The Infrastructure Architect's role is to develop and maintain the overall design plan for the Cars.com Technology Infrastructure and provide a leadership role in Corporate Infrastructure projects.  A qualified candidate will be passionate about establishing and putting into effect scalable, modular infrastructure services that will meet and exceed business expectations.  This role is also expected to collaborate with technical operations staff to ensure proactive monitoring policies and procedures and management of the health of Cars.com infrastructure, end-to-end, including networks, operating systems, databases and servers, across distributed and hosted environments. While this role is not accountable for daily operational support of systems, an extensive background in operational support is expected to ensure solutions are practical and feasible for operational staff to support and execute.
Required Skills

    * Minimum of 5+ years of working experience in infrastructure design and implementation
    * Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related field (or equivalent experience)
    * Knowledgeable in all aspects of design, implementation and support for AIX, Linux and Solaris operating systems
    * Technology infrastructure design and implementation experiences (both hardware and software) within a complex, distributed, scalable, UNIX-based data center environment; IBM POWER and X-Series experience required; knowledge of Sun hardware preferred
    * In depth knowledge of various system infrastructure configurations such as server clustering, intra-site load balancing, fail-over replication and  mirroring, and server certificates
    * Demonstrated knowledge of implementing TIVOLI enterprise monitoring, change management and provisioning software to optimize the availability and performance of the underlying IT infrastructure
    * Proven experience in designing, implementing, and deploying enterprise application infrastructure solutions leveraging IBM WebSphere and InfoSphere, Oracle, Interwoven and Microsoft technologies
    * Ability to work with the application delivery, performance testing and operations teams and assist, coordinate and perform multiple tasks concurrently when escalated to.
    * Solid grounding in core enterprise infrastructure domains, including security, network, connectivity, servers, data center services, directory services; experience and certifications in ITIL practices and processes preferred.
    * Experience with change management practices, inclusive of patch management, upgrades and migration of system software
    * Prior experiences conducting research into emerging technologies and trends, standards, and products
    * Knowledge of defining and evolving standards and guidelines
    * Ability to work in a team-oriented, collaborative environment and adapt to a fast pace working environment
    * Ability to think in the abstract and work strategically
    * Ability to handle complex tasks or projects with minimal supervision.
    * Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities
    * Previous experience operating in a consultative capacity
    * Superior written and oral communication skills, evidenced by the ability to communication across all levels of an organization
    * Adept in providing infrastructure evaluations and risk assessments

Required Experience

    * Take a leadership role in defining, managing and put into effect infrastructure policies, procedures, standards and configurations for different infrastructure components such as LPAR definitions, OS images, containers, appliances, servers, racks, SAN, network devices, and media to establish a scalable, modular infrastructure.
    * Must define, implement and monitor methods to report and measure such policies, procedures and standards
    * Provide strategic guidance in order to determine key investment areas in infrastructure and platforms.
    * Lead the design of a scalable automation infrastructure that sustains Cars.com standards of availability and performance.
    * Lead the design of automation tools for production management, configuration, and monitoring, for use by technical support teams.
    * Guide prototyping, testing, and evaluation of automation tools and platforms.
    * Work with other teams across Cars.com and Classified Ventures to leverage platform technologies and create company-wide infrastructure and platform capabilities.
    * Development of a structured, standardized, and consolidated set of infrastructure services that optimally support business processes and applications primarily leveraging Tivoli product capabilities.
    * Aligning operational services by assisting in identifying, defining and incorporating service-level agreements (SLAs)/operating-level agreements (OLAs) across all infrastructure services.
    * Designs capacity plan and proper monitoring strategy for core infrastructure components
    * In collaboration with Cars.com Technical Operations team, forecast and plan capacity requirements and future growth needs of specified applications and platforms
    * A balanced examination of the possibilities that are offered by new technologies and a concrete path towards solutions to the challenges that occur in systems and business operations
    * Assist in the creation and upkeep of documentation required for backup/recovery and disaster recovery. Also required to assist in periodic testing of backup/recovery and disaster recovery plans.
    * Analyze overall system architecture risks and mitigation methods
    * Ensure all infrastructure policies, procedures, standards and configurations comply with both corporate security and regulatory rules.
    * Analyze overall system architecture risks and mitigation methods
    * Establishes and sustains trust and confidence in the infrastructure components and services required to deliver enterprise-grade applications.
    * Greater insight into and transparency of existing complex infrastructure capabilities by preparing and managing a transparent and structured taxonomy of services
    * Excellent judgment shown in making project decisions
    * Proven application of project and architectural methodologies
    * High quality of input into initiative proposals and estimates
    * Plans and coordinates their own work and/or team’s work activities to meet commitments and quality expectations

Performance Factors

    * Analyze overall system architecture risks and mitigation methods
    * Establishes and sustains trust and confidence in the infrastructure components and services required to deliver enterprise-grade applications.
    * Greater insight into and transparency of existing complex infrastructure capabilities by preparing and managing a transparent and structured taxonomy of services
    * Excellent judgment shown in making project decisions
    * Proven application of project and architectural methodologies
    * High quality of input into initiative proposals and estimates
    * Plans and coordinates their own work and/or team’s work activities to meet commitments and quality expectations