Senior Backup & Recovery Architect

About the role

In this role, you will take charge of designing and implementing enterprise-grade backup and recovery architectures for diverse environments, including on-premises and cloud. You will also serve as a key technical advisor to large enterprise clients, engaging with senior leadership to discuss strategies that enhance data resiliency and business continuity.

Success in this position means effectively managing the entire technical lifecycle of backup solutions, from architecture design to hands-on implementation. You will mentor other engineers and establish best practices, ensuring that your team is equipped to deliver reliable recovery capabilities across various client environments.

The salary range for this role is between $115,000 and $195,500 USD.

Skills that matter here

• backup: This role involves designing and implementing comprehensive backup solutions for enterprise clients.
• recovery: You will be responsible for ensuring effective recovery strategies are in place to protect business continuity.
• data protection: The position requires expertise in data protection technologies and strategies to manage risks.
• cloud: You will work with cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, and GCP for backup and recovery solutions.
• automation: Developing automation scripts will be essential for improving backup operation efficiency.
• scripting: Proficiency in scripting languages like PowerShell, Bash, and Python is necessary for this role.

Who this role suits

• You have over a decade of experience in IT infrastructure with a focus on backup and recovery.
• You thrive in a leadership role, guiding teams and mentoring engineers.
• You are comfortable engaging with executive-level stakeholders and articulating technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• You enjoy hands-on work and are adept at configuring and optimizing enterprise backup systems.

From the employer

Key Responsibilities

• Client Engagement & Strategic Advisory
• Serve as the principal technical advisor to large enterprise clients on all matters related to backup, recovery, and data resiliency strategy.
• Lead executive-level workshops, discovery sessions, and strategic roadmap discussions with client CIOs, CTOs, and senior infrastructure leadership.
• Clearly articulate the business value and risk implications of backup and recovery strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Build trusted, long-term relationships with client stakeholders.

• Architecture & Technical Leadership
• Design and lead the development of enterprise-grade backup and recovery architectures across on-premises, cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), and hybrid environments.
• Define and govern Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), and resiliency tiers in alignment with business criticality and compliance requirements.
• Recommend best-fit data protection platforms and technologies based on client scale, complexity, regulatory obligations, and internal corporate standards.
• Drive architecture decisions around immutable storage, air-gapped environments, and cyber recovery vaulting to address ransomware and advanced threat resilience.
• Ensure architectures account for the full workload spectrum: virtual machines, physical servers, enterprise databases, NAS/SAN, cloud-native workloads, and containerized environments.

• Hands-On Implementation & Technical Execution
• Perform direct, hands-on configuration, administration, and optimization of enterprise backup platforms (e.g., Cohesity, Rubrik, Commvault, Veeam, Veritas NetBackup, Dell EMC NetWorker/Avamar, IBM Spectrum Protect).
• Execute and validate complex backup and recovery jobs, diagnose failures, and drive resolution across large-scale environments.
• Develop automation scripts and operational tooling (PowerShell, Bash, Python) to improve efficiency, reporting, and reliability of backup operations.

• Disaster Recovery & Business Resiliency
• Develop comprehensive DR runbooks, playbooks, and tabletop exercise frameworks for critical systems and applications.
• Champion a culture of resiliency helping clients understand the strategic importance of tested, reliable recovery capabilities as a core business function.

• Mentoring & Engineering Enablement
• Serve as a technical mentor and coach to junior, mid-level, and senior backup and infrastructure engineers.
• Conduct knowledge-transfer sessions, technical workshops, and training engagements to uplift engineering capability across teams.
• Establish and document best practices, standards, and frameworks for backup and recovery operations at scale.
• Review designs and configurations produced by engineering teams, providing constructive, expert feedback.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in IT infrastructure with deep specialization in backup, recovery, and data protection.
• 7+ years of hands-on experience with enterprise backup platforms (Cohesity, Commvault, Veeam, Rubrik, Veritas NetBackup, or equivalent).
• Hands-on experience with virtualization platforms (VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V) and native backup integration.
• Experience protecting enterprise databases (Oracle, SQL Server, SAP HANA, PostgreSQL, MySQL).
• Proficiency with scripting and automation (PowerShell, Bash, Python).
• Strong working knowledge of cloud-native backup and data protection in Azure, AWS, and/or GCP.

Conditions

• Full-time remote position.
• Salary range: $115,000 – $195,500 USD.