Solaris Migration Engineer (Legacy Modernisation & Cloud Transformation)
Job Description
Location: Remote (UK-based) On-site attendance required only during key migration/cutover events
Type: Contract or Permanent
Clearance: SC cleared or must be eligible for SC
Travel: Occasional UK on-site activity for hands-on migration execution and validation
Role Summary
We are looking for a highly experienced Solaris Migration Engineer to support the transformation of large, complex legacy Solaris environments into modern cloud-based platforms using AWS and Stromasys (CHARON) SPARC emulation. This role is remote-first but requires on-site presence during major cutovers, migration weekends and outage windows.
You will lead discovery, remediation, tooling development, migration execution and post-migration validation for mission-critical workloads. The ideal engineer has deep Solaris knowledge, proven migration delivery experience, and the discipline required to execute high-risk go-live events.
Key Responsibilities
Migration Leadership & Execution
- Lead end-to-end Solaris migration activities from physical SPARC hardware to AWS-backed Stromasys CHARON environments.
- Perform on-site activities only when required for physical validation, data sync, cutover, or hardware assessments.
- Execute migrations during weekend schedules, planned outages and critical change windows.
Runbooks, Tooling & Documentation
Create, maintain and own highly detailed migration runbooks, including:
- Pre-migration checks
- Data sync procedures
- Cutover steps
- Back-out/rollback plans
- Validation & smoke testing
Develop and refine migration tooling, automation scripts and utilities to streamline repetitive tasks.
Technical Delivery
- Conduct deep-dive discovery and assessment of legacy Solaris workloads.
- Identify and remediate blockers such as OS constraints, obsolete libraries, storage differences and compatibility issues.
- Work with cloud, network, storage and architecture teams to design end-to-end target-state solutions.
- Validate performance and behaviour of workloads inside Stromasys CHARON emulation on AWS.
- Ensure security, resilience, compliance and operational readiness for all migrated services.
Experience Required
Solaris Expertise
- Strong Solaris 10/11 administration, tuning, troubleshooting and legacy hardware knowledge (SPARC, storage subsystems, networking).
- Experience supporting large-scale or business-critical Solaris estates.
Migration Delivery
- Mandatory experience delivering Solaris migrations in structured, controlled change environments.
- Proven track record executing migrations in weekend/outage windows, following strict runbooks.
- Experience writing and owning end-to-end migration runbooks.
Cloud & Emulation
- Experience migrating workloads into AWS (EC2, EBS, networking, security groups, IAM, landing zones).
- Knowledge of or exposure to Stromasys CHARON SPARC emulation (highly desirable).
- Understanding of cloud-hosted legacy system behaviour, performance baselining and risk mitigation.
Tooling & Automation
- Strong scripting and automation experience (Bash/KSH, Python, Perl or similar).
- Familiarity with migration frameworks, assessment tooling, and automation pipelines.
Soft Skills & Delivery
- Ability to perform under pressure during high-risk cutovers.
- Clear communicator who can explain issues to engineering, architecture and leadership teams.
- Excellent documentation skills and disciplined approach to change control.
Additional Desirable Skills
- Experience with Oracle DB, Veritas, ZFS, Zones/LDOMs.
- Familiarity with hybrid or multi-cloud migrations.
- Experience working within MSP or enterprise environments.