Infrastructure Manager

• Location: kennesaw, Georgia
• Type: Contract to Hire
• Job #249587

We are seeking a highly hands-on Infrastructure Lead to design, build, and operate the core IT infrastructure for a newly separated and growing environment. This role owns the Microsoft-based target architecture and the execution plan to transition away from the legacy KGP environment, working in close partnership with Group IT Security (CISO), an external infrastructure consultant, and the KGP IT team.

You will be responsible not only for defining the strategy and standards, but for personally implementing and operating the new environment and leading the technical execution of future acquisitions as they are integrated into the platform.

This is a builder’s role—ideal for a senior infrastructure professional who enjoys setting direction and rolling up their sleeves across cloud, network, identity, security, and end-user platforms.

Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 will serve as the core enterprise platforms for infrastructure, identity, collaboration, security, and endpoint management.

What You’ll Do

Strategy & Technical Leadership

• Own the overall infrastructure strategy and roadmap across cloud, on?prem, network, storage, backup, and endpoints, aligned with business and security priorities.
• Define and maintain infrastructure standards, architectural patterns, and best practices for availability, performance, security, and scalability.
• Own and apply the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), including identity, networking, security, governance, landing zone design, and platform automation.
• Apply the Microsoft Well-Architected Framework across security, reliability, cost optimization, performance efficiency, and operational excellence.
• Serve as the primary infrastructure point of contact for IT leadership, security, application teams, and business stakeholders.
• Provide technical leadership and informal mentoring to a small team of engineers/administrators and external partners, including design and configuration reviews.

Design & Implementation (Very Hands-On)

• Architect and implement Azure Landing Zones, including VNets, subnets, firewalls, hybrid connectivity, and security controls.
• Build and operate Azure IaaS and PaaS services across compute, storage, networking, and platform services.
• Define and implement Azure management group and subscription hierarchy, resource group standards, naming/tagging conventions, and Azure Policy baselines.
• Implement and operate core identity and directory services including Microsoft Entra ID, hybrid Active Directory, Conditional Access, MFA, PIM, device-based access controls, and application integrations.
• Lead infrastructure components of major initiatives such as environment separation, new site deployments, migrations, and security programs.

Operations & Support

• Perform advanced troubleshooting across networks, servers, cloud resources, storage, and backups, owning issues end-to-end through resolution and root cause analysis.
• Operate and maintain infrastructure services, including patching, upgrades, capacity planning, and performance optimization.
• Implement and run monitoring, alerting, and logging; proactively identify and resolve issues before business impact.
• Participate in and help define on-call rotations and incident response processes for critical infrastructure events.

Security, Reliability & Governance

• Partner closely with security teams to implement and enforce Zero Trust principles, least privilege, hardening, firewalling, VPN, and endpoint protections.
• Design and operate backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities appropriate to the organization’s risk profile.
• Implement and operate Microsoft security tooling including Defender for Cloud, Defender for Endpoint, Conditional Access, and PIM.
• Ensure infrastructure changes follow defined change management processes and are clearly documented.
• Contribute to and enforce infrastructure-related policies, standards, and operating procedures.

Collaboration & Continuous Improvement

• Work closely with application, data, and service desk teams to ensure infrastructure meets service and availability requirements.
• Produce high-quality documentation including architecture diagrams, runbooks, and troubleshooting guides.
• Identify opportunities for automation and standardization using scripting and infrastructure-as-code approaches.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive experience in infrastructure engineering or administration roles.
• Deep, hands-on experience with:
• Azure (IaaS/PaaS), including Landing Zones, VNets, VPNs, peering, firewalls, NSGs, private endpoints, and monitoring.
• Microsoft 365 / Modern Workplace, including Entra ID, Intune, Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, and endpoint security.
• Core infrastructure services: hybrid AD, DNS, DHCP, certificates, file services, backup and DR.
• Networking fundamentals and advanced troubleshooting (routing, switching, VLANs, VPNs, firewalls, wireless).