IT Infrastructure Lead

Join to apply for the IT Infrastructure Lead role at Cowlar Design Studio

Join to apply for the IT Infrastructure Lead role at Cowlar Design Studio

Expected start date

ASAP (position is open if you can still read this)

Expected start date

ASAP (position is open if you can still read this)

Positions Open

2

Experience Required

Minimum 2-3 years of exceptional experience or more.

Education Required

Education is flexible; However Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field is preferred.

Salary package

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Monthly performance-based increments & cash bonuses
  
  

Perks

• Opportunity to work & grow with a Y-Combinator backed Founder who has been doing startups for more than a decade
• More than 90% of customers are based in the USA (get exposure working on cutting-edge/disruptive tech)
• Opportunity to travel abroad and gain invaluable exposure
  • We have offices in Pakistan, Qatar & America.
    
• Experience Hyper-growth in your career based on the Silicon Valley mindset
• A strong base salary
• Flexible working hours
• High performance oriented and resilient work environment / workstation
• Company Issued Laptops/ Electronic Devices based on need and performance
• Free Food ( Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner/ Snacks/ Fruits and Beverages)
• 24/7 Access to the office
• Performance base paid cool-off period
• Dedicated time / Access to a plethora of Learning Resources
• Knowledge base mini library present at the office
• Fastest network (internet) in Pakistan
• Medical insurance, treatment and employee care for astronauts
• Overnight Stay Facilitation: Sleeping pods and Lockers
• Recreational activities / trips
• Highest Grade Massage Chairs
• Gaming corner - PS5
• Insured parking space
• Support team available for facilitation of employees
• Taxation, Accounts and legal assistance for the employees.
• The best work culture/team environment in the world Primed to set you up for either running your own company or being a C-Level Executive in one.
  
  

About the Role:

We are actively seeking a highly driven professional to take full ownership of our IT & Networking department. This role involves end-to-end responsibility for designing, implementing, and maintaining the organization's network infrastructure. The candidate will also lead day-to-day IT support operations, ensuring seamless connectivity and system uptime. Strong leadership, technical expertise, and a proactive mindset are essential. This is a strategic position with significant impact on operational efficiency and security.

Primary Responsibilities:

1- Network Design & Operations

• Architect, deploy, and maintain enterprise network infrastructure: switches, routers, wireless devices, and access points.
• Manage and optimize high-performance Cisco infrastructure including ASR, ISR, and Nexus series equipment to support 10, 40 & 100 Gigabit networking.
• Provide technical support and management for switches, firewalls, VPNs, servers, and virtualization technologies
• Perform Layer 3 network configurations including port forwarding, VLANs, inter-VLAN routing, NAT/PAT, DNS, and DHCP (LAN/WAN).
• Configure and maintain advanced routing protocols such as HSRP, MHSRP, VRRP, and Ether Channel.
• Managing Load Balancing Across the different networks.
• Troubleshooting Network failures and resolving the issues at warp speed. Interacting with the ISP providers in case of backend issues and getting the issue resolved.
• Creating and implementing disaster recovery plans in order to tackle network and nodes failures.
• Configure, manage, and optimize RAID arrays to ensure data redundancy, performance, and fault tolerance across servers and storage systems.
• Monitor RAID health and proactively replace failing drives to prevent data loss and maintain system uptime.
• Configuration of VPNs on Cisco Routers for end-to-end security (Site to Site, Point to Point, and Remote VPNs).
• Manage and maintain VMware virtual environments, ensuring optimal performance and availability. Maintain accurate and up-to-date documentation for VMware environments, including architecture diagrams, configuration settings, and procedures.
• Generate reports on VMware environment performance, capacity, and utilization.
• Manage network-attached storage (NAS) and Azure cloud services. Utilize RMM tools and ticketing systems to track and resolve issues efficiently.
• Support proper electrical planning for server rooms and networking nodes to ensure safety and uptime.
  
  

2- IT Support Operations

• Provide end-to-end Level 1, 2, and 3 support for all IT systems including desktops, laptops, peripherals, and networking gear.
• Create and manage user accounts, roles, and permissions with appropriate endpoint security protocols
• Maintain accurate logs of issued IT assets and ensure scheduled hardware maintenance and servicing
• Maintain inventory and procurement documentation and update hardware lifecycle statuses. Getting every single equipment of IT tagged.
• Perform scheduled maintenance of all IT equipment.
• Interact with team members in a professional way to resolve their issues in a timely manner.
• Install and configure computer hardware, software, systems, networks, printers, CCTV cameras, and other utility-based servers.
• Coordinate with Power Infrastructure teams to ensure stable and redundant power delivery to critical IT and networking systems.
  
  

3- ML Infrastructure Support

• Actively Coordinate with the Machine Learning Team and assist them in model training purposes.
• Maintain ML inference servers and ensure consistent uptime and thermal efficiency of all compute nodes.
• Maintain logs and performance dashboards for ML workloads and inference APIs.
• Create and maintain high-performance swarm servers/PCs optimized for parallel ML workloads.
• Troubleshoot ML inference servers, compute nodes, and clusters to ensure minimal downtime.
• Develop and document disaster recovery plans specific to ML infrastructure and data pipelines.
• Assist in the creation and management of virtual machines used for model testing or deployment.
• Collaborate in setting up automation scripts or CI/CD pipelines for seamless model updates.
• Track and optimize data usage across ML systems to avoid bottlenecks or resource waste.
• Ensure proper network bandwidth allocation and QoS settings for high-priority ML traffic.
• Ensure all ML systems are compliant with internal OpSec and data access control standards.
• Coordinate with cloud service providers if hybrid or cloud-hosted ML deployment is involved.
  
  

4- Procurement & Vendor Coordination

• Handle procurement of IT equipment (locally and internationally), including evaluation and comparison via cost-performance selection matrices.
• Analyzing the MPPC and involving the required stakeholders for efficient decision making.
• Researching on the best IT equipment, accessories and components to be selected for mid-end and high-end workstations.
• Constantly building relations and exploring new vendors and maintaining long lasting partnerships with them. Maintaining an exceptional vendor list for all sorts of equipment to be procured.
• Maintain inventory and procurement documentation and update hardware lifecycle statuses.
  
  

5- Operational Security (OpSec)

• Configure and maintain firewall policies, intrusion detection/prevention systems.
• Performing and testing the resilience of the network infrastructure via Penetration Testing.
• Maintain secure VPN access, ensuring strong encryption (e.g., AES-256), IP whitelisting, and device-based restrictions.
• Enforce security logging, auditing, and centralized log collection for forensic and real-time alerting purposes.
• Create and test incident response and disaster recovery plans, ensuring fast recovery from breaches or critical failures.
• Conduct regular network segmentation and enforce micro-segmentation for sensitive systems, including inference servers and critical backend infrastructure.
• Deploy and manage multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all internal systems, cloud platforms, and remote access tools.
• Implement strict access control policies across all systems, using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Least Privilege Principles.
• Monitor DNS traffic and configure DNS filtering and threat intelligence feeds for proactive domain blocking.
• Monitor DNS traffic and configure DNS filtering and threat intelligence feeds for proactive domain blocking.
  
  

Technical Requirements:

• Experience with network technologies (e.g., TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP) and troubleshooting network issues.
• Familiarity with IT infrastructure management, including servers, virtual environments, and cloud services.
• Strong understanding of computer hardware, operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux), and common software applications.
• Experience with CISCO routers (e.g., CISCO ASR 1004/1002, CISCO 7201/29011) and switches (e.gCISCO 4948E, 3800 Series, 2900 Series, CISCO Nexus Series)
• Experience with highest End Dell Servers (R740, 730 v4, etc.)
• Proven experience in IT support and server deployment roles.
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Detailed and outstanding knowledge about the installation of firewalls (especially PfSense or Sophos XGS series).
• Experience with RAID configuration, virtualization (e.g., Hyper-V, VMware), clustering, VM migration, load balancing, and server administration (e.g., Vcenter/Vsphere).
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of routing protocols, including NAT/PAT, Overloading and Overriding of NAT, DNS, Spoofing and Sniffing, DHCP (LAN and WAN based), HSRP (C to C and C to S based), MHSRP, and VRRP.
• Possess a deep understanding of network address translation (NAT), port forwarding, public IP, and private IP.
  
  

Plus Points:

• Certifications such as CompTIA A+, Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals, or Cisco CCNA are a plus.
• Experience with deployments on Cloud level such as AWS, Azure & GCP.
  
  

Individual Requirements:

• Demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities.
• Demonstrating high signs of intelligence.
• Possesses and maintains high integrity and moral values.
• Ambitious and possessing high willingness to learn new technical and professional skillset.
• A flexible and adaptable attitude. Open and friendly personality.
• Extremely high attention to detail and observing ability.
• Exceptional Communication Skills (Both written & verbal)
• Strong problem solving and debugging skills.
• Commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.
• Solution-focused, with the ability to prioritise.
  

Seniority level

• Seniority levelNot Applicable

Employment type

• Employment typeFull-time

Job function

• Job functionInformation Technology
• IndustriesDesign Services

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