Senior End User Platform Engineer

Location: Hybrid in Columbia, SC
Contract: W2 only, 12 month contract with potential for extension or conversion to full time 
Pay: $58 /hour + optional medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match

Overview

This role involves owning and evolving end-user platform services and infrastructure roadmaps across Citrix (on-prem + cloud), VDI, VPN/Zero Trust (Zscaler or equivalent), Intune, and workstation services. The position emphasizes platform strategy, lifecycle planning, standards/best practices, vendor and stakeholder partnership, and mentoring, rather than help desk or break/fix support.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform technical interviews and analysis with vendors and stakeholders to develop and track infrastructure roadmaps and lifecycles (hardware/software/products/processes).
• Schedule and participate in regular vendor/stakeholder touchpoints (meetings, calls, on-site visits) to stay current on upcoming changes and initiatives.
• Research and monitor developments impacting supported technologies, products, and processes.
• Facilitate the establishment, implementation, and maintenance of best practices, policies, standards, and desktop procedures used by operations teams.
• Assist with research and development of new products, including evaluation, integration, and procedures/standards of use.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships and open communication with vendors, operations, architecture, and management.
• Provide guidance and training to less experienced staff on technology analysis responsibilities and platform practices.

Required Skills

• Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops (On-Prem & Cloud)
  • XenApp/XenDesktop, NetScaler, StoreFront, Windows Server, Active Directory
  • High availability, performance tuning, security
• Secure Remote Access / Zero Trust
  • Zscaler (or equivalent), VPN technologies, migration away from legacy remote access models
• VDI & endpoint platforms
  • Windows workstation platforms, VDI integration, cross-platform dependency awareness
• Enterprise networking & security integration
  • Firewalls, certificates, TLS, access controls, traffic routing, security tooling impacts to endpoints/remote access
• 7 years specific knowledge of supported technologies, products, and/or processes.
• 3 years directly supporting those technologies, products, and/or processes (may be concurrent).

Required Education

• Bachelor''s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field, or
• 4 years of job-related work experience, or
• 2 years of job-related experience plus an associate’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field.

Nice to Have

• Citrix modernization (cloud & on-prem): LTSR upgrades, StoreFront optimization, infrastructure reduction.
• Zero Trust / remote access design: Patterns to replace or augment VPN/Citrix.
• Endpoint & virtual workspace integration: Remote access solutions with workstation OS standards and VDI platforms.

Not Looking For

• Entry-level or mid-level analyst profiles.
• Help desk, desktop support, or break/fix focused profiles.
• Application support or software development-focused profiles.
• Candidates without leadership or executive-facing experience.
• Candidates uncomfortable producing documentation, diagrams, or executive-level write-ups.

#ZR #INDGEN