Senior OpenShift Virtualization Engineer

Role: Senior OpenShift Virtualization Engineer   

Location: Remote

Senior OpenShift Virtualization Engineer

(VMware Migration & Platform Modernization)

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior OpenShift Virtualization Engineer to lead the design, implementation, and operationalization of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization as a strategic virtualization platform. This role will serve as a technical leader for evaluating, migrating, and modernizing enterprise virtual infrastructure, with a primary focus on transitioning workloads from VMware vSphere/ESXi environments to OpenShift Virtualization.

The ideal candidate possesses deep expertise in KVM-based virtualization, Red Hat OpenShift, KubeVirt (optional), enterprise infrastructure, and large-scale VMware migration programs. The engineer will be responsible for designing migration strategies, automating deployment processes, validating platform readiness, and ensuring production-grade operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Engineering

• Architect, deploy, and maintain highly available OpenShift Virtualization clusters.
• Design scalable virtualization platforms supporting both virtual machine and container workloads.
• Configure and optimize storage, networking, security, monitoring, and backup solutions within OpenShift environments.
• Develop standards, reference architectures, operational procedures, and platform governance models.

VMware Migration Leadership

• Lead migrations from VMware ESXi/vSphere to OpenShift Virtualization.
• Assess existing VMware environments and create migration roadmaps.
• Define migration waves, dependency mapping, rollback plans, and validation procedures.
• Utilize Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV/Forklift) to automate workload migrations. Migration tooling is a key capability highlighted in vendor documentation.
• Execute proof-of-concept, pilot, and production migration activities.
• Validate workload performance, functionality, availability, and disaster recovery after migration.

Automation & Infrastructure as Code

• Develop automation using:

• Ansible Automation Platform
• GitOps methodologies
• Terraform
• OpenShift Operators
• CI/CD pipelines

• Automate cluster deployment, lifecycle operations, VM provisioning, and configuration management.

Storage & Data Services

• Engineer storage integrations using enterprise storage platforms.
• Implement CSI-based storage solutions and persistent storage strategies.
• Design migration procedures for VMDK-to-PVC conversion, storage class mapping, and data movement workflows. These capabilities are central to VMware-to-OpenShift migration processes documented by Red Hat and NetApp.

Operations & Reliability

• Establish monitoring, logging, alerting, capacity planning, and performance management practices.
• Support high availability, backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements.
• Develop operational runbooks and troubleshooting guides.
• Participate in architecture reviews and strategic infrastructure planning.

Technical Leadership

• Provide mentorship to infrastructure, virtualization, and platform engineering teams.
• Serve as a subject matter expert for OpenShift Virtualization and KubeVirt (optional).
• Collaborate with application owners, security teams, storage engineers, and cloud platform teams.
• Present technical recommendations to senior leadership and stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 8+ years of enterprise infrastructure engineering experience.
• 5+ years supporting VMware vSphere and ESXi environments.
• 3+ years of hands-on Red Hat OpenShift administration and engineering experience.
• Proven experience leading VMware-to-OpenShift Virtualization migration initiatives.
• Experience migrating production workloads involving:

• Windows Server
• Linux platforms
• Tier-1 business applications
• Enterprise databases

Technical Skills

OpenShift

• Red Hat OpenShift Platform
• OpenShift Virtualization
• Operators and Operator Lifecycle Management

VMware

• VMware ESXi
• VMware vSphere
• VMware vCenter
• VM lifecycle management
• Datastore and networking architecture
• vMotion and migration planning

Migration Technologies

• Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV/Forklift)
• Workload discovery and assessment
• Migration planning and execution
• Cutover and rollback procedures
• VM conversion methodologies

Automation

• Ansible
• Terraform
• Git
• GitOps frameworks
• Python, Bash, or PowerShell

Storage & Networking

• CSI storage integrations
• SAN/NAS technologies
• Enterprise storage platforms
• Software-defined networking
• VLANs, load balancing, DNS, and identity integration

Preferred Qualifications

• Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration
• Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• VMware VCP or VCAP certification
• Experience with NetApp, Pure Storage, Dell PowerFlex, or similar enterprise storage platforms
• Experience supporting environments with 1,000+ virtual machines
• Experience implementing hybrid cloud and platform modernization strategies

Desired Leadership Characteristics

• Strategic thinker with strong architecture skills.
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale infrastructure transformation programs.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction and drive adoption of new platforms.
• Ability to balance operational stability with modernization objectives.

Success Metrics

• Successful migration of VMware workloads to OpenShift Virtualization.
• Reduction in operational complexity through automation.
• Achievement of platform performance and availability targets.
• Delivery of repeatable migration frameworks and processes.
• Adoption of OpenShift Virtualization as a strategic enterprise platform.
• Improved infrastructure agility through convergence of VM and container workloads.