Remote_Contract Role_Redhat OpenShift Virtualization Engineer_USA

Title: OpenShift Virtualization Engineer

Location: Fremont, CA (Remote Role)

Duration: Long Term contract

Position Type: W2 Or C2C Contract

Job Description:

Position Summary

OpenShift Virtualization Engineer /VMware Migration & Platform Modernization

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:

• 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.