Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Infrastructure Assistant

💰 $40,000 - $70,000

ITInfrastructureOperationsCloud

🎯 Role Definition

The Infrastructure Assistant supports day-to-day operations and continuous improvement of the organization's IT infrastructure. Reporting to the Infrastructure Manager or Senior Systems Administrator, this role executes system administration tasks, monitors system health, troubleshoots incidents, follows security and compliance processes, and participates in automation and deployment activities. The Infrastructure Assistant is a practical, process-driven contributor who helps keep services resilient, performant, and cost-effective across on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environments.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Help Desk Technician (Tier 1/2)
  • Junior Systems Administrator
  • Network Support Technician

Advancement To:

  • Infrastructure Engineer / Systems Administrator
  • Cloud Engineer / Cloud Operations Specialist
  • DevOps Engineer / Site Reliability Engineer

Lateral Moves:

  • Network Engineer
  • Security Operations Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Maintain, provision, and decommission physical and virtual infrastructure components (servers, storage, SAN/NAS, hypervisors such as VMware/Hyper-V) to ensure capacity, performance, and reliability in accordance with architecture standards.
  • Monitor infrastructure health and performance using observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, Datadog) and respond promptly to alerts to minimize downtime and meet SLAs.
  • Perform routine operating system administration for Linux and Windows Server platforms: patch management, user/group management, scheduled tasks, and service troubleshooting to ensure secure and stable systems.
  • Provision and manage cloud resources in AWS, Azure, and/or GCP using both console and IaC tools, including creating and maintaining VPCs, subnets, security groups, IAM roles, and managed services.
  • Support Infrastructure as Code (IaC) deployments using Terraform, CloudFormation, or ARM templates; maintain version-controlled configuration and assist in code reviews and modularization.
  • Automate repetitive infrastructure tasks and runbooks with Ansible, PowerShell, Bash, or Python scripts to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual error.
  • Assist in containerization and orchestration activities: build Docker images, manage container registries, and support Kubernetes namespaces, deployments, and ingress controllers under senior guidance.
  • Maintain backup and disaster recovery processes: schedule and validate backups, perform test restores, and support DR failover exercises to guarantee business continuity.
  • Participate in incident management and root cause analysis for service outages: coordinate troubleshooting, communicate status updates, and document post-incident actions to prevent recurrence.
  • Implement and enforce configuration management, baseline hardening, and patching schedules in line with security policies to reduce vulnerability exposure.
  • Manage network infrastructure basics for local and remote sites: configure switches, VLANs, basic routing, VPN connectivity, and collaborate with network teams on performance tuning.
  • Handle on-call rotations for infrastructure support, triaging incoming tickets and escalations from monitoring systems and end users during off-hours.
  • Support user and service account lifecycle tasks: onboarding, access provisioning, de-provisioning, and role-based access control (RBAC) administration in Active Directory and cloud IAM.
  • Assist with procurement, inventory, asset tagging and lifecycle tracking of hardware and software; coordinate vendor warranties, RMA processes and supplier communications.
  • Support CI/CD pipelines that interact with infrastructure (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions): troubleshoot pipeline failures, manage runners, and ensure secure secret handling.
  • Participate in capacity planning and cost optimization efforts: track resource utilization, recommend sizing changes, and implement tagging and cost-monitoring practices for cloud spend.
  • Maintain thorough and up-to-date infrastructure documentation: topology diagrams, runbooks, change records, and standard operating procedures to support reproducibility and knowledge transfer.
  • Enforce compliance and audit readiness: assist with evidence collection, implement logging/monitoring for audit trails, and remediate findings with senior staff.
  • Assist with security controls implementation: endpoint protection, vulnerability scanning (Qualys, Nessus), patch remediation, and basic firewall rule updates under change control.
  • Collaborate with application teams to onboard services, validate configuration requirements, and troubleshoot deployment-related infrastructure issues to ensure smooth releases.
  • Execute scheduled maintenance windows, coordinate change management tasks with stakeholders, and follow rollback procedures when necessary to minimize business impact.
  • Provide level 2 technical support for escalated infrastructure tickets, diagnose complex issues across stacks, and coordinate cross-functional resolution with DBAs, application owners, and security teams.
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives: evaluate new tools, pilot automation frameworks, and contribute to technical proposals that lower toil and increase system resilience.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist with basic database administration tasks (backups, user access, monitoring) for MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server under supervision.
  • Support onboarding and training of junior staff and interns on infrastructure processes and tools.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Linux system administration (Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL): package management, systemd, networking, kernel tuning, logs.
  • Windows Server administration: AD, Group Policy, IIS, PowerShell scripting.
  • Foundational cloud skills: provisioning and managing resources in AWS/Azure/GCP; understanding of IAM, VPCs, S3, Azure Storage, or GCS.
  • Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, CloudFormation, or ARM templates experience (authoring and maintaining modules).
  • Configuration management / automation: Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or PowerShell DSC.
  • Scripting and automation: Python, Bash, or PowerShell for task automation and lightweight tooling.
  • Virtualization platforms: VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, or KVM fundamentals.
  • Containerization and orchestration basics: Docker and Kubernetes (deployments, pods, services).
  • Monitoring, logging and observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, ELK/EFK stacks, Nagios.
  • Backup, snapshot and disaster recovery tools and procedures: Veeam, NetBackup, or cloud-native backup solutions.
  • Networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing, VLANs, VPNs, and basic firewall administration.
  • CI/CD platform familiarity: Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, and secure secrets management.
  • ITSM and ticketing systems experience: ServiceNow, JIRA Service Management, or Zendesk.
  • Basic security tooling: vulnerability scanners (Qualys, Nessus), endpoint protection, and knowledge of patch management workflows.
  • Version control: Git workflows and repository management.

Soft Skills

  • Strong problem-solving and analytical mindset with attention to detail.
  • Effective written and verbal communication to document technical processes and provide clear status updates to stakeholders.
  • Team player who collaborates across Dev, QA, Security and Network teams.
  • Time management and prioritization skills in a live-production, on-call environment.
  • Customer service orientation: able to empathize with end users and deliver timely technical support.
  • Adaptability and willingness to learn new tools and cloud services quickly.
  • Process-driven thinker who follows change-control and documentation best practices.
  • Resilience under incident conditions and a calm, structured approach to troubleshooting.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Associate degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Networking, or relevant vocational/technical certification. Equivalent practical experience will be considered.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology / Systems
  • Network Engineering
  • Cybersecurity
  • Cloud Computing / DevOps-related programs

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 0–3 years of professional IT or infrastructure support experience; ideal for entry to early-career candidates.

Preferred:

  • 1–3 years supporting servers, virtualization, and cloud infrastructure in production environments.
  • Demonstrable experience with at least one public cloud provider (AWS/Azure/GCP) and foundational IaC/automation work.
  • Certifications are a plus: CompTIA A+/Network+/Linux+, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, or equivalent vendor certifications.
Explore More Careers