Senior Infrastructure Engineer (Virtualization, Storage & Backup)

About the Company

This opportunity is with a long-established industrial business that has operated across South Africa for more than fifty years, running production plants and operations nationally. It is a substantial, stable organisation with a strong engineering culture and a deep, well-earned focus on safety and operational reliability.

This is a people-centred environment of several hundred employees, known for unusually long staff tenure, with many engineers and specialists building entire careers here. The pace is measured rather than pressured, the kind of place where you are given the time and the tools to design things properly rather than firefight.

The business backs its technical people in practice, not just on paper. It funds further qualifications and certifications aligned to your role, supports ongoing study, and is now investing seriously in modernising its infrastructure and digitising its operations. For an infrastructure engineer who wants ownership, good kit and a long-term build mandate, this is a rare combination of stability and genuine technical opportunity.

Job Overview

We are looking for a Senior Infrastructure Engineer to own the virtualisation, storage and backup estate end to end, from architecture and design through to build, implementation and ongoing operations. You will be the technical authority on a VMware vSphere environment, the underlying server and storage hardware, and a Veeam Backup & Replication platform protecting both enterprise and operational technology (OT) workloads across the business and its plants nationally. The role sits within a small, experienced MIS team and reports to the MIS Operations Manager.

The reason this role exists is greenfield, not break-fix. The business is investing in new infrastructure, including new data centre builds and a broader digitisation programme, and is bringing this capability in-house from the external consultants who currently hold it. You will be the person who architects and stands up those environments rather than inheriting and babysitting them, so we are looking for an engineer with deep, current experience designing and building infrastructure from bare metal up: sizing and commissioning compute and storage, designing the virtualisation and backup topology, and implementing it to production standard. This is the single most important requirement of the role.

You will operate with genuine autonomy as the subject matter expert for this domain, setting technical direction, specifying the resources and tooling required, and being trusted to deliver. Alongside the build work you will own the day-to-day health, capacity, performance and recoverability of the estate. The role involves occasional travel to plants across South Africa as new infrastructure is commissioned, and occasional after-hours or weekend maintenance windows to run backups and changes outside production. In return, the environment is measured rather than pressured, and the business is flexible about how that time is balanced.

Duties and Responsibilities

Virtualisation and Compute

• Own the VMware vSphere environment end to end, including host build and configuration, clustering, resource management, patching and lifecycle.
• Manage the server hardware estate that underpins the virtual platform, from specification and commissioning through to maintenance and capacity planning.
• Monitor performance and availability across the virtual estate, tuning and remediating proactively rather than reactively.

Storage

• Administer the enterprise storage infrastructure, including provisioning, capacity management, performance tuning and lifecycle planning.
• Ensure storage is designed and configured to meet the performance, resilience and growth requirements of both enterprise and operational technology workloads.

Backup, Replication and Recovery

• Own the Veeam Backup & Replication platform protecting enterprise and operational technology (OT) workloads across the business and its plants.
• Design and maintain backup and replication schedules to meet recovery objectives, and verify recoverability through regular restore testing.
• Administer the user backup infrastructure and ensure consistent, reliable protection across the environment.
• Plan and execute backups and changes within maintenance windows outside production, including occasional after-hours or weekend work.

Infrastructure Design and Build

• Architect, build and commission new infrastructure and data centre environments from the ground up, covering compute, storage, virtualisation and backup.
• Lead the in-housing of build capability currently held by external consultants, setting the technical standard for how environments are designed and delivered.
• Contribute to the broader digitisation programme, helping to move the business onto modern infrastructure.
• Scope, plan and deliver special projects end to end, from design through to production handover.

Operations, Vendors and Documentation

• Manage third-party contractors and vendors, holding them to clear technical and delivery standards.
• Maintain accurate, current infrastructure documentation, covering architecture, configurations and operational procedures.

Safety and Compliance

• Work in strict accordance with the company's safety procedures, as appropriate to an industrial operating environment.
• Adhere to and consistently apply Basic Safety Practice (BSP) activities.

Minimum Requirements

• Around 10 years' hands-on experience engineering and administering enterprise infrastructure across virtualisation, compute, storage and backup.
• Deep, current experience designing and building infrastructure from bare metal up: sizing and commissioning compute and storage, designing the virtualisation and backup topology, and implementing to production standard. This is essential and the core requirement of the role.
• Strong VMware vSphere experience, supported by VMware Certified Professional (VCP6, VCP7, VCP8 or VCP9). Essential.
• Strong Veeam Backup & Replication experience, ideally supported by Veeam Certified Backup Specialist. Essential.
• Solid Windows Server administration experience, supported by Microsoft certification such as MCSA, MCSE or MCITP Enterprise Administrator, or a current Microsoft equivalent. Legacy certifications are accepted where previously obtained.
• Enterprise storage experience, ideally across IBM storage, tape and fibre, supported by IBM Certified Specialist credentials or demonstrable equivalent hands-on experience.
• Across the four core technology areas, VMware and Veeam are essential, with experience across all four (adding Windows Server and IBM Storage) strongly preferred.
• A valid driver's licence and own reliable transport.
• Willingness to travel within South Africa as new infrastructure is commissioned, and to work occasional maintenance windows outside production hours.

Advantageous

• A track record of data centre design, build or migration projects.
• Experience operating and protecting infrastructure across multiple, geographically distributed sites.
• Familiarity with safety-critical or otherwise regulated operating environments.
• Exposure to infrastructure modernisation or digitisation programmes.

How to Apply?

This is a rare chance to take full technical ownership of a business-critical infrastructure estate and build its next generation. You will architect and stand up new data centre environments, set the standard as build capability moves in-house, and do it with real autonomy, good tooling and the backing of a stable, well-established business.

If you are an infrastructure engineer who has genuinely built environments from the ground up and wants ownership, technical depth and long-term security, we would like to hear from you.

Email your CV to charne@skillzpage.com

(If you don’t hear from us within 2 weeks, please consider your application unsuccessful.)