About the Role
Trick Dog Technology is seeking a Senior AIX / Unix Platform Specialist for an urgent 6+ month staff augmentation engagement. This role is focused on accelerating AIX modernization initiatives, reducing long-standing infrastructure technical debt, and lowering audit and outage risk—without pulling internal engineers away from critical operational responsibilities. This is a project-driven, outcome-focused role. The ideal candidate will partner closely with internal engineering teams and will meet with the customer prior to onboarding to ensure strong technical and cultural alignment. Engagement Details • Contract length: 6+ months • Senior-level individual contributor • Project-focused (not operational backfill) • Customer interview required prior to onboarding • Multiple candidates will be presented Executive Summary of Need The client is facing: • Ongoing AIX modernization and upgrade pressure • Persistent technical debt in core AIX platform tooling • Significant audit, compliance, and evidence-generation workload • Operational interruptions pulling senior engineers away from strategic initiatives • Cross-team and vendor coordination complexity slowing progress This role is designed to burn down deep technical debt, accelerate platform modernization, and unblock high-risk infrastructure projects. Primary Focus Area 1: AIX OS Upgrades & Platform Modernization (Top Priority) Current Environment • AIX systems behind supported versions and out of compliance • Active upgrade initiatives: AIX 7.1 → 7.2 / 7.3 IBM Power8/9 → Power10 Responsibilities • Lead and execute enterprise AIX OS upgrades with minimal disruption • Support and guide Power8/9 to Power10 migrations • Develop upgrade validation, testing, and rollback playbooks • Reduce dependency risk through knowledge transfer to internal engineers • Coordinate across infrastructure, application, and vendor teams Required Expertise • Senior-level AIX engineering experience • Hands-on IBM Power architecture experience (Power8, Power9, Power10) • VIOS, LPAR, and HMC administration • Proven record of successful AIX upgrade execution in enterprise environments Primary Focus Area 2: Core AIX Tooling & Infrastructure Technical Debt Current Challenges Long-standing instability in foundational AIX services is impacting automation, patching efficiency, and modernization velocity: • RMC reliability failures • NIM and NFS instability • LDAP integration instability These issues increase outage risk and slow strategic progress. Responsibilities • Stabilize and harden AIX central services (NIM, RMC, HMC) • Resolve LDAP integration and user management reliability issues • Reduce maintenance-induced outages • Improve patching and upgrade velocity by strengthening foundational services Secondary / High-Value Contributions Where aligned to primary goals, the contractor may also contribute to: • AIX and RHEL patch process redesign • Automation enablement (Ansible) • systemd-based service modeling • Audit evidence generation and compliance reporting • Linux service stabilization to prevent Unix team escalations • Application-adjacent troubleshooting when platform configuration is the root cause Explicitly Out of Scope This role is not intended to provide operational backfill and will not include: • Daily ISR or ticket queue work • Routine access or entitlement requests • On-call rotations • Low-risk, repetitive Linux administration tasks Required Qualifications (Must Have) • AIX administration experience including 7.1 → 7.2 / 7.3 upgrades • IBM Power platform expertise (Power8, Power9, Power10) • VIOS and HMC administration • NIM configuration and troubleshooting • LDAP integration experience • RHEL patching and lifecycle management • Strong audit-aware mindset with experience generating compliance evidence Preferred Qualifications • Ansible automation experience • systemd service modeling • Experience in regulated or audit-heavy environments • Experience modernizing legacy Unix environments Ideal Candidate Profile • Deep hands-on AIX expertise with modernization experience • Comfortable leading complex infrastructure upgrades independently • Strong communicator able to work across engineering, audit, and application teams • Outcome-driven and focused on reducing long-term platform risk • Able to balance technical execution with documentation and compliance rigor