Data Center Migration Architect

Indent: SF_OP_202213-4-1 / SF_OP_202213-4-2
Role: Data Center Migration Architect
Location: San Jose CA (Remote is also an option – Travel required)
1^st Preference – FTE – Max Salary: $160K/annum
2^nd Preference – Contract – Max Rate: $100/hr

Job Description:
The Data Center Migration Architect is responsible for planning, designing, and governing end to end data center migration initiatives, including data center consolidation, exit, modernization, and hybrid transformations. This role ensures that migration strategies are secure, scalable, minimally disruptive, and aligned with business and operational requirements.
The architect works closely with application, infrastructure, network, security, and operations teams to deliver migrations from legacy or on premises data centers to new data centers, private cloud, or hybrid environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Define end to end data center migration strategies and roadmaps.
• Lead discovery, assessment, and dependency analysis of existing data center environments.
• Design migration architectures covering compute, network, storage, security, and platform layers.
• Select appropriate migration approaches (rehost, re platform, re architect, retire).
• Develop migration wave plans, cutover strategies, rollback plans, and validation approaches.
• Govern execution of migrations to ensure alignment with architectural intent and best practices.
• Ensure security, compliance, resiliency, and performance requirements are met throughout migration.
• Identify migration risks, constraints, and mitigation strategies proactively.
• Collaborate with delivery leads and deployment pods to support execution and issue resolution.
• Ensure proper documentation, knowledge transfer, and handover to operations teams.

Required Skills & Experience
Architecture & Migration Skills

• Strong experience leading data center migration and consolidation programs
• Deep understanding of:
  • Data center infrastructure (compute, network, storage)
  • Virtualization platforms (VMware / KVM)
  • Network migration and connectivity planning
  • Security and compliance considerations during migrations
• Experience with hybrid data center and cloud adjacent architectures

Technical & Delivery Skills

• Ability to translate business goals into executable migration designs
• Strong stakeholder management and cross team coordination
• Experience working in large scale, multi wave migration engagements

Certifications (Preferred)

• Data Center or Infrastructure Architecture certifications
• VMware / Cisco certifications
• Cloud or Hybrid Architecture certifications
• TOGAF or equivalent (nice to have)