BACKUP ENGINEER JOB DESCRIPTION

Backup engineering means owning what no one notices until it fails. When recovery point objectives are breached, or a bare-metal restore takes three times its SLA window, the consequences reach every application owner, every compliance auditor, and every business unit that assumed its data was safe. This role holds direct accountability for the design, configuration, and operational health of an organization's backup and storage estate - spanning on-premises data centers, SAN/NAS fabric, and hybrid cloud environments across AWS and Azure. Certifications such as Commvault and ITIL process alignment are standard markers of seniority in this discipline.

As the Backup Engineer, you are responsible for ensuring enterprise backup infrastructure remains available, recoverable, and audit-ready - maintaining SLA compliance across retention policies, recovery tests, and capacity forecasts that directly govern the organization's data resilience posture. You operate within a broader infrastructure or TechOps team, coordinating with application owners, security, and third-party vendors to execute change management, incident resolution, and continuous improvement across a globally distributed storage and backup environment.

Career Impact: Deep hands-on ownership of enterprise backup platforms, including SAN, tape, and cloud-native tiers, positions engineers for progression into Storage Architect or Infrastructure Lead roles within large-scale IT organizations.

Business Impact: The recovery windows and retention policies you maintain are the last line of defense when data loss events occur, meaning your decisions directly determine whether the organization can meet its RTO/RPO commitments to auditors and business stakeholders.

Growth Opportunity: Practical experience with Infrastructure as Code tooling, cloud-native backup services, and ITIL-governed change management builds cross-functional value that opens pathways into cloud platform engineering and DevOps-aligned infrastructure roles.

• Design and implement backup and storage solutions spanning on-premises SAN/NAS environments and hybrid cloud platforms to meet defined RTO/RPO targets.
• Monitor backup job schedules and daily operational health, producing KPI and KRI reports for infrastructure leadership.
• Establish and maintain retention policies, encryption standards, and security controls across all storage tiers in compliance with organizational governance requirements.
• Execute recovery tests across environments, validating restoration integrity and documenting gaps against established SLAs.
• Perform capacity planning and workload modeling, forecasting storage growth and recommending configuration adjustments to prevent performance degradation.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts to streamline backup provisioning, deployment, and operational workflows, reducing manual intervention.
• Coordinate incident and problem management for backup-related escalations, driving issues to resolution and ensuring stakeholders receive timely updates.
• Maintain technical documentation, runbooks, and service records for all backup and storage infrastructure, updating on a defined cadence.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 5 or more years of hands-on experience in enterprise backup and storage administration, with demonstrated ownership of production environments.
• Proven ability to design and operate backup solutions in hybrid environments combining on-premises infrastructure and public cloud platforms.
• Working knowledge of SAN, NAS, and associated storage protocols including block and file storage fundamentals.
• Experience with ITIL-aligned service management practices, including change, incident, and problem management workflows.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain automation and scripting solutions to support infrastructure operations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present technical findings to infrastructure and business stakeholders.
• Experience performing capacity analysis, recovery testing, and reporting against defined SLA targets.

• Certification in a major enterprise backup platform (Commvault, Veritas NetBackup, or equivalent) or a recognized cloud provider credential.
• Experience in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment, such as manufacturing (GxP, 21 CFR Part 11) or financial services.
• Hands-on exposure to Infrastructure as Code practices and CI/CD pipeline tooling within a storage or backup context.
• Familiarity with ITSM platforms used for ticket tracking, change governance, and operational reporting at enterprise scale.

• RTO/RPO adherence rate, measuring whether recovery tests meet the contractually defined restoration windows.
• Backup job success rate (%), tracking the percentage of scheduled jobs completing without failure or manual intervention.
• Mean time to resolution for backup-related incidents, reflecting responsiveness to production-impacting storage events.
• Capacity forecast accuracy, measured against actual storage growth over a rolling 90-day period.
• SLA compliance score across the managed backup estate, reviewed monthly against defined retention and availability targets.
• Typical tools: enterprise backup platforms (commonly Commvault, Veritas NetBackup, or Veeam); cloud storage services (commonly AWS S3, Azure Blob); scripting environments (commonly PowerShell, Python, Bash).

• Base Salary Range: $95,000 to $135,000 annually, depending on seniority and location
• Bonus: Annual performance bonus, typically 5% to 10% of base salary
• Equity: Stock or RSU grants uncommon at this level; offered selectively at larger enterprises
• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-subsidized premiums standard
• PTO: 15 to 20 days annually, plus standard federal holidays
• Common Perks: On-call rotation compensation, professional certification reimbursement, home lab or lab access stipends

Figures are estimates based on general US market benchmarks and may be outdated. Adjust based on location, company size, and seniority level.

Work authorization in the United States is required; candidates must be eligible to work without employer sponsorship unless otherwise stated. Employment in this role is contingent upon satisfactory completion of a background check. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, and local law. Candidates requiring a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process are encouraged to submit a request to the hiring organization's HR team.

The Backup Engineer owns the design and deployment of hybrid cloud backup capabilities, integrating on-premises VMware, AWS, and Azure environments to enable broader cloud adoption for enterprise clients. Working with infrastructure, technical, architectural, and business audiences, this role delivers cloud roadmaps and automation-driven monitoring that guide organizations through their journey to the cloud.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and deploy hybrid cloud backup capabilities and support migrations of enterprise application workloads to the cloud.
• Integrate backup with remaining on-premises and public cloud services.
• Use automation and orchestration tools for cloud deployment, monitoring, and reporting.
• Develop backup job monitoring and reporting, and troubleshoot issues as they arise.
• Communicate with infrastructure, technical, architectural, and business audiences verbally and in writing.
• Compile, deliver, and evangelize journey-to-cloud roadmaps that guide clients toward broader cloud adoption.

Required Qualifications

• 3 or more years of experience in infrastructure with a focus on backup and cloud topics.
• Proficient in hybrid cloud backup deployment and operations across on-premises VMware, AWS, and Azure.
• Solid understanding of Commvault, with Commvault certification preferred.
• Experienced in automating and writing deployment scripts using Ansible and related workflow automation tools.
• Strong written communication skills in English at B2 level or above, with Hungarian or Slovak language knowledge as a plus.

Embedded within a global backup team, the Backup Engineer delivers ongoing improvements across the backup estate and contributes to the GTIS Controls Delivery Operational Framework at enterprise scale. Working closely with senior stakeholders across global storage environments, this role leads change functions and monitors KPIs and KRIs to ensure appropriate service delivery and control compliance.

Core Functions

• Engineer and support global backup storage operational environments and drive ongoing improvements across the backup estate.
• Contribute to the GTIS Controls Delivery Operational Framework, including continual improvement review and annual refresh.
• Ensure technical programs are executed to maintain appropriate levels of delivery and service.
• Monitor KPIs and KRIs across the global storage estate and remediate control deficiencies identified through metrics.
• Lead and contribute to change functions within a global backup team and represent the function in technical working forums.

Qualifications & Experience

• Extensive operational knowledge of backup storage at large enterprise scale.
• Experienced in reporting across multiple storage and backup technologies.
• Strong senior stakeholder management experience in large-scale global environments.
• Knowledgeable across Dell, IBM, and wider enterprise storage technologies.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Flexibility along with the ability to work under pressure and as part of a team.

Reporting to infrastructure management, the Backup Engineer shapes the reliability and compliance posture of enterprise backup systems through hands-on administration, capacity planning, and governance across Veritas NetBackup and Cohesity environments. Partnering with management and cross-functional stakeholders, this role serves as the primary escalation point for backup operations and produces reporting and metrics that inform organizational decision-making.

Primary Duties

• Provide day-to-day support and maintenance for all enterprise backup systems, including administration, tuning, and troubleshooting.
• Ensure enterprise scalability and performance through proactive capacity planning, performance control, and configuration adjustments.
• Install, maintain, and upgrade backup hardware and software.
• Maintain documentation of policies, configurations, procedures, and service records for backup infrastructure.
• Provide governance and ensure compliance with applicable laws, rules, and regulations, including active participation in audits and inspections.
• Serve as the initial escalation point for backup operational issues, following escalations through to resolution and keeping all parties updated.
• Produce operations reporting, updates, and metrics for management and stakeholders.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• 5 or more years of relevant experience in enterprise data backup administration.
• In-depth knowledge of Veritas NetBackup, Veritas Volume Replicator, Veritas Auto Image Replication, and EMC Data Domain.
• Proficient in scripting and automation using shell and Python, with knowledge of Cohesity as an advantage.
• Ability to manage client escalations, make timely decisions, and escalate to management when required.
• Excellent interpersonal and oral and written communication skills across all organizational levels.
• Able to work rotating shifts during APAC hours and participate in on-call support rotations.

Sitting at the intersection of technical troubleshooting and client service delivery, the Backup Engineer resolves customer incidents and maintains stable IT environments by working problem records through to resolution within defined service level agreements. Operating across internal process frameworks and third-party vendor relationships, this role builds client rapport and drives continuous improvements in customer service delivery.

Duties

• Resolve customer incidents and requests, ensuring timely and effective issue resolution.
• Actively raise and work on problem records within customer environments to prevent recurrence.
• Troubleshoot customer issues to maintain smooth and stable environment operation.
• Provide client system administration, support, and technical resolution while adhering to internal and external processes.
• Maintain and update runbooks for all assigned customers and work to defined service level agreements.
• Liaise with third-party support companies and conduct regular environment health checks.
• Identify issues and drive improvements in customer service delivery.

Skills & Qualifications

• Experience in an engineering and troubleshooting environment.
• Solid understanding of IT principles and technologies.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Strong customer service focus with the ability to build rapport with internal and external stakeholders.
• Self-motivated, methodical, and results-driven.
• Able to handle multiple tasks, prioritize effectively, and maintain productivity under pressure.
• Willing to research and self-study to keep technical skills current and relevant.

A key member of the infrastructure and development organization, the Backup Engineer leads automation initiatives and designs backup solutions that modernize storage platforms across cloud and on-premises environments. Collaborating across business and development teams, this role delivers capacity and performance reporting, coaches teams on emerging storage options, and ensures backup schedules, retention policies, and disaster recovery practices meet enterprise SLAs.

Functions

• Drive automation initiatives for storage creation, configuration, and provisioning using Infrastructure as Code and DevOps practices.
• Develop business cases to justify strategic investment in systems architecture, including future growth and cost reduction analysis.
• Monitor backup schedules and report on daily operational health, SLAs, and KPIs focused on capacity and performance.
• Create and manage backup schedules, retention policies, encryption, and physical security across all storage platforms.
• Implement monitoring and alerting for storage and backup environments and execute recovery tests across cloud regions.
• Work with business and development teams to design backup solutions that modernize the platform while optimizing costs.
• Coach infrastructure and development teams on current and emerging storage options.

Technical Qualifications

• 5 or more years of hands-on experience managing cloud and on-premises storage and backup solutions.
• Experienced with clustered and shared storage systems, CIFS and NFS file shares, and Windows and Linux virtual environments.
• Knowledgeable in backup automation using PowerShell, Unix shell scripting, IAC tools, and GitHub technologies.
• Strong understanding of disaster recovery, performance, security, and monitoring best practices.
• Experience with change management processes and supporting high-volume enterprise databases.

Consistent infrastructure availability and service quality depend on the Backup Engineer, who leads the backup team and manages current infrastructure while coordinating incident escalations and new project implementations for enterprise clients. Based within a client-facing operational environment, this role drives continuous improvement of backup infrastructure and governs licensing, running costs, and capacity planning across VEEAM, IBM Spectrum Protect, and Commvault platforms.

Accountabilities

• Manage current infrastructure and the backup team, and support the implementation and design of new projects.
• Act as a direct interface with specific customers and coordinate incident and problem escalations across technical teams.
• Monitor capacity, perform proactive analysis of future requirements, and define infrastructural guidelines.
• Complete governance and reporting for licensing, running costs, and service behavior.
• Drive continuous improvement of the backup infrastructure.

Position Requirements

• High school diploma or university degree in IT or a related technology field.
• Certifications in backup, OS, hypervisors, ITIL, or PMP are considered a plus.
• 5 or more years of experience in enterprise storage and backup environments.
• Excellent knowledge of VEEAM, IBM Spectrum Protect, and Commvault backup solutions, along with VTL, tape, SAN, and NAS technologies.
• Proficient in Windows and Linux (Red Hat), VMware Hypervisor, NetApp ONTAP, and scripting in PowerShell, Bash, and Python.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, negotiation, and people management skills, with fluency in English.

As the Backup Engineer, this role shapes the design, implementation, and maintenance of storage and backup infrastructure for both bare-metal and virtual machines across SAN, NAS, and tape environments for inTTrust's clients. The infrastructure team relies on this work to ensure the highest levels of availability through replicated and redundant data sets, proactive security evaluation, and timely second-level escalation support.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and support storage and backup infrastructure for both bare-metal and virtual machines with appropriate SAN, network, and local storage configurations.
• Provision and configure required storage and backup for servers, and proactively ensure the highest levels of availability through replicated data and redundant data sets.
• Evaluate, improve, and maintain information security throughout the storage and backup infrastructure.
• Handle critical storage issues, create recovery processes for hardware failures and bottlenecks, and configure alerts for proactive response.
• Install, configure, test, and maintain SAN, tape infrastructure, and system management tools at current patch and firmware levels.
• Liaise with vendors and departments for problem resolution, and provide on-demand reporting of provisioned and utilized storage resources.
• Maintain technical documentation for all systems on a monthly basis and provide second-level troubleshooting and escalation support.

Background & Experience

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• DELL EMC, HPE, or IBM hardware training and certification considered a strong plus.
• Extensive experience designing storage, SAN, and backup strategies at an enterprise level.
• Strong technical experience integrating backup software with applications.
• Hands-on knowledge of SAN, NAS, and tape library technologies.
• Experience with Dell EMC Networker, Veeam Suite, IBM Spectrum Protect, and VMware products.
• Highly motivated team player with strong problem-solving skills, customer orientation, and quality focus.

The Backup Engineer owns capacity workload modeling and availability analysis for customer-facing systems, identifying emerging issues and engineering infrastructure solutions across networking, distributed servers, storage, and unified communications to ensure high availability and performance. Working with internal teams and external vendors, this role mentors team members, evaluates emerging technologies, and resolves strategic technical problems through independent analysis and detailed design reviews.

Job Functions

• Recommend and implement solutions based on analysis of issues and business implications.
• Identify emerging issues and trends to inform decision-making and conduct independent analysis to resolve strategic problems.
• Perform capacity workload modeling and availability analysis for customer-facing systems, recommending enhancements to improve performance and reliability.
• Facilitate technical issue resolution across hardware, software, and connectivity domains, and lead detailed design reviews.
• Design, develop, test, implement, and maintain computer and network systems in collaboration with internal teams and external vendors.
• Engineer system-operating capacity for bandwidth, disk, storage, and CPU to ensure high availability and performance.
• Ensure infrastructure solutions are scalable, monitored, and automated, and monitor production outputs and services against SLAs.
• Identify process and system improvement opportunities, evaluate emerging technologies, and mentor team members to build organizational capability.

Professional Experience

• 5 to 7 years of relevant experience with a post-secondary degree in a related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Deep knowledge of IT infrastructure across networking, distributed servers, storage, mainframe, workplace technology, and unified communications.
• Experienced in technology and solution design, capacity management, hardware fault diagnosis, virtualization, DevOps, and deployment environments.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and data-driven decision-making skills.
• Good verbal and written communication, collaboration, and influence skills.

Embedded within a service management framework aligned to ITIL standards, the Backup Engineer delivers and operates backup and storage solutions across mid- and large-manufacturing environments, resolving incidents, driving automation, and ensuring security-by-design principles are incorporated into all solutions. Working closely with internal infrastructure teams and third-party vendors, this role ensures service quality and operational readiness while maintaining compliance with GxP and 21 CFR Part 11 frameworks where applicable.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Develop and implement automation solutions for operational tasks and drive continuous improvement of backup and storage services.
• Incorporate security-by-design principles into all solutions and ensure security requirements are addressed concurrently with technical requirements.
• Resolve incidents and service requests, follow ITSM and ITIL methodology for change and problem management, and log and track all activities in enterprise tooling.
• Monitor security, resilience, and availability of backup and storage infrastructure and produce support and operational documentation.
• Collaborate with internal infrastructure teams and third-party vendors to ensure service quality and adopt new solutions with operational readiness.
• Carry out continuous personal development and work on special project assignments as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• University degree or equivalent in Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience in regulated industries with knowledge of GxP and 21 CFR Part 11 frameworks is an advantage.
• Demonstrable experience with Acronis, NetApp, Dell EMC PowerScale, Veritas Backup Exec, and Dell EMC Unity platforms.
• Excellent knowledge of SAN, NAS, block and file storage protocols, enterprise backup products, and highly virtualized datacenter environments.
• Good knowledge of TCP/IP, DNS, Windows Server operating systems, scripting in PowerShell or equivalent, and ITSM tools such as ServiceNow.
• Knowledge of manufacturing environments or Manufacturing Execution Systems is a plus.
• Fluent in English with excellent organizational, interpersonal, and cross-cultural communication skills.
• Ability to work independently across time zones.

Backup Engineer designs and defines storage solutions to meet client requirements across SAN, NAS, LAN, and WAN environments, managing allocation, utilization, and long-term archiving strategy within ITIL-aligned service frameworks. The work directly supports high-availability infrastructure through regular failover testing, recovery execution against RTO and RPO targets, and helpdesk ticket resolution within defined service SLAs.

Operational Focus

• Design and define storage solutions to meet client requirements, manage storage allocation and utilization, and forecast additional capacity needs.
• Establish network connections including LAN, WAN, FO, and SAN, and ensure high-availability design with regular failover testing and auditing.
• Provide SAN, NAS, and LUN management, including performance, security, fine-tuning, and hardware and software maintenance.
• Design, configure, and set up backup solutions per client requirements, including tape and physically isolated storage, and define backup perimeters for images and applications.
• Execute file, image, and bare-metal restorations, perform retention management per RTO and RPO targets, and conduct regular recovery tests.
• Define and execute long-term backup strategy, manage external storage media libraries, and sustain archiving infrastructure.
• Manage helpdesk tickets to resolution in line with service SLAs and maintain storage and backup environments at current software and firmware revisions.

Knowledge Skills & Abilities

• Minimum 2 years of experience in a data centre environment with experience in capacity planning and applying ITIL methodology.
• Experienced in Windows and Linux environments, VMware ESXi and vCenter, and managing virtualized and physical server environments with mapped storage.
• Strong knowledge of HP Enterprise Storage, HP 3PAR, NetApp OnTap C-Mode, and SAN Fabric technologies.
• Knowledgeable in enterprise backup technologies including NetBackup, DataProtector, and Veeam, as well as HP Tape Library and LTO media management.
• Knowledge of LAN and WAN technologies, Windows certifications.
• Experience with offsite tape management practices.
• Able to maintain accurate records and documentation.
• Ability to work effectively across distributed teams and engage with customer and internal change requests.
• Willing to work outside standard hours, attend remote sites, and support VDI provisioning and sizing activities.