Jira Service Management Engineer - Contract

Jira Service Management Engineer
3-6 Months
Raleigh/Durham, NC

We are seeking an experienced Jira Service Management (JSM) Administrator to lead the design, standardization, and governance of our Jira ecosystem as part of a broader transformation from Jira Data Center/Server to Jira Cloud. This role is central to defining a simplified, scalable, and well-governed target architecture across issue types, workflows, permissions, notifications, portals, and custom fields while ensuring a smooth, low-risk migration of existing data and functionality. The ideal candidate combines deep Jira/JSM administrative expertise with strong analytical and stakeholder-management skills, and has prior experience leading or supporting large-scale Jira Cloud migration and consolidation initiatives.

Target State Design & Architecture

• Design the target, simplified, and standardized architecture for all core Jira components, including Issue Type Schemes, Workflow Schemes, Permission Schemes, Notification Schemes, Portal Configurations, and Field Configurations, ensuring the design supports diverse organizational needs and can accommodate ongoing change and system updates
• Analyze existing schemes and propose a dramatically reduced set of standard, reusable schemes to minimize duplication and administrative overhead
• Conduct a deep analysis of custom fields to identify redundancy, obsolete fields, and opportunities for reuse and consolidation; design and implement a strategy to reduce the overall custom field footprint

Define the governance framework policies, principles, and guardrails for the use and creation of new custom fields post-migration, ensuring the long-term health, consistency, and scalability of the Cloud instance

Analysis & Gap Assessment

 

• Rapidly assess and document the current, decentralized Jira Data Center/Server architecture, identifying pain points, interdependencies, and technical debt
• Partner with business and product leaders to map current functional requirements against proposed standard target schemes, ensuring critical functionality is maintained or improved
• Produce detailed impact assessments evaluating how scheme standardization will affect various user groups, existing automation rules, and third-party integrations
   

Preparation for Transformation

• Provide expert architectural guidance to the core migration team, ensuring target schemes are fully optimized for data transformation and the Cloud migration process
• Design transformation rules and mappings for migrating existing project data (issues, fields, workflows) from current disparate schemes into the new standardized Jira Cloud schemes
• Ensure security best practices are followed throughout the design, transformation, and migration process
   

Requirements

• Jira Administration
• Jira Service Management (JSM)
• Issue Type Scheme Design
• Workflow Scheme Design
• Permission Scheme Design
• Notification Scheme Design
• Custom Field Management
• Jira Data Architecture
• Cloud Migration
• Gap Analysis
• Impact Assessment
• Jira Security Models
• Stakeholder Management
• Data Migration & Transformation
• Change Management
   

Preferred Skills

• Atlassian Certifications (ACP-Jira Administrator, ACP-Cloud Administrator)
• Jira Automation Rules
• Third-party Integrations (Slack, ServiceNow, Confluence)
• Governance Framework Design
• Scripting
• REST API
• Enterprise Environment Experience
   

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience administering Jira and Jira Service Management (Data Center, Server, and/or Cloud)
• Demonstrated experience designing and consolidating Issue Type Schemes, Workflow Schemes, Permission Schemes, Notification Schemes, and Field Configurations at scale
• Strong understanding of Jira data architecture, including custom field management, screen schemes, and portal/request type configuration in JSM
• Prior experience with or exposure to Jira Data Center/Server to Cloud migration projects (e.g., using Atlassian Cloud Migration Assistant or similar tooling)
• Strong analytical skills with experience conducting gap analyses and impact assessments across multiple stakeholder groups
• Solid understanding of Jira security models, permissions, and best practices for access control
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to work across business, product, and technical teams
• Atlassian certifications (e.g., ACP-Jira Administrator, ACP-Cloud Administrator) [Preferred]
• Experience with Jira automation rules and third-party integrations (e.g., Slack, ServiceNow, Confluence, monitoring tools) [Preferred]
• Experience defining and rolling out governance frameworks for enterprise tool platforms [Preferred]
• Familiarity with scripting or REST API usage for Jira administration and data validation [Preferred]
• Experience working in large, decentralized enterprise environments with multiple business units and varying process maturity [Preferred]