Infrastructure Engineer I

At ACT, Your Work Makes a Difference

Education has power – a power that changes lives forever. It creates opportunities that lift up individuals, their families, and sparks societal change that echoes through generations to come. From our grassroots we have fought the good fight for inclusivity in education, and we remain devoted to helping anyone who struggles to access that power. This is what matters to us and we must do better -- we’ve never been more sure of our purpose.

ACT team members are part of an organization dedicated to a mission that has never been more important: Helping people achieve education and workplace success. Advancing that mission within our organization, by helping our team members achieve education and workplace success of their own, is core to our values. ACT values a diverse workplace and is committed to fostering an inclusive environment in which every team member has an equal opportunity to grow.

We want our team members to have the well-being and confidence they need to do their best work, in an environment where both they and ACT thrive. To support this, our total rewards include company paid life insurance, medical, dental, vision, flexible health and dependent spending accounts, 401(k) retirement savings with company match, paid holidays, paid time off, and so much more. You can find a comprehensive list of our benefits here.

We are seeking an Infrastructure Engineer I to help us fulfill that mission.

The Infrastructure Engineer I is an entry-level role designed as a learning and growth opportunity for individuals developing foundational skills in infrastructure engineering and cloud technologies. Working under the guidance of senior Infrastructure and DevOps engineers, this role helps build, automate, and support cloud-native infrastructure across ACT's AWS environment. This role develops practical experience with Terraform, automated deployment pipelines, and AI-assisted tools to provision, patch, monitor, and troubleshoot infrastructure.

The finalist will be hired at the salary and level commensurate with their qualifications. For this position, we anticipate offering an annual salary in the range of $70,000 to $85,000. ACT manages salaries within the range based on relevant factors including, skills, experience, and internal equity. This position is not incentive eligible.

Location: This is a remote position, based in the United States. Individuals located in the Iowa City area may choose to work on-site or in a hybrid arrangement.

Visa: Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for visa sponsorship.

What you will be working on:

40% - Cloud Infrastructure Operations

• Monitor backup jobs across ACT's AWS environment using cloud-native and enterprise backup platforms (e.g., CommVault, AWS Backup), applying AI-assisted tools to help investigate and resolve failures.
• Maintain backup schedules, retention policies, and restore procedures; support recovery requests and audits.
• Assist with deploying, configuring, and maintaining monitoring and observability tooling; partner with the monitoring tool administration team on agent health and coverage.
• Triage and respond to monitoring alerts routed through ITSM tools, using AI-assisted diagnostics, resolve routine incidents and escalate more complex incidents appropriately.
• Support AWS-native infrastructure management, monitoring, backup, recovery, and automation activities; maintain awareness of Azure concepts where limited hybrid-cloud support is needed.

35% - Infrastructure as Code & Automated Deployment

• Assist with building and provisioning cloud infrastructure with Terraform, Ansible, and automated CI/CD pipelines, replacing manual, ticket-driven build processes.
• Support and help investigate patching cycles through automated pipelines and scripts to minimize manual patch-weekend effort.
• Support administration of underlying Windows Server and Linux systems supporting cloud workloads, including patching, service troubleshooting, log review, filesystem/storage management, access support, and routine health checks.
• Maintain, and with guidance, develop reusable Infrastructure as Code modules, automation scripts, and runbooks for common server, storage, backup, and monitoring tasks.
• Apply AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate infrastructure automation development, troubleshooting, diagnostics, and documentation.

25% - Analysis & Continuous Improvement

• Identify recurring issues, manual toil, and gaps in current infrastructure, deployment, and patching processes; recommend automation, AI-assisted tooling, or pipeline improvements.
• Research and evaluate new tools and automation approaches, with senior engineer guidance, for backup, monitoring, and server management, recommending adoption where they improve reliability or reduce manual effort.
• Document standard operating procedures and contribute to the team's knowledge base as processes are automated.

Role Progression within the first three months:

• Learn ACT's cloud infrastructure, storage, backup, and monitoring environment, tools, and standard procedures.
• Complete a first automated server build and a first automated patch cycle under guidance from the DevOps/Platform team.
• Begin independently triaging routine ITSM alerts and investigating backup failures.

Role Progression over time:

• Make initial contributions to cloud infrastructure, storage, backup, and monitoring operations as automation coverage expands.
• Progress toward broader engineering participation in AWS infrastructure, automation, platform tooling, and operational improvement beyond day-to-day server support.

This could be the job for you if you have (minimum requirements):

• Foundational knowledge of infrastructure, systems administration, technical support, networking, scripting, automation or cloud technologies.
• Experience using or developing scripts with languages such as Python, PowerShell, Bash, or similar technologies.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code concepts and tools such as Terraform, Ansible or automation technologies.
• Basic understanding of cloud computing concepts such as compute, storage, networking, security, monitoring, backup, and automation. Experience with AWS is preferred; exposure to Azure or other cloud platforms is a plus.
• Exposure to Windows Server and Linux operating systems and their administration, support or troubleshooting.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, engineering or a related field. Or an equivalent combination of education, training, certifications, and experience from which comparable knowledge and abilities can be acquired.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Basic understanding of backup and recovery concepts, server monitoring, and patch management.
• Ability to learn and apply new technologies quickly, including AI-assisted engineering tools that support automation, scripting and operational efficiency.
• Willingness and interest in learning, taking initiative and drive to dig deep into problems and think sideways when creative solutions are needed
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills, with the discipline to follow runbooks and escalate appropriately.
• Ability to learn new automation tools and AI-assisted engineering practices quickly and apply them to daily work.
• Ability to troubleshoot server and cloud infrastructure issues involving performance, storage, network connectivity, access, monitoring, backup, and operating system services.
• Familiarity with tools such as PowerShell, Bash, systemd, Windows Event Viewer, package managers, configuration management, and operational runbooks.
• Ability to communicate clearly and work effectively with senior engineers and vendors.
• Ability to work on standard tasks independently or as part of a larger team on more complex projects
• Ability to work occasional off-hour shifts to support monthly patching weekends.

It’s a plus if you have (preferred qualifications):

• Experience with CommVault, AWS Backup, or another enterprise backup platform.
• Hands-on experience with AWS infrastructure services such as EC2, S3, EBS, IAM, CloudWatch, Systems Manager, AWS Backup, VPC, and related automation tooling.
• Experience with Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, or similar Infrastructure as Code tools for provisioning and maintaining cloud and server infrastructure.
• Experience administering enterprise Windows Server and Linux environments, including Active Directory/Group Policy awareness, DNS, PowerShell, shell scripting, vulnerability remediation, virtualization, and automated configuration management.
• Experience supporting server, storage, or backup operations in a complex enterprise environment.

About ACT

When ACT was founded in 1959, it disrupted the assessment industry with a new approach to helping students better understand their readiness so they could take steps to improve it. By leveraging our expertise and authority in assessment and research, we will again disrupt the industry—helping more people learn, better measure their progress, and improve their navigation through life’s transitions.

More than ever before, ACT is fulfilling its mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success. We’re doing it by pushing the boundaries of learning innovation through the work of our people, who we call team members because we’re all in this together.

We know transformation does not come without challenge. That’s why ACT invests in a variety of experiences for team members to strengthen their connections, explore ideas, learn from customers, and celebrate success.

Learn more about working at ACT at act.org!

ACT is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. ACT participates in E-verify. ACT's online position announcements are intended only to provide general descriptions of employment opportunities; none of the information provided for any position should be interpreted as a commitment by ACT to specific terms and conditions for employment.

Completion of the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate is recommended. Find a testing site near you to register for the WorkKeys assessments. Finalists for this position will be subject to a criminal background check as a condition of employment.

**If you have received an ACT employment-related communication from an email address that is not affiliated with @act.org and/or that requests personal or financial information, please do not reply. Instead, reach out to us at careers@act.org with the details. ACT's recruitment team appreciates your interest in working with us to transform college and career readiness pathways for all learners and wishes you the best of luck in your career journey.**