Cloud Platform Storage Architect

Verizon•Southlake, TX

3d•$137,000 - $263,000•Hybrid

About The Position

When you join Verizon You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely — even if they’re daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love — driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world. Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together — lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the #VTeamLife. We engineer, build, and operate a global private cloud infrastructure powered by OpenStack, Kubernetes, and NetApp that supports applications used for numerous internal and external Verizon networks. In this role, you will be the subject matter expert leading the requirements, analysis, design, and development efforts for Verizon's Cloud Platform, focusing on a unified storage strategy encompassing Block, File, and Object architectures. Architecting multi-protocol storage solutions (SAN, NAS, and S3-compatible Object storage) to support diverse workloads ranging from high-performance databases to massive unstructured data lakes. Leading the design and lifecycle planning of all storage platforms, ensuring seamless integration with OpenStack (Cinder/Manila) and Kubernetes (CSI) environments. Creating High-Level (HLD) and Low-Level Designs (LLD) that define how compute nodes consume storage via iSCSI, NVMe/TCP, NFS, and S3 APIs. Driving POC testing and supplier management, including RFP development and vendor evaluation, assessing emerging technologies in All-Flash arrays, Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and distributed Object storage. Developing Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) automation to provide "Storage-as-a-Service," enabling self-service provisioning, automated tiering, and policy-driven data protection. Serving as a technical advisor to production and application teams on storage capacity planning, performance profiling, and workload-specific recommendations to ensure SLA alignment. Providing active and assertive leadership on key projects designed to simplify storage consumption, reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and modernize the Network Architecture of the future. Partnering cross-functionally to present storage strategies, architecture decisions, and investment recommendations to technical and business stakeholders at all levels. This role can be located in any US based Verizon hub location.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience.
Eight or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through one or a combination of work and/or military experience, or specialized training.
Experience in infrastructure engineering, with a heavy focus on enterprise storage planning, architecture, and performance tuning.
In-depth technical knowledge of Block (iSCSI, NVMe/TCP), File (NFS), and Object (S3) storage protocols.
Experience with Linux operating system (preferably Red Hat, though Ubuntu and SUSE are also acceptable).
Solid understanding of network protocols and transport layers, coupled with excellent troubleshooting skills.
Strong knowledge of cloud-native storage, automated provisioning, PVC migration, load balancing across multiple storage backends, and interoperability with Operations and maintenance teams.
Ability to lead on block storage protocols; help lead storage and array qualification, performance/benchmark testing, running PoCs, and full understanding of storage and data lifecycle management; assist in storage forecasting, budgeting, and purchasing.
Experience developing RFPs and leading vendor evaluations, with the ability to articulate technical trade-offs and recommendations to both engineering teams and business stakeholders.
Experience with storage monitoring and observability tooling, supporting Day 2 operations including capacity planning, alerting, and performance analysis in a private cloud environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience with enterprise-grade storage such as NetApp ONTAP (FabricPool/S3), Ceph (RBD/RGW), Dell ECS/PowerScale, Pure FlashArray, or equivalent.
Proficiency in Kubernetes Storage Class design and OpenStack storage service integration at scale.
Knowledge of automated tiering strategies—moving data between high-performance Flash (HOT tier) and cost-effective (WARM tier) Cloud/Object storage.
Experience using Ansible, CI/CD, Terraform, Python, Go or Bash to automate storage fabric configuration and volume management.
Understanding of how storage architectures interact with Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and software-defined fabrics.
Familiarity with data-at-rest and in-flight encryption, Key Management System (KMS), certificates, WORM (Write Once Read Many) for compliance, and multi-tenant isolation in a private cloud.

Responsibilities

Lead the requirements, analysis, design, and development efforts for Verizon's Cloud Platform, focusing on a unified storage strategy encompassing Block, File, and Object architectures.
Architect multi-protocol storage solutions (SAN, NAS, and S3-compatible Object storage) to support diverse workloads ranging from high-performance databases to massive unstructured data lakes.
Lead the design and lifecycle planning of all storage platforms, ensuring seamless integration with OpenStack (Cinder/Manila) and Kubernetes (CSI) environments.
Create High-Level (HLD) and Low-Level Designs (LLD) that define how compute nodes consume storage via iSCSI, NVMe/TCP, NFS, and S3 APIs.
Drive POC testing and supplier management, including RFP development and vendor evaluation, assessing emerging technologies in All-Flash arrays, Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and distributed Object storage.
Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) automation to provide "Storage-as-a-Service," enabling self-service provisioning, automated tiering, and policy-driven data protection.
Serve as a technical advisor to production and application teams on storage capacity planning, performance profiling, and workload-specific recommendations to ensure SLA alignment.
Provide active and assertive leadership on key projects designed to simplify storage consumption, reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and modernize the Network Architecture of the future.
Partner cross-functionally to present storage strategies, architecture decisions, and investment recommendations to technical and business stakeholders at all levels.