIX, Linux, and infrastructure automat

ionDense OS logs, long Ansible/Terraform modules, and repetitive incident patterns are exactly where AI earns its keep. We use enterprise-approved tooling to move faster without cutting corners—and we expect senior engineers to lead by examp

• le.Turn walls of sar, iostat, vmstat, and AIX perf output into ranked diagnostic hypotheses in minutes rather than hours—then validate and act with your own judgment before any chan
• ge.Accelerate Ansible playbooks, Terraform modules, and pipeline scaffolding with AI coding assistants—ship faster with peer review, linting, and controlled rollout, not slower with approval theat
• er.Compress long incident threads and RCAs into crisp executive summaries and durable knowledge articles that engineers actually referen
• ce.Assist with documentation of complex multipathing, clustering (PowerHA, Pacemaker), and DR drills from structured inputs and SME revi
• ew.Where available, use enterprise AIOps or log intelligence features to reduce alert noise and surface anomalies alongside traditional SRE practic

es.

Experi

• ence10+ years administering UNIX/Linux platforms, including AIX (LPAR/VIOS/NIM) and enterprise Linux (RHEL/SLES/Ubun
• tu).7+ years managing VMware vSphere in production (HA/DRS, Lifecycle Manager, clusters at sca
• le).5+ years managing enterprise storage (FC/iSCSI/NFS), snapshots, replication, and performance troubleshoot
• ing.Hands-on automation with Ansible, scripting (Bash, Python), and Terraform for hybrid infrastruct

ure.

Expert s

• killsAIX: LPAR/VIOS architecture, NIM provisioning, mksysb and cloning, SEA/NPIV, LPM, ODM and device management, OS tuning, troubleshoo
• ting.Linux: kernel parameters (sysctl), systemd, SELinux or AppArmor, multipathd, LVM, filesystems (ext4, xfs), kdump, performance tooling (perf, sar, ios
• tat).Security and compliance: CIS-style hardening, patch orchestration, vulnerability workflows, privileged access, encryption, audit evid

ence.

Advanced

• skillsAdvanced AIX: POWER system architecture and LPAR density optimization, NIM automation at scale, TL/SP upgrade orchestration across large environments—building on but going beyond day-to-day LPAR administr
• ation.Strong AIX/Linux storage: multipathing, SAN/NAS integration, filesystem tuning, I/O optimiz
• ation.High availability: PowerHA, Pacemaker and Corosync, clustering, quorum, failover and runbook valid
• ation.Security automation: SSH, sudo, PAM, audit frameworks, configuration enforc
• ement.Deep performance analysis: CPU, memory, I/O, and network bottlenecks with advanced OS diagno
• stics.Familiarity with container platforms (RHEL OpenShift, Kubernetes) and GitOps patterns as the Linux estate evolves is a plus. Experience with enterprise-approved AI coding assistants and structured log analysis tooling in regulated environments is also v

alued.