Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Infrastructure Technician

🎯 Role Definition

An Infrastructure Technician is a hands-on IT practitioner responsible for the installation, maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshooting of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure components. This role ensures high availability and performance of servers, storage, networking, security appliances, and endpoint systems while following ITIL change and incident management practices. The ideal candidate combines strong technical fundamentals (Windows, Linux, networking, virtualization), field cabling and rack-level skills, and excellent customer-facing communication for internal stakeholders and external vendors.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Help Desk / Desktop Support Technician with 1–2 years of experience.
Field Service Technician or Cabling Technician.
Junior Systems or Network Technician.

Advancement To:

Senior Infrastructure Technician or Systems Administrator.
Network Engineer or Infrastructure Engineer.
Cloud Engineer / Cloud Operations Specialist.
IT Operations Lead / IT Manager.

Lateral Moves:

Endpoint/Desktop Support Specialist.
Security Operations / Junior SOC Analyst.
Cloud Support Engineer (IaaS) or Storage Administrator.

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Install, configure, and provision rack-mounted servers, storage arrays, switches, routers and firewalls in data center and remote site environments, ensuring cabling is tidy, labeled, and follows TIA/EIA best practices.
Administer and maintain Windows Server environments (Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP), including user and group provisioning, GPO updates, and domain health checks.
Deploy, patch, and administer Linux servers (CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu) including package management, cron jobs, systemd services and security hardening.
Perform routine firmware and OS patch management for servers, network devices, and storage systems, coordinating maintenance windows and communicating change impacts to stakeholders.
Provide day-to-day monitoring, alert triage and incident response using monitoring and observability tools (Nagios, Zabbix, SolarWinds, Prometheus, Datadog), escalating when necessary and documenting incident remediation steps.
Manage virtualization platforms (VMware vSphere, ESXi, vCenter, Hyper-V) including VM deployment, snapshot management, host patching, and performance tuning.
Implement and maintain backup and recovery solutions (Veeam, Commvault, Windows Server Backup), perform periodic restores to validate backup integrity and maintain recovery runbooks for disaster recovery scenarios.
Troubleshoot LAN/WAN networking issues including TCP/IP, VLANs, routing, switching, and wireless connectivity; work with network team to resolve throughput, latency, and packet loss issues.
Configure and support VPN, remote access appliances and secure access policies (site-to-site VPN, client VPN, zero-trust gateways) and assist remote users with connectivity problems.
Install and configure storage (SAN/NAS) systems, manage LUNs, mappings, performance monitoring and capacity planning in collaboration with storage administrators.
Maintain firewall policies, NAT rules and access control lists (ACLs), test rule changes in lab environments before production deployment and support periodic firewall rule reviews for security compliance.
Assist with cloud infrastructure provisioning and support (Microsoft Azure, AWS EC2 / VPC / S3), including hybrid connectivity, IAM roles, virtual networking and cost-conscious resource management.
Create, update and maintain accurate technical documentation including runbooks, network diagrams, rack elevations, change logs and asset inventory in CMDB or asset management systems.
Conduct routine preventative maintenance and hardware lifecycle tasks including drive replacements, memory/CPU upgrades and coordinated hardware refresh projects with vendors.
Perform root-cause analysis and post-incident reviews after major outages, proposing systemic fixes and contributing to continuous improvement of infrastructure reliability.
Coordinate with procurement and third-party vendors for hardware warranties, spare parts, RMA processes and onsite vendor maintenance, ensuring minimal downtime and SLA adherence.
Execute hands-on cabling duties for structured copper and fiber installations, terminations, testing (OTDR, Certifier) and labeling at both office and data center locations.
Participate in on-call rotation to provide after-hours support for critical incidents, perform emergency restorations and communicate status updates to stakeholders.
Enforce and follow security best practices and compliance requirements (patch levels, endpoint protections, encryption standards), assist with vulnerability scans remediation and baseline hardening activities.
Implement automation and scripting (PowerShell, Bash) for repetitive administrative tasks, server provisioning, log collection and basic configuration management.
Track capacity and performance metrics for compute, storage and network resources, create recommendations and budget forecasts for upcoming refresh cycles and expansions.
Support workstation and peripheral troubleshooting for escalated endpoint issues that impact infrastructure services (imaging, domain join, enterprise printing).
Participate in scheduled site moves, server migrations and upgrades, including planning, dry-run testing, execution and rollback procedures to minimize business disruption.
Assist project teams with infrastructure design input for new initiatives, proof-of-concepts, and pilot rollouts to ensure operability and maintainability.

Secondary Functions

Assist in the preparation and testing of disaster recovery plans; participate in regular DR exercises and document lessons learned.
Support deployment and maintenance of monitoring dashboards and alerting thresholds tailored to service-level objectives (SLOs) and business priorities.
Contribute to cross-functional projects to improve onboarding/offboarding workflows, asset lifecycle management and IT service provisioning.
Provide input into vendor evaluations and pilot deployments by performing lab testing and operational impact analysis.
Support ad-hoc reporting and data collection for audit, compliance, capacity and performance reviews.
Mentor junior technicians and provide hands-on training for standard operational procedures, tool usage and field best practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Windows Server administration (2012/2016/2019/2022), Active Directory, Group Policy management.
Linux system administration (RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu) including shell scripting and package management.
Virtualization platforms: VMware vSphere/ESXi, vCenter, and/or Microsoft Hyper-V.
Networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, VLANs, switching, routing, subnetting, and basic BGP/OSPF familiarity.
Firewall and VPN technologies: configuration and troubleshooting for Palo Alto, Cisco ASA/FDM, Fortinet, or similar.
Backup and recovery tools: Veeam, Commvault, Rubrik or native cloud backup solutions; restore validation.
Storage systems: SAN/NAS administration, LUN management, iSCSI, NFS, SMB protocols.
Cloud IaaS experience with AWS and/or Microsoft Azure: VM provisioning, VPC/VNet, storage and identity basics.
Monitoring and logging tools: Nagios, Zabbix, SolarWinds, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Elastic Stack, Datadog.
Scripting and automation: PowerShell, Bash, basic Ansible playbooks or automation frameworks.
Cabling and physical layer skills: copper/fiber termination, testing (OTDR, Certifier), rack mounting and labeling.
Hardware troubleshooting: server components, RAID controllers, NICs, PSUs and replacement procedures.
Identity, DNS and DHCP troubleshooting and configuration.
Knowledge of ITIL practices: incident, problem and change management workflows.
Familiarity with security fundamentals: endpoint protection, vulnerability scanning, encryption and access controls.

Soft Skills

Clear, professional verbal and written communication for status updates, documentation and stakeholder interaction.
Strong analytical and structured troubleshooting approach with attention to reproducible steps.
Customer service mindset with the ability to empathize, prioritize and resolve user-impacting issues.
Time management and prioritization skills to balance incidents, projects and routine maintenance.
Team collaboration: works effectively with network, security, application and cloud teams.
Adaptability to evolving technologies, shifting priorities and on-call rotations.
Detail-oriented with a commitment to accurate documentation, labeling and asset records.
Continuous learning mindset and willingness to pursue certifications and new technical knowledge.
Ability to work under pressure during outages and to communicate calm, measured next steps.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

High school diploma or equivalent; relevant technical certificate or vocational training preferred.

Preferred Education:

Associate's or Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Network Engineering or related field.
Professional certifications such as CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Server+, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, VMware Certified Associate (VCA) or Cisco CCNA are beneficial.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Technology
Computer Science
Network Engineering
Systems Administration
Telecommunications

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 1–5 years of hands-on experience supporting enterprise infrastructure.

Preferred:

3+ years supporting servers, virtualization and networking in production environments.
Demonstrated experience with on-premises data center tasks, cabling, hardware replacement and disaster recovery drills.
Experience with cloud platforms (Azure or AWS) and hybrid connectivity is strongly preferred.
Prior experience participating in on-call rotations and following ITIL-based change and incident processes.