VMware Specialist - Freelance

Job description

• Hybrid, 3x per week, Porto

You will be joining a large-scale, on-premise infrastructure team operating within one of Europe's leading financial markets organisations. The environment is predominantly on-premise, driven by regulatory requirements and the low-latency demands of mission-critical financial systems.

The team you will be part of is responsible for the full infrastructure lifecycle across virtualisation, storage, compute, networking, backups, and automation. Everything is built and maintained to the highest standards of availability, security, and performance, given the direct impact the infrastructure has on live financial markets across multiple countries.

This role reinforces the Porto-based virtualisation function, contributing to both day-to-day operational tasks and ongoing infrastructure projects.

You will work within a structured, process-driven environment where precision and reliability are non-negotiable, and where automation is central to how the team operates. The position is designed for someone who is already working hands-on with VMware in a real enterprise context, is honest about their current level, and is looking to grow within a highly experienced team.

Requirements

Goals and Deliverables

• Administer and maintain VMware vSphere environments in production and non-production contexts

• Perform VM lifecycle management: provisioning, configuration, right-sizing, and decommission

• Monitor virtual infrastructure performance and identify and resolve issues

• Participate in scheduled maintenance windows including patching and upgrades

• Prepare and validate changes in lower environments before production deployment

• Contribute to infrastructure projects alongside senior team members

• Collaborate with backup and storage teams to ensure environment integrity

• Execute automation tasks using Ansible and contribute to ongoing automation efforts

• Follow structured change management processes aligned with financial industry standards

Experience Required

• Hands-on experience administering VMware vSphere environments in a professional context

• Exposure to multi-host vSphere clusters in a real production environment

• Experience working with external shared storage in a VMware context (SAN or equivalent)

• Familiarity with VMware vCenter, including VM management and basic cluster operations

• Basic understanding of enterprise networking concepts in a virtualised environment

• Experience with Veeam Backup and Replication or equivalent enterprise backup solutions

• Exposure to Ansible at execution and troubleshooting level

• Comfortable working within structured change management and incident management processes

• Availability for scheduled Saturday production maintenance windows

• Based in Porto or willing to relocate

Additional Notes

• The client is looking for a junior to mid-level profile, not a senior specialist.

• The ideal candidate is genuinely hands-on with VMware in a real enterprise environment, honest and self-aware about their level, and comfortable operating in an execution and support role without feeling the need to lead, challenge, or assert strong technical opinions.

• Candidates who claim extensive experience but cannot demonstrate operational competence under basic technical questioning will be rejected

• Pre-screen every candidate with one open question about the complexity of their current VMware environment before submission.

Contact: Costa Neto

• Email: [email protected]

• Cellphone/WhatsApp: +351 21 020 9908

• Hybrid, 3x per week, Porto