Virtualization Platform Automation Engineer and Admin

Ford • ,

4d • $85,400 - $192,900 • Onsite

About The Position

Ford Motor Company is seeking a VMware and OpenShift Virtualization Developer, Engineer, and Administrator to join its globally positioned, on-premises cloud platform team. The role is responsible for designing, automating, implementing, administering, and managing virtualization services, with an emphasis on stability, performance, security, and operational excellence.

The position develops automation and GitOps workflows, scripts, tools, integrations, and tests; applies Site Reliability Engineering practices; and supports secure API use, configuration management, and deployment processes. It also implements end-to-end observability, monitors virtual machine health and platform activity, investigates anomalies, and conducts root cause analysis across the global compute environment.

The engineer provides virtualization consulting to application teams, designs and validates dedicated clusters and VM solutions for specialized needs, and plans platform capacity across compute, memory, storage, and network resources. The role also creates and maintains internal and customer-facing platform documentation on the Ford docs site. The position ranges from salary grade 6–8, with a stated salary range of $85,400–$192,900. Visa sponsorship and relocation assistance are not provided.

Requirements

• Associate degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 8 years of experience as a developer (automation) and IT infrastructure specialist focused on virtualization solutions such as VMware.
• At least 2 years focused on Kubernetes and/or OpenShift Virtualization.
• At least 8 years of proficiency and programming experience in scripting languages such as Bash, PowerShell, or Python for automation.
• Production experience engineering, administering, and automating VMware using infrastructure as code, with a strong understanding of VMware concepts.
• Understanding of OpenShift Virtualization (KubeVirt) and Kubernetes concepts.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Ansible, Terraform, or GitOps.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps methodologies.
• Linux administration experience and networking fundamentals.
• Experience with monitoring tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, or Dynatrace and with logging solutions.
• Solid understanding of virtualization concepts and technologies.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to troubleshoot complex issues across multiple layers of the stack.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including communicating technical concepts clearly and working with cross-functional teams.
• Experience designing or consuming APIs.
• Familiarity with containers and deployment.
• Understanding of repeatable, reviewable infrastructure and configuration changes.
• Awareness of service health, incident response, and preventing recurring operational issues.
• Experience securely handling authentication tokens and credentials.
• Experience writing and maintaining unit tests.
• Familiarity with GitOps principles and Git-based workflows.
• Experience using Git for version control and collaborative development.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States; employment eligibility will be verified at hire.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Jenkins and/or Tekton.
• Experience with Ansible or similar configuration-management tools.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, a related Engineering field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Familiarity with software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage (SDS) solutions.

Responsibilities

• Design, automate, implement, administer, and manage VMware and OpenShift Virtualization services.
• Develop automation scripts and tools for repetitive virtualization work, including configuration changes, auditing, remediation, ticketing integrations, and operator updates.
• Apply Site Reliability Engineering principles to improve platform stability, performance, and operational efficiency.
• Deploy and audit role-based access controls and manage namespaces and resource quotas.
• Develop and maintain automation using PowerShell, Bash, Python, and C.
• Design, consume, and troubleshoot APIs; handle authentication tokens and credentials securely.
• Write and maintain unit tests and troubleshoot scripts, applications, APIs, and automation pipelines.
• Build and support GitOps workflows for configuration, deployments, and infrastructure changes; automate build, test, deployment, and operational processes.
• Collaborate with developers, operations teams, application teams, and stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver solutions.
• Document tools, integrations, tests, procedures, and platform capabilities for internal and customer-facing use.
• Use AI tools responsibly to assist with coding, troubleshooting, documentation, and workflow improvements, while reviewing and testing generated outputs and protecting confidential information.
• Implement and maintain end-to-end monitoring, logging, and tracing for the OSV environment, including integrations with Dynatrace and Prometheus/Grafana.
• Explore and implement event-driven architecture for real-time monitoring and response; identify observability abnormalities and blind spots.
• Monitor VM health, resource use, performance metrics, and unusual activity that may indicate compromise or misconfiguration.
• Conduct root cause analysis to identify and resolve issues across the global compute environment.
• Provide virtualization consulting to application teams and design, implement, and validate custom or dedicated clusters and VM solutions for critical applications.
• Plan and forecast VMware and OpenShift Virtualization capacity across compute, memory, storage, and network resources.
• Analyze resource utilization and recommend infrastructure scaling, consolidation, or optimization.
• Collaborate with application teams and stakeholders to understand future demand and project capacity needs.
• Develop and maintain capacity models and reports for strategic planning.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage.
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, and subsidized back-up child care.
• Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and other family-building benefits.
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members, and management leases.
• Tuition assistance.
• Employee resource groups.
• Paid time off for individual and team community service.
• Paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree