Infrastructure Architect

ROLESANDRESPONSABILITIES

KeyAccountabilityAreas

KeyActivities

Tactical

•Develop and execute the Infrastructure Roadmap for SANAD’s Greenfield environment, covering data center, network, cloud, and rig-site connectivity, ensuring alignment with business growth and ERP deployment timelines.

•Plan and implement high-availability and disaster recovery architectures for critical systems hosted in OCI/GCP and in-Kingdom facilities, ensuring compliance with RTO/RPO targets and business continuity standards.

•Define infrastructure capacity and scalability plans, including forecasting for compute, storage, network bandwidth, and cloud utilization, with ongoing optimization and cost control.

•Lead vendor and service provider coordination, managing design reviews, implementation quality, SLA compliance, and post-deployment support for cloud, network, and managed services.

•Develop and maintain infrastructure architecture standards and operational baselines (network topology, system configurations, security hardening), ensuring alignment with TOGAF and NCA-ECC guidelines.

•Establish proactive monitoring and reporting frameworks, integrating telemetry from NMS (SolarWinds, Aruba Central, OCI/GCP native tools) with ITSM dashboards to enable predictive maintenance and operational visibility.

•Collaborate cross-functionally with Cybersecurity, Applications, and Governance teams to ensure that all infrastructure operations adhere to compliance, audit, and IT governance requirements (change management, PDPL, asset control).

Operational

•Oversee day-to-day IT infrastructure operations including servers, storage, network, backup, and cloud environments to ensure high availability, performance, and security.

•Manage hybrid infrastructure components across on-premises, OCI, and GCP, ensuring consistent monitoring, patching, and configuration compliance.

•Supervise rig-site connectivity operations, including SD-WAN (Aruba), VSAT, LTE/5G links, and ensure proactive fault management and redundancy testing.

•Coordinate and oversee system deployments (servers, network devices, firewalls, storage) as part of rig mobilizations, data center build, or project expansions.

•Implement and enforce operational standards for backup, DR testing, capacity management, and performance optimization across all infrastructure layers.

•Monitor infrastructure health dashboards and incident queues using NMS and ITSM tools (e.g., SolarWinds, ManageEngine, ServiceNow) and ensure SLA adherence for incident resolution.

•Ensure security hardening and compliance with NCA-ECC, PDPL, and Aramco standards across network, cloud, and on-prem systems in collaboration with the Cybersecurity team.

•Manage vendor performance and service delivery, ensuring third-party providers (network, cloud, data center, and managed services) meet contractual SLAs and KPIs.

•Maintain comprehensive infrastructure documentation, including network diagrams, configuration baselines, IP management, and change logs.

•Provide escalation and technical leadership to the IT support team, ensuring knowledge transfer, operational readiness, and 24/7 infrastructure support coverage. Server20XXanditsroles,Virtualization(VMwareandHyperV)andNetworking(Cisco).

•StrongtechnicalknowledgeofSAN/storagearchitectures(includingflashstorage), backup solutions, disaster recovery and security architecture.

•Strong technical knowledge of network concepts such as data center switching, LAN, WAN,networkarchitecture,commonfirewallplatformsandunderstandingofVSATand radio link communication will be a plus

•TechnicalknowledgeofnetworkingtechnologiesandprotocolsincludingTCP/IP,QoS, IPT, Routing and Switching; Routing protocols; WAN Optimization technologies

•Identifiedprocessimprovement,preparepolicyandproceduredocumentation

•Performedpost-constructionreviewandvalidationofbuiltsolutiontoensureitmeets architectural standards

PeopleManagement

·Guide infrastructure and network team through solution design, implementation, and optimization; ensure technical excellence and adherence to architectural standards.

·work closely with ERP, Cybersecurity, Governance, and Operations teams to deliver integrated, secure, and high-availability solutions across the enterprise.

·Lead and manage system integrators, managed service providers, and OEM partners to ensure quality delivery, SLA compliance, and alignment with SANAD’s architecture roadmap.

·Build internal capability by mentoring team members, conducting technical workshops, and fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.

PhysicalWorking Conditions

·Officeenvironment,willalsoberequiredtovisitaRigenvironmenttounderstandthe nature of the business

JOBQUALIFICATIONSANDREQUIREMENTS

Knowledgeand Experience

•10+ years of progressive experience in IT infrastructure design, implementation, and operations, including at least 3–5 years in a technical lead capacity managing hybrid or multi-site environments.

•Proven experience leading Greenfield or carve-out infrastructure programs, from design and vendor selection to deployment, transition to managed services, and operational handover.

•Proven experience in hybrid cloud infrastructure management, particularly Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) covering compute, storage, networking, tenancy governance, and cost optimization.

•Strong expertise in network architecture and operations, including SD-WAN (Aruba EdgeConnect / Orchestrator), LAN/WAN, firewalls (Palo Alto), and rig-site communication technologies (VSAT, LTE/5G, microwave).

•Hands-on experience in data center operations including virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V), storage management (SAN/NAS), and DR/backup technologies.

•Demonstrated understanding of IT security and compliance standards, particularly NCA-ECC, NIST and ISO 27001 with ability to embed them in daily operations.

•Proficiency in IT service management (ITSM) and monitoring tools with strong knowledge of incident, change, and configuration management aligned with ITIL v4 practices.

•Prior experience with drilling environment (VSAT, rig data acquisition networks) preferred. Knowledge of drilling rigs infrastructure and security landscape to provide a stable and reliable infrastructure is a plus.

Educationand Certifications

•Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or Computer Engineering (Master’s degree preferred).

•Formal certification in Infrastructure Architecture, Cloud Technologies, or Network Engineering is an advantage.

•Certifications (Preferred / Highly Desirable):

•Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Architect Associate / Professional – for cloud infrastructure design and governance.

•Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect – for hybrid and multi-cloud architecture design.

•Aruba Certified SD-WAN Professional / Expert (EdgeConnect / Orchestrator) – for rig and remote connectivity management.