Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Email Migration to Microsoft 365

Job Description: Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Email Migration to Microsoft 365

Onsite Location: Onsite &. Remote Work Mix, Washington, DC & Gaithersburg, MD

Position Type: Contract Position

Duration: 12 Months

Roles & Responsibilities:

Role Overview:

• Serves as the primary operational contact and governance lead responsible for end-to-end execution, schedule tracking, and risk management across all six phases of the project lifecycle.
• Lead technical authority responsible for designing the overall migration architecture, ingestion pipeline, target tenant mapping, and network performance strategy.
• Subject matter expert responsible for extracting source data from on-premises EV archive, managing migration waves, and decommissioning legacy infrastructure.
• Target environment engineers responsible for preparing, configuring, and optimizing the M365 environment to receive migrated email archives.
• Compliance specialist responsible for maintaining chain-of-custody integrity, verifying legal hold fidelity, and performing eDiscovery search parity testing before and after data movement.

Key Roles & Responsibilities: o Direct and coordinate project execution across Assessment, Design, Pilot, Production Migration, Validation, and Decommissioning phases.

o Maintain dedicated governance threads and weekly reporting with Customer’s technical and business stakeholders.

o Track critical path items, including EV Health Check findings, pilot go/no-go decisions, and final reconciliation gates.

o Manage deliverable sign-offs, risk registers, and scope changes.

• Design the end-to-end migration architecture connecting Enterprise Vault (EV) to Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online & Purview).
• Establish network throughput models, bandwidth requirements, and target M365 throttling mitigation strategies.
• Define target mailbox structures, metadata mappings, and automated validation scripts.
• Author solution architecture diagrams, network flows, and data security models.
• Perform pre-migration EV Health Checks, archive sizing, item count inventories, and index validation.
• Install, configure, and operate Transvault extractors and EV connect engines in a read-only source setup.
• Execute pilot (1–5 TB) and phased wave production migrations (~170 TB total across user and journal archives).
• Perform delta synchronizations, server/database cleanup, service shutdowns, and post-migration decommissioning of EV infrastructure.
• Prepare target Exchange Online mailboxes, Purview archive mailboxes, and Entra ID identity/user mappings.
• Manage ingestion pipelines, target quotas, and Microsoft Graph / PowerShell ingestion configurations.
• Schedule wave executions within established maintenance windows to ensure zero impact on live production users.
• Monitor ingestion logs and optimize pipeline performance.
• Conduct pre-migration and post-migration eDiscovery baseline searches to verify data fidelity and accessibility.
• Maintain message-level auditing, granular error logs, and chain-of-custody documentation for all ~170 TB of data.
• Validate that legal holds, retention policies, and compliance settings in Microsoft Purview match EV settings.
• Investigate, log, and disposition migration exceptions or corrupt items.

Required Qualifications & Skills

Experience:

• Minimum 8–10+ years of IT Project Management experience managing complex enterprise data migrations and cloud transformations.
• Proven track record leading federal civilian agency IT projects.
• Proficiency in project management frameworks (PMBOK) and tools (MS Project, Jira, Visio, Power BI).
• Familiarity with federal IT compliance, FISMA, and record retention lifecycle mandates.
• Minimum 8+ years as a Cloud Solutions Architect specializing in enterprise messaging and archive migrations.
• Hands-on architecture experience with Symantec/Veritas/Arctera Enterprise Vault and M365 enterprise tenants.
• In-depth expertise in Transvault Migration Engine, Exchange Online, Microsoft Purview, Entra ID, and Azure infrastructure.
• Advanced PowerShell scripting for target preparation and batch automation.
• Minimum 5–7 years of specialized hands-on experience managing and migrating Veritas/Arctera Enterprise Vault environments.
• Experience handling multi-terabyte enterprise archive extractions and exception remediation.

o Arctera/Veritas Enterprise Vault (EV), Transvault Migrator, SQL Server, Windows Server, PowerShell, Exchange Journaling. o Minimum 5+ years of systems engineering experience focusing on Microsoft 365 enterprise administration and Exchange Online.

o Exchange Online, Microsoft Purview, Entra ID, PowerShell automation, Azure Active Directory Connect, TLS/Firewall networking.

o Minimum 4–6 years in digital forensics, eDiscovery management, or IT compliance within a legal or federal environment.

o Microsoft Purview (eDiscovery Standard/Premium & In-Place Hold), Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator, Audit Log analysis, Power BI reporting.

Certifications:

• PMP (Project Management Professional) required. CSM or PgMP preferred.

o Microsoft Certified: Cybersecurity Architect Expert, Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert, or Transvault Certified Master. o Veritas/Arctera Enterprise Vault Certified Specialist, Transvault Certified Engineer.

o Microsoft Certified: Messaging Administrator Associate or Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Associate.

• Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) or Microsoft Certified: Information Protection and Compliance Administrator Associate preferred.

Security Clearance: o Public Trust / Moderate Risk Background Investigation (MBI) or ability to obtain.