Senior Systems Administrator

Senior Systems Administrator

Infrastructure & Operations  •  Full-Time  •  Hybrid / On-Site

Department:  Information Technology — Infrastructure & Operations

Reports To:  Manager, Infrastructure & Operations

Location:  Hybrid — regular on-site presence required; occasional after-hours and on-call rotation

Level:  Senior Individual Contributor

Position Summary

We are looking for a Senior Systems Administrator to own the day-to-day health and long-term direction of the virtualization, compute, and storage platforms that our business runs on. This is a hands-on senior role for someone who is equally comfortable in vCenter, a Windows Server console, and a Linux shell — and who would rather build the monitoring that catches a problem than wait for a ticket describing it.

You will operate with a high degree of autonomy: taking ambiguous, multi-layer problems (“the application is slow”) and driving them to root cause across hypervisor, guest OS, storage, and network boundaries. You will also help shape where the environment goes next — improving resilience, expanding automation, tightening our backup and disaster-recovery posture, and gradually introducing container workloads as they make sense. Along the way you will raise the bar for the rest of the team through mentorship and durable documentation.

The Team & Environment

You will join a lean, collaborative infrastructure team that supports the full production estate and partners closely with the network, security, database, and application groups. The team values engineers who communicate early, document what they build, and are trusted to run with a problem end to end.

What you would be working in:

• Virtualization: enterprise VMware vSphere — ESXi hosts, vCenter, HA/DRS clusters supporting 500+ virtual machines
• Operating systems: a mixed fleet of Windows Server and Linux (RHEL / Ubuntu and similar) in production
• Identity: Active Directory, Group Policy, Kerberos authentication, and gMSA-based service accounts
• Storage: enterprise SAN/NAS platforms including Qumulo and HPE Nimble/Alletra
• Data protection: Veeam (or equivalent) backup and disaster recovery, with real recovery testing
• Automation: PowerShell/PowerCLI and Bash across both Windows and Linux
• Monitoring: an evolving observability stack — there is real room to influence how we instrument and alert
• Containers: no container infrastructure today. Helping the team grow that footprint thoughtfully is part of the opportunity, not a prerequisite.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and maintain enterprise VMware vSphere environments (ESXi hosts, vCenter, HA/DRS clusters) supporting 500+ VMs.
• Administer both Windows Server and Linux systems in production — patching, hardening, performance tuning, and troubleshooting across the fleet.
• Manage Active Directory, including GPO management and service account security (gMSA, Kerberos authentication).
• Manage enterprise SAN/NAS storage platforms (e.g., Qumulo, HPE Nimble/Alletra), including capacity planning, performance troubleshooting, and migrations.
• Implement and maintain monitoring and alerting across compute and storage layers, ensuring issues are caught proactively rather than reported by end users.
• Implement and manage Veeam or equivalent backup and DR solutions, including regular recovery testing.
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery plans, runbooks, and procedures.
• Write and maintain automation in PowerShell/PowerCLI and Bash across mixed Windows/Linux environments.
• Provide systems-level support for database infrastructure (VM sizing, storage and latency troubleshooting) as needed.
• Independently diagnose and resolve complex infrastructure issues with minimal oversight.
• Mentor junior team members and contribute to documentation and knowledge transfer.
• Collaborate with network and security teams, communicating status and blockers proactively.
• Help the team grow its container footprint over time as workloads evolve.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years as a Systems or Infrastructure Administrator in an enterprise environment.
• Strong hands-on experience administering VMware vSphere at scale.
• Solid Linux administration experience (RHEL, Ubuntu, or similar).
• Demonstrated experience with enterprise SAN/NAS storage — performance troubleshooting, not just provisioning.
• Practical scripting experience in PowerShell, Bash, or equivalent.
• Experience with monitoring and observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Zabbix, PRTG, Grafana/Prometheus, or similar).
• Experience with Windows Server, Active Directory, and Kerberos/service account administration.
• Track record of working independently through ambiguous, multi-step technical problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication; responsive to teammates and stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant certifications: VCP, RHCSA/RHCE, Microsoft Certified: Windows Server, or LPIC.
• Experience with Veeam backup/DR and hands-on DR testing.
• Prior experience mentoring or leading junior administrators.
• Any exposure to containers or orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, Tanzu).
• SQL Server infrastructure exposure (storage, performance, VM sizing).

• 5+ years as a Systems or Infrastructure Administrator in an enterprise environment.
• Strong hands-on experience administering VMware vSphere at scale.
• Solid Linux administration experience (RHEL, Ubuntu, or similar).
• Demonstrated experience with enterprise SAN/NAS storage — performance troubleshooting, not just provisioning.
• Practical scripting experience in PowerShell, Bash, or equivalent.
• Experience with monitoring and observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Zabbix, PRTG, Grafana/Prometheus, or similar).
• Experience with Windows Server, Active Directory, and Kerberos/service account administration.
• Track record of working independently through ambiguous, multi-step technical problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication; responsive to teammates and stakeholders.