Senior Compute​/IAAS SME; Lifecyle Management

Position: Senior Compute/ IAAS SME (Lifecyle Management)
Senior Compute / IaaS SME (Lifecycle Management)

Location:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Start Date:

1 November 2026

Contract Duration:  6 Months

Contract Type:  Contract

Rate:  Competitive Hourly Rate (EUR)

Experience

Required:

8-10+ Years

About the Role
We are looking for an experienced  Senior Compute / Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Subject Matter Expert - Lifecycle Management (LCM)  to join a large enterprise infrastructure environment in Amsterdam.

The successful candidate will be responsible for designing, deploying, upgrading, maintaining and optimising enterprise compute and virtualisation infrastructure, with a strong focus on  Cisco UCS, VMware vSphere, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and infrastructure lifecycle management .

This is a hands‑on technical role requiring deep expertise in compute infrastructure, platform upgrades, automation, troubleshooting and operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities
Infrastructure Deployment & Engineering

Plan and implement greenfield Cisco UCS environments, including Fabric Interconnects, chassis, blades, X-Series nodes, VICs and service profiles.

Configure and manage Cisco UCS infrastructure using UCS Manager (UCSM) and Cisco Intersight.

Deploy, configure and standardise VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environments.

Manage VMware ESXi, vCenter, distributed virtual switches (vDS) and enterprise storage integrations.

Configure and optimise vSAN, iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC) and NFS storage environments.

Develop and maintain standardised ESXi builds, firmware bundles, host profiles and cluster configurations.

Execute workload migrations using vMotion and Storage vMotion while minimising business disruption.

Configure, maintain and upgrade Cisco MDS storage switches.

Lifecycle Management & Platform Upgrades

Lead end-to-end firmware, driver, ESXi and vCenter upgrades across enterprise environments.

Support VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF 9.0) deployment and lifecycle management.

Validate hardware compatibility lists (HCL), firmware compatibility and software interoperability before upgrades.

Execute rolling upgrades and infrastructure maintenance activities with minimal downtime.

Manage VMware DRS, vMotion and admission control to maintain service continuity.

Monitor and remediate ESXi image drift and configuration inconsistencies.

Maintain infrastructure security patches and compliance baselines.

Perform post-upgrade validation, health checks, performance monitoring and log analysis.

L3 Infrastructure Support & Troubleshooting

Act as the senior technical escalation point for Cisco UCS and VMware vSphere infrastructure incidents.

Troubleshoot complex issues involving Fabric Interconnects, VICs, storage connectivity, vDS, vSAN disk groups and ESXi hosts.

Investigate VMware host failures, including Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) incidents.

Conduct root-cause analysis and implement permanent corrective actions.

Provide technical guidance and escalation support to L2 infrastructure teams.

Improve infrastructure monitoring, alerting and operational procedures.

Automation & Infrastructure Tooling

Develop and maintain infrastructure automation using PowerCLI, Python and Ansible.

Automate server provisioning, platform upgrades, compliance checks and infrastructure health monitoring.

Integrate automation solutions with Cisco Intersight APIs and VMware vCenter REST APIs.

Maintain Infrastructure-as-Code configurations and scripts using Git.

Develop standardised automation frameworks for repeatable infrastructure deployments.

Produce automated infrastructure reports, dashboards and compliance assessments.

Security, Compliance & Governance

Implement secure VMware ESXi and Cisco UCS configuration standards.

Manage certificate configurations, role-based access control and ESXi lockdown policies.

Ensure…