Lead IT Infrastructure Engineer

JOB SUMMARY

Safelite is seeking a Lead IT Infrastructure Engineer to provide enterprise-wide technical leadership, strategy, and governance across storage, virtualization, Wintel, and hybrid cloud infrastructure platforms. This role serves as the senior technical authority responsible for defining infrastructure architecture, establishing engineering standards, driving modernization initiatives, and ensuring the long-term scalability, resiliency, security, and operational excellence of core infrastructure services.

As a lead-level individual contributor, this position influences technology direction across multiple domains, guides architectural decisions, mentors engineering teams, and partners with business, security, cloud, and application leaders to align infrastructure investments with enterprise objectives. The Lead IT Infrastructure Engineer is accountable for translating business strategy into infrastructure roadmaps while ensuring Safelite's platforms remain reliable, secure, cost-effective, and future-ready.

Enterprise Infrastructure Strategy, Architecture & Governance

• Establish and maintain enterprise architecture standards, technology roadmaps, and engineering design principles across storage, virtualization, and hybrid infrastructure environments.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for enterprise storage, VMware, Wintel, backup/recovery, and associated infrastructure platforms.
• Define strategic direction for infrastructure investments to support business growth, digital transformation, and operational resilience.
• Lead enterprise architecture reviews and provide final technical recommendations for major infrastructure initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and create adoption strategies that improve scalability, security, automation, and operational efficiency.
• Establish governance frameworks, engineering standards, and lifecycle management practices across infrastructure domains.
• Drive architectural consistency and alignment across cloud, network, cybersecurity, application, and infrastructure teams.

Infrastructure Modernization & Transformation Leadership

• Lead large-scale infrastructure transformation initiatives including platform modernization, cloud integration, storage refreshes, virtualization strategy, and data center optimization efforts.
• Develop multi-year infrastructure roadmaps aligned to organizational technology goals and business priorities.
• Sponsor and provide technical leadership for complex migration, consolidation, and platform rationalization initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to improve infrastructure agility through automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, self-service capabilities, and AI-enabled operations.
• Influence enterprise technology decisions through business case development, risk assessments, and executive-level recommendations.
• Lead cross-functional teams responsible for implementing strategic infrastructure programs.

Technical Leadership, Engineering Standards & Mentorship

• Act as technical mentor and advisor for infrastructure engineering teams, fostering technical excellence and knowledge sharing across the organization.
• Establish enterprise engineering standards, reference architectures, operational procedures, and platform design patterns.
• Provide oversight and guidance on highly complex technical issues, major incidents, and enterprise escalations.
• Facilitate architecture and design reviews to ensure solutions align with enterprise standards and long-term technology strategy.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, networking, and application delivery leaders.
• Influence technical direction and engineering priorities without direct managerial authority.

Platform Reliability, Risk & Operational Excellence

• Maintain accountability for the reliability, recoverability, performance, and scalability of enterprise infrastructure services.
• Define service resiliency standards, disaster recovery strategies, recovery objectives, and infrastructure continuity frameworks.
• Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure platforms meet regulatory, audit, and governance requirements.
• Lead root cause analysis efforts for critical incidents and establish preventative measures to reduce operational risk.
• Develop and monitor infrastructure health metrics, service-level objectives, capacity forecasts, and operational KPIs.
• Drive adoption of automation and proactive monitoring to increase service stability and reduce operational complexity.

Financial Stewardship, Vendor & Capacity Management

• Develop infrastructure lifecycle plans and capacity strategies that optimize performance and cost efficiency.
• Influence infrastructure budget planning through technology assessments, refresh strategies, and investment recommendations.
• Partner with vendors and strategic technology partners to evaluate solutions, negotiate technical requirements, and maximize platform value.
• Provide financial analysis and recommendations regarding infrastructure investments, licensing, and support models.

Documentation, Knowledge Management & AI-Enabled Engineering

• Establish documentation standards ensuring architectural decisions, configurations, and operational procedures are maintained and accessible.
• Promote engineering productivity through responsible adoption of enterprise-approved AI tools and automation technologies.
• Champion continuous improvement practices and knowledge-sharing initiatives across technical teams.
• Leverage AI-enabled capabilities to accelerate documentation, troubleshooting, operational analysis, and engineering workflows while maintaining governance controls.

QUALIFICATIONS

Education

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field preferred.

Equivalent combination of education, certifications, and experience may be considered.

Work Experience

• 8+ years of progressive experience in enterprise infrastructure engineering, architecture, and platform operations.
• Demonstrated experience establishing enterprise infrastructure strategies and technical roadmaps.
• Extensive experience designing and supporting enterprise SAN/NAS, backup, replication, and disaster recovery solutions.
• Advanced expertise supporting VMware enterprise environments including ESXi, vCenter, HA/DRS, vMotion, and storage integrations.
• Experience leading enterprise-scale modernization, cloud adoption, migration, and transformation programs.
• Experience influencing executive stakeholders and presenting technical recommendations to senior leadership.
• Experience driving engineering standards, governance frameworks, and architectural best practices.
• Experience with Azure, AWS, and hybrid cloud operating models.
• Demonstrated success mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership across organizational boundaries.