Senior Windows Server & VMware Infrastructure Architect

Location: New York City, NY — Onsite
Project: Bureau of Wastewater Treatment (BWT)
Work Sites: 26th Ward and North River facilities
Engagement Type: 1099 Contract
Compensation: $80-$90/hr

Initial Duration: Approximately 30–60 days at full-time hours
Ongoing Support: Up to 20 hours per week following the initial project phase

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Windows Server & VMware Infrastructure Architect to support a critical infrastructure initiative for the Bureau of Wastewater Treatment (BWT) in New York City.

This is a hands-on consulting engagement focused on assessing, stabilizing, designing, and improving enterprise Windows Server, VMware virtualization, network, storage, backup, and disaster recovery environments across multiple onsite facilities.

The selected consultant should be comfortable operating independently in complex production environments, identifying infrastructure risks, developing practical solutions, and performing hands-on implementation work. This is not a purely advisory architecture position; the consultant will be expected to actively configure, troubleshoot, document, and optimize servers, virtualization platforms, backups, storage, and network components.

The engagement is expected to begin with approximately 30–60 days of full-time project work, followed by an ongoing support requirement of no more than approximately 20 hours per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess the current Windows Server, VMware, storage, network, and backup infrastructure across designated BWT facilities.
• Design, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot enterprise Windows Server environments, including Windows Server 2016, 2019, and 2022.
• Manage and optimize VMware infrastructure, including VMware ESXi, vSphere, and vCenter.
• Build, configure, migrate, and troubleshoot virtual machines and supporting VMware infrastructure.
• Review and optimize server disk configurations, storage volumes, partitions, datastores, and available capacity.
• Evaluate existing backup configurations and develop reliable backup and recovery strategies.
• Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot enterprise backup technologies such as Veeam, Commvault, Backup Exec, Cohesity, or comparable platforms.
• Perform and validate backup restores to confirm recoverability and business continuity.
• Assist with disaster recovery planning, testing, documentation, and implementation.
• Troubleshoot complex server, storage, virtualization, and network performance issues.
• Configure and support Microsoft Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, and related Windows infrastructure services.
• Design and support secure network segmentation using VLANs, subnets, routing, switching, and firewall technologies.
• Review VMware networking configurations, virtual switches, VLAN assignments, and connectivity between virtual and physical environments.
• Support physical and virtual server deployments, migrations, upgrades, and infrastructure refresh efforts.
• Perform server and infrastructure capacity planning and recommend hardware, software, and storage improvements.
• Identify outdated, unsupported, or high-risk infrastructure components and provide remediation recommendations.
• Coordinate infrastructure changes while minimizing production downtime.
• Work closely with internal technical teams, facility personnel, vendors, and project stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, including server inventories, network diagrams, backup procedures, system configurations, recovery procedures, and SOPs.
• Provide knowledge transfer and technical guidance to internal IT personnel.
• Transition completed project work into an ongoing part-time support and maintenance model.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive professional experience supporting and architecting enterprise Windows Server environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Windows Server 2016, 2019, and/or 2022.
• Advanced knowledge of VMware ESXi, vSphere, and vCenter.
• Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting VMware virtual environments.
• Strong experience with enterprise backup and recovery technologies.
• Hands-on experience with at least one major backup platform such as Veeam, Commvault, Cohesity, Backup Exec, or similar.
• Demonstrated experience performing server and/or…