Infrastructure Consultant / Infrastructure Program Manager

Title: Infrastructure Consultant / Infrastructure Program Manager

Duration: Contract (9-12 months) with potential for extension or conversion

Location: onsite (West Houston, TX)

Compensation: Up to $55/hour (W2)

No C2C or 3rd parties at this time.

Overview

Our client is seeking an experienced Infrastructure Consultant to help evaluate, modernize, and manage a portfolio of infrastructure initiatives across a global enterprise environment. This role will begin as a contract engagement with the potential to transition into a permanent position. This individual will serve as a trusted technical advisor and project leader, partnering closely with IT leadership to assess aging infrastructure, develop strategic recommendations, coordinate third-party vendors and MSPs, and drive critical infrastructure projects through completion. The ideal candidate combines strong infrastructure expertise with project management and vendor management experience. While this is not primarily a hands-on engineering role, candidates should possess enough technical depth to evaluate solutions, challenge assumptions, validate vendor recommendations, and help guide architectural decisions.

Current Environment

• VMware/vCenter virtualized infrastructure
• Dell Unity SAN environments
• Dell and Lenovo server infrastructure
• Palo Alto Networks firewalls
• Prisma Access (SASE)
• Microsoft 365 GCC High
• SharePoint Online
• Hybrid on-premises and cloud environment
• Multiple North American office locations

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct assessments of existing infrastructure, including compute, storage, virtualization, networking, and cloud services.
• Evaluate aging infrastructure and develop recommendations for modernization, replacement, migration, or optimization.
• Help define long-term infrastructure strategy, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid approaches.
• Lead infrastructure lifecycle initiatives involving servers, storage, virtualization, networking, collaboration platforms, and cloud technologies.
• Manage and coordinate third-party vendors, MSPs, MSSPs, and technology partners.
• Drive project execution and accountability across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Develop business cases, cost analyses, implementation roadmaps, and technology recommendations.
• Partner with IT leadership to prioritize and execute infrastructure investments.
• Review technical proposals and validate recommendations from service providers.
• Identify risks, dependencies, project blockers, and mitigation plans.
• Ensure projects move effectively from planning through deployment and operational transition.
• Maintain documentation, architecture diagrams, and infrastructure roadmaps.

Potential Project Initiatives

• VMware platform assessment and future-state virtualization strategy
• Storage and SAN modernization planning
• Infrastructure refresh and hardware lifecycle management
• Hybrid cloud strategy development
• Microsoft 365 and SharePoint optimization initiatives
• Potential Microsoft tenant migration activities
• SharePoint and workflow discovery across business units
• Vendor consolidation and service optimization
• Infrastructure resiliency and disaster recovery improvements

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of infrastructure engineering, infrastructure architecture, technical project management, or IT consulting experience.
• Strong experience with enterprise infrastructure environments, including servers, storage, virtualization, and networking.
• Experience with VMware and vCenter administration and architecture.
• Knowledge of enterprise storage platforms, including Dell Unity or similar SAN technologies.
• Experience supporting hybrid cloud environments.
• Strong understanding of Microsoft 365 technologies, including SharePoint Online.
• Experience managing infrastructure vendors, MSPs, and third-party service providers.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate competing technology solutions and develop strategic recommendations.
• Strong project management and change management experience.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Microsoft GCC or GCC High environments.
• Palo Alto Networks and Prisma Access exposure.
• Experience with tenant-to-tenant Microsoft 365 migrations.
• Infrastructure planning within engineering, manufacturing, government, defense, or regulated environments.
• ITIL, PMP, or related certifications.

Ideal Candidate

We're looking for someone who can walk into a complex environment, quickly assess the current state, identify risks and opportunities, and provide practical recommendations backed by real-world experience. This person should be comfortable discussing strategy with leadership, managing vendors and MSPs, and ensuring projects are executed successfully without requiring constant oversight.

The successful candidate will serve as a technical leader capable of bridging the gap between infrastructure architecture, vendor management, and project delivery.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, or military or veteran status. We consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with state and local laws, including the California Fair Chance Act, City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance.