Lead Infrastructure Engineer - Windows Server

State Farm • Bloomington, IL

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Infrastructure Engineer will join State Farm’s Infrastructure, Workplace, and Technology Services (IWTS) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Engineering team, which works across a broad range of technologies. The team focuses on hands-on prototyping, research, and proof-of-concept work without day-to-day support obligations. It collaborates with Enterprise Technology product teams to understand and evaluate technical requirements that may lead to infrastructure offering changes, and works with IWTS Service Delivery teams and a managed service provider to evaluate and validate proposed technical solutions and changes. The team also works with IWTS Area Level Architecture to identify improvements, architectural standard changes, and future-state capability strategies, and supports the Project Support Office by validating project estimates and requirements or providing technical expertise on projects.

The role calls for deep Windows Server expertise and broad enterprise infrastructure knowledge, as well as the ability to lead complex technical modernization initiatives, influence engineering direction, and collaborate across technology disciplines. The position is hybrid, with an assigned facility and approximately 40% in-office time each month for Enterprise Technology, beginning in late 2027. The listed hub location is Bloomington, Illinois. Applicants must be eligible to work lawfully in the United States immediately; State Farm will not sponsor U.S. work authorization for this opportunity.

Requirements

• Advanced Windows Server engineering experience, including modernization, architecture, design, deployment, and troubleshooting of enterprise environments.
• Strong experience with Windows Server 2019, 2022, and/or 2025, including deployment, configuration, security, patching, upgrades, and performance.
• Experience with Active Directory modernization and Microsoft Entra ID integration, including hybrid identity, migration strategies, Group Policy, DNS, authentication, and enterprise directory architecture.
• Experience with Windows application packaging and enterprise software deployment modernization efforts.
• Strong scripting and automation skills for Windows Server provisioning, configuration, and lifecycle management.
• Knowledge of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and its potential impact on Windows Server, Active Directory, certificates, authentication, and encryption.
• Strong troubleshooting and root-cause analysis skills across Windows Server and supporting infrastructure.
• Experience evaluating emerging technologies through hands-on engineering, prototyping, testing, and proof-of-concept work.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives, establish engineering standards, and influence technical direction.
• Commitment to mentoring and developing engineers, sharing technical expertise, providing guidance on complex engineering challenges, and fostering continuous learning and growth.
• Strong communication and relationship-building skills, including collaboration with technical teams, vendors, and external technology partners.
• Ability to professionally represent the company at industry conferences, technical events, vendor engagements, and other external forums.
• Must be eligible to lawfully work in the United States immediately; employer sponsorship for U.S. work authorization is not available.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with enterprise virtualization platforms.
• Experience with data center infrastructure and enterprise compute, including physical servers, hardware lifecycle, racks, power, cooling, cabling, and capacity planning.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation, and GitOps using technologies such as Ansible, Terraform, APIs, and Git-based workflows.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure, hybrid cloud, and platform engineering concepts and practices.
• Experience with monitoring, observability, logging, and reporting to improve infrastructure performance, reliability, availability, and capacity management.
• Working knowledge of security, governance, risk management, and compliance principles and processes.
• Experience across compute, virtualization, storage, networking, cybersecurity, cloud, and data center technologies.
• Experience collaborating with vendors, managed service providers, architecture, engineering, and operational teams.
• Ability to foster innovation, encourage diverse perspectives, and incorporate new ideas into technical solutions and engineering practices.
• Relevant industry certifications in infrastructure, Microsoft technologies, cloud, virtualization, or related technical disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Enterprise Technology product teams to understand and evaluate technical requirements that may result in infrastructure offering modifications.
• Work with IWTS Service Delivery teams and a managed service provider to evaluate and validate proposed technical solutions and changes.
• Partner with IWTS Area Level Architecture to identify improvements, changes to architectural standards, and future-state capability strategies.
• Provide technical support to the Project Support Office by validating project estimates and requirements or serving as a technical resource on defined projects.
• Lead complex technical modernization initiatives, establish engineering standards, and influence technical direction.
• Evaluate emerging technologies through hands-on engineering, prototyping, testing, and proof-of-concept work.
• Mentor and develop engineers by sharing expertise, guiding complex engineering work, and fostering continuous learning.
• Represent the company professionally at industry conferences, technical events, vendor engagements, and other external forums.

Benefits

• Potential yearly incentive pay up to 15% of base salary; annual raise and bonus eligibility.
• Health and wellbeing programs, with State Farm paying most of the healthcare premium and offering multiple medical plan options.
• Vision, dental, telemedicine, 24/7 mental health professionals, and other health services.
• Educational benefits, including training programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and mentoring.
• Fertility, IVF, and adoption assistance; college coaching; national discount programs; financial workshops and coaching.
• Generous time-off policies, with the opportunity to initially earn up to 20 days annually, plus parental leave, paid holidays, a celebration day, life leave, bereavement leave, and community service/education support days.
• Matching Gift Program, Good Neighbor Grant Program, and Employee Assistance Fund.
• 401(k) plan with company contributions of up to 7% of salary and access to free financial advisors.
• Compensation based on a standard 38:45-hour work week.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed