Bloomberg’s Managed Systems Engineering team is hiring an Infrastructure Engineer — Windows Services to lead a global effort to modernize and harden the company’s Active Directory (AD) estate, manage the Windows server fleet, and operate identity and access services at massive scale; the role is explicitly scoped for enterprise AD architecture, Group Policy, DNS/DHCP, hybrid identity (on‑prem + Azure AD), and automation with PowerShell, and it carries a posted salary band of roughly $130,000–$225,000 in New York.
This feature unpacks that vacancy as a barometer of what elite infrastructure teams are hiring for in 2025, explains the technical expectations (and why those technologies matter), analyzes the security and operational risks inherent in AD modernization at scale, and offers practical guidance for candidates and hiring managers who must balance reliability, security, and speed when evolving identity platforms in a regulated enterprise.
Active Directory remains the primary authentication and authorization backbone in the vast majority of large enterprises. Bloomberg’s posting emphasizes modernizing a global AD infrastructure used by thousands of engineers and systems — a task that combines design, operational discipline, and security hardening at scale. The job listing highlights core competencies that are central to any enterprise identity program: AD design (forests, domains, trusts), Group Policy, DNS/DHCP, Certificate Authorities, SCCM/endpoint management, Kerberos/NTLM understanding, hybrid identity via Azure AD Connect, and Conditional Access.
That combination — deep AD on‑prem skills plus hybrid cloud identity management — is now a standard requirement at large firms that cannot move all workloads to the cloud but need cloud identity services (SSO, MFA, Zero Trust) to extend protections beyond on‑prem borders. Microsoft’s guidance and product portfolio reflect this trend: Azure AD Connect (now Microsoft Entra Connect) is the supported path for hybrid synchronization, and Conditional Access policies are Microsoft's Zero Trust policy engine for enforcing MFA, device compliance, and other adaptive controls.
Compensation and market context: Bloomberg’s public job page and major job boards show the role’s salary band and place its midpoint comfortably within the market for senior infrastructure/identity engineers in New York; company‑reported ranges and Glassdoor pay estimates cluster in the same neighborhood for senior infra roles at Bloomberg. This is consistent with hiring for engineers who combine deep AD expertise and cloud identity skills.
The job is an opportunity to work on one of the most critical pieces of an enterprise stack — identity — where well‑architected changes reduce risk, improve resilience, and unlock safer cloud adoption. The tradeoff is clear: the work is high responsibility and high visibility, and success depends on a disciplined, security‑first operational approach combined with automation and clear communication across teams.
Key references mentioned in this analysis (for hiring teams and applicants to validate technical details and operational guidance): Microsoft’s AD and Kerberos documentation, Microsoft Entra (Azure AD Connect) guidance, Conditional Access documentation, national guidance on detecting and mitigating AD compromises, and operational KRBTGT rotation guidance and scripts.
Additional practical community content and AD procedural guides (DC promotion, scripted AD joins, and step‑by‑step AD administration examples) are widely available and commonly used to complement vendor docs when preparing for large‑scale AD changes.
Source: eFinancialCareers Infrastructure Engineer - Windows Services
This feature unpacks that vacancy as a barometer of what elite infrastructure teams are hiring for in 2025, explains the technical expectations (and why those technologies matter), analyzes the security and operational risks inherent in AD modernization at scale, and offers practical guidance for candidates and hiring managers who must balance reliability, security, and speed when evolving identity platforms in a regulated enterprise.
Background / Overview
Active Directory remains the primary authentication and authorization backbone in the vast majority of large enterprises. Bloomberg’s posting emphasizes modernizing a global AD infrastructure used by thousands of engineers and systems — a task that combines design, operational discipline, and security hardening at scale. The job listing highlights core competencies that are central to any enterprise identity program: AD design (forests, domains, trusts), Group Policy, DNS/DHCP, Certificate Authorities, SCCM/endpoint management, Kerberos/NTLM understanding, hybrid identity via Azure AD Connect, and Conditional Access. That combination — deep AD on‑prem skills plus hybrid cloud identity management — is now a standard requirement at large firms that cannot move all workloads to the cloud but need cloud identity services (SSO, MFA, Zero Trust) to extend protections beyond on‑prem borders. Microsoft’s guidance and product portfolio reflect this trend: Azure AD Connect (now Microsoft Entra Connect) is the supported path for hybrid synchronization, and Conditional Access policies are Microsoft's Zero Trust policy engine for enforcing MFA, device compliance, and other adaptive controls.
Compensation and market context: Bloomberg’s public job page and major job boards show the role’s salary band and place its midpoint comfortably within the market for senior infrastructure/identity engineers in New York; company‑reported ranges and Glassdoor pay estimates cluster in the same neighborhood for senior infra roles at Bloomberg. This is consistent with hiring for engineers who combine deep AD expertise and cloud identity skills.
Why this role matters: technical and business impact
- Identity is the de facto perimeter. Authentication and authorization systems sit at the intersection of productivity and security; a reliable AD architecture underpins everything from desktop logons and file shares to privileged access for critical services. Modern threats routinely target AD to escalate privileges and persist. National guidance emphasizes AD as a dominant attack vector in enterprise intrusions.
- Scale multiplies risk and complexity. Managing AD across thousands of servers and global offices requires careful design of replication topology, site links, global catalog placement, FSMO role distribution, and DNS architecture. Mistakes here produce latency, failed authentications, and operational outages.
- Hybrid identity and Zero Trust integration are non‑optional. Enterprises want conditional controls (MFA, device compliance, session controls) driven by Azure AD Conditional Access while continuing to rely on on‑prem AD for legacy apps and domain‑joined systems. Reliable synchronization and healthy Azure AD Connect installations are essential to prevent account mismatches and authentication failures.
- Automation separates good teams from great teams. At this scale, PowerShell automation, robust runbooks, and integration with configuration management (SCCM/Intune) and monitoring greatly reduce toil and speed incident recovery. The job posting’s emphasis on scripting and automation is well‑placed: repeatable, auditable processes reduce human error and accelerate response windows.
Job‑level technical breakdown
Core technical domains the role owns
- Active Directory design and operations
- Forests, domains, trusts, replication strategy, global catalog placement, FSMO stewardship.
- AD health and monitoring (replication status, SYSVOL/DFS health, AD DS event auditing).
- Identity and authentication protocols
- Kerberos (primary) and NTLM (legacy fallback). Understanding ticket lifetimes, service principal names (SPNs), delegation, and constrained delegation is essential.
- Hybrid identity and synchronization
- Microsoft Entra Connect (Azure AD Connect v2) planning, staging, and high‑availability patterns; attribute filtering and password writeback considerations.
- Conditional Access and Zero Trust enforcement
- Building targeted policies for administrators, high‑risk scenarios, and legacy‑protocol blocking while understanding licensing implications and enforcement phase‑in strategies.
- Federation, SSO and modern protocols
- AD FS and federation patterns (SAML, OpenID Connect/OAuth) where legacy SSO patterns remain in place; guidance increasingly points to Entra ID as the long‑term platform but AD FS remains relevant during migrations.
- Supporting services and endpoint integration
- DNS, DHCP, PKI/Certificate Authorities, SCCM/Intune, enterprise EDR/AV posture, Linux and SaaS integrations.
- Automation & recovery
- PowerShell modules for AD, AD DS management tasks (deploying DCs, promotion, demotion), backup/recovery procedures (system state, authoritative restores), and incident playbooks. An example of a standard scripted DC promotion and AD join flow appears in community and documentation materials.
Strengths: what makes this an attractive and well‑scoped role
- High‑impact ownership. The position explicitly owns global AD modernization and a large Windows server estate; work here touches production systems and the developer ecosystem, offering high technical visibility and influence.
- Clear technical breadth. The combination of on‑prem AD mastery, hybrid identity, automation, and security practices gives engineers a modern cross‑disciplinary portfolio that accelerates career growth into identity architecture and security engineering.
- Strong market compensation. The published salary band and peer salary signals indicate competitive pay for the experience level required; Bloomberg’s engineering pay bands for infrastructure roles are within the top tier for fintech/enterprise employers in NYC.
- Regulatory and compliance focus. Bloomberg’s environment is regulated and audit‑heavy; experience gained in compliance‑driven AD operations (auditing, least‑privilege, control evidence) is highly transferable and valued across industries.
Risks and hidden challenges — what the posting doesn’t sugarcoat
- Active Directory is a high‑stakes single system. A misapplied Group Policy, a broken DNS zone, or a botched FSMO move can cause enterprise‑wide outages. The larger the environment, the more complex the failure modes.
- Attack surface and threat maturity. AD is a frequent target of sophisticated attackers; mitigating lateral movement, Golden Ticket attacks, and credential theft requires sustained engineering discipline and specialized controls. National advisories and CISA guidance emphasize detecting and mitigating AD compromises as a top priority.
- Legacy protocols and applications. Despite Microsoft’s encouragement to favor Kerberos and modern protocols, NTLM and older authentication flows still exist in many environments. Mitigating legacy protocol risk while maintaining application availability requires careful testing and staged rollouts.
- KRBTGT and golden‑ticket complexity. Best practices (and government playbooks) require periodic KRBTGT password rotation and, in breach scenarios, a double reset with careful replication checks. That operation invalidates Kerberos tickets and can force widespread reauthentication; planning and communication are essential.
- Hybrid identity synchronization pitfalls. Azure AD Connect misconfigurations — attribute mismatches, duplicate UPNs, or accidental writeback policies — can create authentication gaps and user confusion. Entra Connect v2 is the supported path, but migrations require testing and staged cutovers.
- Operational debt in documentation and runbooks. Large AD estates accumulate bespoke scripts, shadow accounts, and undocumented trusts. Cleaning this technical debt while preserving service continuity is labor‑intensive.
Practical recommendations — how a candidate should prepare
Resume and interview focus (short‑term)
- Lead with measurable outcomes: migrations completed, DCs deployed/retired, trust boundary rearchitectures, incidents handled (with metrics: MTTR, tickets closed, rollback time).
- Show PowerShell and automation samples: scripts or GitHub repos (redacted for sensitive info) that demonstrate AD automation (DC promotion, GPO deployment, scheduled health checks).
- Demonstrate hybrid identity projects: Azure AD Connect installations, writeback scenarios, Conditional Access policies implemented and their business rationale.
- Articulate security hardening actions: KRBTGT rotations, PAW (Privileged Access Workstation) deployments, tiered admin models, and incident playbooks you authored or executed.
- Be prepared for scenario questions: design a multi-site AD replication plan; recover a corrupted NTDS.dit; implement Conditional Access to require MFA for privileged roles with minimal user friction.
Technical study checklist (medium‑term)
- Master Kerberos and NTLM internals — how tickets are issued and validated, SPNs, constrained delegation, and the risks tied to KRBTGT keys.
- Deep dive into Microsoft Entra Connect v2 architecture, staging, and recovery procedures; learn how to troubleshoot sync issues and attribute flows.
- Build hands‑on Conditional Access policies in a lab: require MFA for admins, block legacy auth, and test device‑compliance rules.
- Practice AD disaster recovery: system state backups, authoritative restores, and the Microsoft community scripts for KRBTGT rotation and AD recovery.
Operational playbook highlights — modernization patterns that actually work
1. Inventory, map, and minimize trust scope
- Start with a full inventory: domains, trusts, applications that use LDAP/Kerberos/NTLM, service accounts, and sensitive SPNs.
- Where possible, reduce cross‑forest trusts or restrict them to explicit, documented use cases. Minimal trust surfaces reduce blast radius.
2. Adopt a tiered administrative model
- Separate administration into tiers (workstation, server, privileged domain roles) and apply least privilege strictly.
- Use dedicated Privileged Access Workstations (PAWs) and short‑lived admin sessions.
3. Automate health checks and AD telemetry
- Schedule automated replication and SYSVOL/DNS checks; integrate AD health metrics with SIEM and runbook automation to alert and automatically collect diagnostics during events.
- Store playbooks and scripts in version control with change control and code review for infrastructure scripts.
4. Plan KRBTGT rotations as controlled projects
- Treat KRBTGT rotation as a change control activity with pre‑checks (repadmin, replication health), a test cadence in a lab, scripted execution, and staged production windows.
- Follow vendor guidance: perform two password resets separated by an appropriate replication interval to clear password history and invalidate golden tickets.
5. Phased Conditional Access and hybrid moves
- Adopt Conditional Access in report‑only mode initially; iterate with user groups and signal thresholds to avoid deterministic breaks.
- For hybrid AD migrations, prefer staged Entra Connect configurations, with careful attribute filtering and testing of writeback scenarios.
Interview and hiring advice for managers (what to test for)
- Technical scenario: design an AD topology for three continents with low WAN bandwidth between two sites — ask for DC placement, global catalog choices, and FSMO allocation rationale.
- Incident simulation: provide a scenario where a Domain Controller fails and replication lags — ask the candidate to outline recovery steps and diagnostics.
- Automation practical: request a PowerShell snippet or pseudo‑code that validates DNS records for domain controllers and reports missing SRV records.
- Security focus: ask how they would detect lateral movement in AD, their approach to KRBTGT rotation, and how to secure service accounts.
- Behavioral: probe for examples of stakeholder communication (e.g., coordinating a change that forces reboots across dozens of production systems).
Certification and career progression
- Certifications that map directly to this role’s responsibilities include Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate and more advanced Azure/Architect credentials for hybrid design and security posture. Bloomberg’s posting lists these as desirable; such certificates validate formal knowledge though hands‑on experience remains decisive.
- Career trajectories from this role naturally move into Identity Architect, Security Engineering (Identity), or Infrastructure Architecture roles because the combination of AD mastery, hybrid identity and security hardening is rare and high‑value.
Conclusion — read the signals, plan for impact
Bloomberg’s Infrastructure Engineer — Windows Services vacancy is a concise snapshot of enterprise identity work in 2025: deep on‑prem AD skills married to hybrid identity and security engineering, heavy emphasis on automation, and the expectation that engineers will reliably operate and modernize a high‑stakes global identity fabric. Candidates who can demonstrate both the hard technical chops (Kerberos internals, AD replication, Entra Connect, PowerShell automation) and the operational rigor (change control, backup/recovery, incident playbooks) will be best positioned to win the role and drive meaningful, durable improvements.The job is an opportunity to work on one of the most critical pieces of an enterprise stack — identity — where well‑architected changes reduce risk, improve resilience, and unlock safer cloud adoption. The tradeoff is clear: the work is high responsibility and high visibility, and success depends on a disciplined, security‑first operational approach combined with automation and clear communication across teams.
Key references mentioned in this analysis (for hiring teams and applicants to validate technical details and operational guidance): Microsoft’s AD and Kerberos documentation, Microsoft Entra (Azure AD Connect) guidance, Conditional Access documentation, national guidance on detecting and mitigating AD compromises, and operational KRBTGT rotation guidance and scripts.
Additional practical community content and AD procedural guides (DC promotion, scripted AD joins, and step‑by‑step AD administration examples) are widely available and commonly used to complement vendor docs when preparing for large‑scale AD changes.
Source: eFinancialCareers Infrastructure Engineer - Windows Services
