Netapp Subject Matter Expert

Who We Are At Kyndryl, we run and reimagine the mission-critical technology systems that drive advantage for the world’s leading businesses. We are at the heart of progress; with proven expertise and a continuous flow of AI-powered insight, enabling smarter decisions, faster innovation, and a lasting competitive edge. For our people—Kyndryls—that means doing purposeful work that powers human progress. Join us and experience a flexible, supportive environment where your well-being is prioritized and your potential can thrive. The Role The successful candidate will provide architectural leadership across storage modernization initiatives, hybrid cloud integration, disaster recovery, automation, performance optimization, and platform lifecycle management while acting as the primary technical liaison between internal engineering teams and NetApp. Key Responsibilities Enterprise Architecture & Solution Design

• Define, maintain, and govern enterprise NetApp storage architecture standards, reference architectures, and design principles.
• Review, approve, and validate storage architecture for infrastructure, cloud, application, and modernization projects.
• Ensure all NetApp solutions are scalable, highly available, secure, resilient, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards.
• Provide architectural leadership for storage modernization, cloud adoption, disaster recovery, ransomware protection, and hybrid cloud initiatives.
• Develop enterprise storage roadmaps and strategic technology recommendations. Technical Governance
• Serve as the highest technical authority for all NetApp storage technologies across the enterprise.
• Establish governance frameworks, engineering standards, operational policies, and architecture review processes.
• Lead technical design reviews for major infrastructure deployments, migrations, platform upgrades, and technology refresh programs.
• Validate compliance with enterprise storage standards, security policies, and operational best practices. Technical Review, Root Cause Analysis & Escalation Management
• Act as the enterprise technical review authority for all NetApp-related incidents, architecture concerns, and production issues.
• Perform advanced troubleshooting, root cause analysis (RCA), and storage health assessments using AutoSupport (ASUP), EMS logs, Active IQ, performance analytics, and diagnostic data.
• Analyze complex issues involving ONTAP, WAFL, SnapMirror, MetroCluster, NAS, SAN, Object Storage, networking, and storage virtualization.
• Review and validate technical findings submitted by project SMEs before vendor engagement.
• Determine issue severity, validate infrastructure configuration, and ensure complete diagnostics are collected prior to escalation.
• Approve vendor escalation only after confirming that internal technical analysis has been completed and enterprise standards have been followed. Vendor & Engineering Management
• Serve as the primary enterprise technical interface with NetApp Support, Professional Services, Engineering, and Product Teams.
• Lead technical discussions, architecture reviews, and critical incident management with NetApp.
• Manage vendor escalations through resolution while ensuring effective knowledge transfer to internal engineering teams.
• Evaluate new NetApp technologies, product releases, architectural enhancements, and strategic roadmap initiatives. Platform Strategy & Lifecycle Management
• Define lifecycle management strategies for enterprise NetApp infrastructure.
• Lead storage platform upgrades, technology refresh programs, firmware planning, and capacity management initiatives.
• Drive continuous improvements in storage performance, availability, operational efficiency, and platform resilience.
• Lead automation and standardization initiatives using Infrastructure-as-Code and API-driven management. Documentation, Standards & Knowledge Management
• Develop enterprise architecture standards, governance documentation, technical design guides, operational procedures, and runbooks.
• Publish troubleshooting methodologies, knowledge base articles, and engineering best practices.
• Conduct architecture reviews, technical workshops, mentoring sessions, and knowledge transfer programs for engineering teams.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to infrastructure SMEs, project architects, and operational support teams. Mandatory Technical Review Process The NetApp Architecture Team serves as the mandatory technical review authority before any vendor engagement. Responsibilities include:
• Validate production issues and architectural concerns.
• Review storage architecture, configuration, and infrastructure compliance.
• Analyze AutoSupport (ASUP), EMS logs, Active IQ reports, alerts, diagnostics, and performance metrics.
• Perform advanced technical analysis and root cause determination.
• Identify opportunities for internal resolution.
• Approve vendor escalation only when a confirmed product defect or vendor intervention is required. Required Technical Skills Enterprise Storage
• Expert knowledge of NetApp ONTAP architecture and enterprise storage platforms.
• Deep expertise in NAS, SAN, Object Storage, and Unified Storage architectures.
• Advanced knowledge of WAFL, Snapshot, SnapMirror, SnapVault, MetroCluster, SnapCenter, FlexClone, Storage Virtual Machines (SVM), and Active IQ. Storage Networking
• Fibre Channel (FC), FCoE, iSCSI, Ethernet, NVMe/TCP, NVMe/FC, multipathing, and storage networking design. Virtualization & Cloud
• VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization.
• Hybrid cloud architectures across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Cloud Volumes ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files, Amazon FSx for ONTAP, and cloud-native storage integrations. Performance & Security
• Enterprise performance tuning, workload analysis, capacity planning, and storage optimization.
• Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity (BC), cyber resilience, ransomware protection, immutable snapshots, and storage security best practices. Automation & Engineering
• Automation using Ansible, PowerShell, Python, REST APIs, Terraform, and Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies.
• Experience with monitoring, analytics, AutoSupport (ASUP), EMS, Active IQ, and enterprise observability platforms. Preferred Qualifications
• 12+ to 15 Years of enterprise storage experience with extensive expertise in NetApp technologies.
• Proven experience leading enterprise architecture, governance, and strategic storage initiatives.
• Strong leadership, stakeholder management, vendor management, and executive communication skills.
• NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer (NCIE), NetApp Certified Data Administrator (NCDA), or equivalent certifications preferred.
• Experience supporting large-scale, mission-critical enterprise environments across multi-site and hybrid cloud deployments. Who You Are
• Bachelor's or more degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• 15+ years of enterprise storage experience.
• 5+ years designing and architecting NetApp environments.
• Experience leading enterprise infrastructure projects. Preferred Certifications
• NetApp Certified Data Administrator (NCDA).
• NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer (NCIE).
• Cloud certifications (Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud).
• ITIL Foundation or equivalent.
• Key Deliverables
• Enterprise NetApp architecture standards.
• Approved storage designs for all projects.
• Reduced unnecessary vendor escalations.
• Architecture review reports.
• Platform health and optimization recommendations.
• Knowledge base and technical documentation.
• Successful implementation of storage modernization initiatives. Required Skills
• Expert knowledge of NetApp ONTAP architecture
• NAS (NFS, SMB), SAN (FC, iSCSI), and storage fundamentals
• SnapMirror, SnapVault, S