Sr. Infrastructure Solutions Engineer (Compute & Storage)

Business Area:

Seniority Level:

Job Description: 

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry.  Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises.

The Cloudera IT team is looking for a talented, motivated, and passionate Sr Infrastructure Solutions Engineer (Compute & Storage) to join our Technical Operations organization. In this role, you will be the team’s subject matter expert on server and storage hardware, consulting with our internal software engineering teams to understand their workload requirements and translate them into the right compute, storage, GPU, and networking configurations. Working in close partnership with our Sr Platform Operations Engineers, you’ll own the hardware layer of our internal platform, from requirements gathering, sizing, and vendor engagement through deployment, lifecycle management, and troubleshooting. Dell is our primary hardware OEM, but you’ll bring a broad, vendor-neutral perspective that helps us choose the best fit for every workload.

What You'll Do (Key Responsibilities):

• Consult with internal software engineering teams to gather and analyze workload requirements (CPU, memory, storage capacity and IOPS/throughput, GPU/accelerators, network bandwidth and latency, power and rack constraints) and translate them into specific, cost-effective server and storage configurations.
• Design, document, and maintain standard hardware configurations (“reference builds”) for common workload profiles such as build/CI, virtualization, big data and analytics, databases, and GPU/AI/ML, evolving them as platforms and engineering needs change.
• Serve as the primary technical contact with Dell and other OEMs, resellers, and component vendors: build and validate configurations, review quotes and bills of materials, evaluate product roadmaps, and assess new platforms through proof-of-concept and benchmark testing.
• Own the lifecycle of on-premise compute and storage hardware, including capacity planning, procurement support, rack/power/cooling planning, deployment, firmware/BIOS/BMC updates, warranty and support case management, refresh, and decommissioning.
• Design, implement, and administer enterprise storage platforms, including Dell PowerStore and Pure Storage arrays, ensuring capacity, performance, data protection, and high availability for critical workloads.
• Partner with the Sr Platform Operations Engineers to integrate new hardware into bare-metal provisioning, virtualization, and Infrastructure-as-Code workflows (e.g., Foreman/MaaS, Ansible, Terraform) so systems are delivered ready for automated deployment.
• Automate hardware management, health monitoring, and fleet inventory using out-of-band management tools and APIs (e.g., iDRAC, Redfish, OpenManage Enterprise, racadm) and scripting.
• Implement hardware- and firmware-level security best practices, including BMC/iDRAC hardening, Secure Boot, TPM, firmware patching, and supply-chain integrity, ensuring compliance and resilience from the ground up.
• Lead troubleshooting and root-cause analysis for complex hardware, firmware, and storage performance issues, working with OEM support to drive resolution.
• Serve as a technical Subject Matter Expert (SME), working with IT Systems, CloudOps, Security, and Engineering teams to design and implement robust, scalable, and optimal solutions.
• Participate in a shared on-call rotation to support mission-critical IT services (with clear documentation and runbooks provided).
• Create and maintain accurate documentation for hardware standards, configurations, asset inventory, operational audits, and compliance.
• Proactively identify and drive improvements in hardware performance, utilization, monitoring, and operational processes through automation and observability.
• Mentor junior team members.

What You'll Bring (Required Qualifications):

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or 8+ years of equivalent experience in a large-scale enterprise environment.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in enterprise server hardware, including CPU architectures (Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC), memory configuration and population rules, PCIe topology, RAID/HBA controllers, NVMe/SAS/SATA drives, NICs, and power and thermal considerations, with the ability to size and configure systems for specific workloads.
• Extensive experience with Dell PowerEdge servers and their management tools (iDRAC, Lifecycle Controller, OpenManage, racadm), plus working knowledge of at least one other server platform (e.g., HPE ProLiant/iLO, Lenovo ThinkSystem/XClarity, Supermicro, Cisco UCS, or OCP/ODM hardware).
• Hands-on experience administering enterprise storage arrays, ideally including Dell PowerStore and Pure Storage FlashArray (provisioning, performance tuning, upgrades, and troubleshooting), and a solid understanding of storage architectures (block, file, object, SAN/NAS, software-defined) and protocols (iSCSI, Fibre Channel, NVMe-oF, NFS, SMB, S3).
• Proven ability to consult with engineering stakeholders: gather requirements, translate workload characteristics into hardware specifications, present options with cost, performance, and risk trade-offs, and document clear recommendations.
• Strong Linux systems administration experience (e.g., Red Hat, Rocky, Ubuntu), including hardware validation, driver and firmware management, and performance diagnostics from the OS.
• Strong hands-on skills with Python and shell scripting for hardware automation, fleet inventory, and integration with management APIs such as Redfish.
• Solid experience with on-premise virtualization and bare-metal platforms (e.g., VMware, KVM, OpenStack), enough to size and tune hardware for them.
• Strong networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing, firewalls), with an emphasis on data center networking: server NICs, 10/25/100GbE and faster, link aggregation, VLANs, cabling and optics, and storage networking.
• A security-first mindset and experience designing, building, and operating secure infrastructure, including firmware, BMC, and hardware root-of-trust controls.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications such as Dell Technologies (PowerEdge, PowerStore), Pure Storage, NVIDIA, CompTIA Server+, or Red Hat (RHCE).
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible), version control (GitHub/Git), and bare-metal provisioning tools (e.g., Foreman, MaaS, PXE).
• Experience with GPU and accelerator platforms for AI/ML and high-performance workloads (e.g., NVIDIA HGX/DGX, InfiniBand or RoCE fabrics, high-density power, liquid cooling).
• Knowledge of data center facilities planning, including power, cooling, rack elevations, and DCIM tools.
• Experience with vendor management, total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis, and hardware budgeting.
• Knowledge of enterprise security principles, cryptography, PKI, and operational security practices.
• Experience operating in regulated/high-governance/compliance environments (e.g., FedRAMP, PCI, ISO27001, SOC2, etc.).
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools, including hardware telemetry and alerting.
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Project management experience.
• Previous experience mentoring junior team members.

This role is not eligible for immigration support or relocation.

What you can expect from us:

• Generous PTO Policy 

• Support work life balance with Unplugged Days

• Flexible WFH Policy 

• Mental & Physical Wellness programs 

• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program 

• Access to Continued Career Development 

• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages 

• Paid Volunteer Time

• Employee Resource Groups

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