Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc., (SGA), is searching for a Server Engineering Lead for a Direct Hire opportunity with one of our premier clients in Menasha, WI. The Server Engineer - Lead is a senior technical contributor responsible for architecting, operating, and optimizing organizations enterprise compute and virtualization ecosystem. This role ensures the security, stability, scalability, and lifecycle management of a large fleet of Intel-based server hardware and virtual infrastructure built on VMware and other hypervisors that support critical manufacturing, ERP, engineering, and enterprise business applications across data center and hybrid cloud environments. The successful candidate will combine deep expertise in enterprise server hardware, virtualization, automation, and infrastructure operations to drive operational excellence, standardization, resiliency, and modernization. They will be accountable for the full compute platform stack, from hardware strategy and firmware governance to virtualization design, performance optimization, capacity planning, and operational support, while advancing automation, monitoring, and platform engineering practices that improve reliability and efficiency at scale. Enterprise Compute and Virtualization Platform Management Lead the architecture, implementation, lifecycle management, and operational support of large-scale enterprise compute environment, including Intel-based server platforms and virtualization platforms based on VMware and other hypervisors. Manage server hardware standards, platform design, firmware strategy, host lifecycle management, and infrastructure refresh planning across the enterprise. Oversee the health, performance, availability, and capacity of virtualization environments, including hypervisor hosts, management platforms, clusters, distributed resource scheduling, and high availability configurations. Design and maintain resilient compute and virtualization solutions that support mission-critical enterprise workloads with strong emphasis on uptime, recoverability, and operational consistency. Partner with storage, networking, backup, security, and application teams to ensure end-to-end performance and reliability of hosted workloads. Establish and maintain operational standards for provisioning, patching, upgrades, host remediation, and configuration consistency across the compute estate. Infrastructure Operations and Platform Reliability Serve as a senior escalation point for complex server hardware and virtualization incidents, leading root-cause analysis and restoration efforts for critical platform issues. Drive proactive management of system health, resource utilization, hardware events, performance bottlenecks, and operational risks across the compute environment. Lead capacity planning and performance optimization efforts for compute, memory, clustering, and virtualization resources to support current and future business demand. Oversee platform resilience through design and support of high-availability, fault-tolerant, and disaster recovery aligned infrastructure services. Ensure enterprise operational readiness for maintenance events, lifecycle transitions, incident response, and business continuity requirements. Automation and Infrastructure-as-Code Architect and maintain automated workflows using tools such as Ansible, Terraform, PowerCLI, and scripting languages such as PowerShell or Python for provisioning, configuration management, patching, and compliance activities. Build and enhance automation for hypervisor host deployment, cluster configuration, lifecycle management, and policy enforcement. Codify operational procedures and infrastructure standards into repeatable, auditable automation workflows to reduce manual effort and improve consistency. Support infrastructure change through automated validation, testing, and deployment processes that improve quality and reduce risk. Virtualization Ecosystem and Modern Platform Integration Lead engineering and administration of virtualization platforms, including core hypervisor services, cluster design, host profiles, virtual networking coordination, and integration with enterprise storage and backup platforms. Maintain deep expertise in Vmware, as well as other hypervisors and technologies that make up enterprise compute portfolio. Maintain familiarity with adjacent technologies supporting the virtual infrastructure ecosystem, including hyperconverged platforms, disaster recovery tooling, monitoring systems, VMware Aria Operations, container platforms, and hybrid cloud extensions where applicable. Maintain familiarity with public cloud compute services and how enterprise workloads, recovery strategies, and management practices may extend into Azure, AWS, or similar environments as part of a broader infrastructure portfolio. Collaborate with platform, cloud, and application teams to support evolving infrastructure patterns, including integration with private cloud and container-hosting platforms where virtual infrastructure is foundational. Provide technical leadership on modernization opportunities that improve efficiency, scalability, recoverability, and operational simplicity across the enterprise compute platform. Monitoring, Visibility, and Operational Insight Maintain and enhance platform visibility through enterprise monitoring, alerting, and performance analytics tools, including VMware Aria Operations, Grafana, and related ecosystem tooling, to support rapid issue detection and response. Establish dashboards, alert thresholds, and operational reporting for server hardware health, virtualization performance, resource consumption, capacity trends, and availability. Use telemetry, trend analysis, and platform insights to inform capacity decisions, lifecycle planning, and service improvement initiatives. Partner with enterprise monitoring and operations teams to improve actionable insight across the compute and virtualization landscape. Collaboration and Leadership Serve as a subject matter expert and technical leader for enterprise server hardware and virtualization technologies. Mentor junior engineers and help establish best practices for compute operations, virtualization engineering, automation, lifecycle management, and operational monitoring. Collaborate cross-functionally with infrastructure, security, architecture, and application stakeholders to align platform capabilities with business priorities. Contribute to strategic planning, roadmaps, standards development, and investment recommendations for enterprise compute and virtualization services.

YOUR IMPACT

The Server Engineer - Lead is essential to ensuring the stability, performance, and evolution of enterprise compute and virtualization ecosystem. By combining deep server expertise with strong knowledge of VMware, VMware Aria Operations, and other hypervisors, along with operational leadership and automation discipline, this role drives reliability, standardization, and scalability across one of the company's most critical infrastructure foundations. This position is a cornerstone of modern infrastructure operations, balancing day-to-day platform resilience with the engineering rigor required to support future growth, modernization, and digital transformation. An advance understanding of multiple server aspects and environment in order to take ownership of most aspects from end to end. Other duties as assigned. Regular attendance is required.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Five (5) or more years of experience in the field or in a related area. Monitoring, troubleshooting, customer service, problem solving, cross team collaboration, risk analysis, analytical, operating systems, hardware, infrastructure design, scripting Strong communication, time management, problem solving, teamwork, leadership, mentoring, project management, business acumen, requirements gathering, planning.

STANDOUT QUALIFICATIONS

Experience:

7+ years administering and architecting enterprise server infrastructure and virtualization environments at scale.

Technical Expertise:

Deep understanding of Intel-based enterprise server hardware, VMware vSphere, ESXi, vCenter, VMware Aria Operations, and comparable virtualization platforms, including clustering, virtualization performance tuning, and infrastructure lifecycle management.

Platform Operations:

Strong experience managing large virtualized environments supporting mission-critical enterprise applications in a highly available and regulated setting.

Automation:

Proficiency with Ansible, Terraform, PowerCLI, and scripting languages such as PowerShell or Python for infrastructure automation and operational efficiency.

Hardware Lifecycle Management:

Experience with firmware baselines, hardware compatibility, server provisioning, vendor interoperability, and compute platform refresh strategy.

Ecosystem Knowledge:

Strong understanding of integration points across compute, storage, networking, backup, disaster recovery, identity, monitoring, and container platforms.

Container Familiarity:

Familiarity with container management platforms and how virtual infrastructure supports solutions such as OpenShift, Kubernetes, or similar enterprise container ecosystems.

Public Cloud Familiarity:

Working familiarity with public cloud compute services and adjacent infrastructure patterns in Azure, AWS, or similar environments, with understanding of how they complement enterprise data center operations.

Monitoring and Reliability:

Experience with enterprise monitoring, alerting, and operational visibility platforms used to manage compute and virtualization health and performance, including VMware Aria Operations or similar platforms.

Leadership:

Demonstrated ability to lead complex infrastructure initiatives, mentor technical staff, and drive cross-functional operational improvements.

Soft Skills:

Strong analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills with a focus on platform stability, scalability, and continuous improvement. SGA is a technology and resource solutions provider driven to stand out. We are a women-owned business.

Our mission:

to solve big IT problems with a more personal, boutique approach. Each year, we match consultants like you to more than 1,000 engagements. When we say let's work better together, we mean it. You'll join a diverse team built on these core values: customer service, employee development, and quality and integrity in everything we do. Be yourself, love what you do and find your passion at work. Please find us at . SGA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of Race, Color, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Religion, National Origin, Disability, Veteran Status, Age, Marital Status, Pregnancy, Genetic Information, or Other Legally Protected Status. We are committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, and our services, programs, and activities. Please visit our company to request an accommodation or assistance regarding our policy. #LI-DM1