Systems Administrator Operations

Job Summary

Reporting to the Manager, Data Centre Services, the Systems Administrator Operations works as part of a team to ensure the operational effectiveness of the university’s servers, storage and data centres. Members of this team maintain administrative, teaching and learning systems related to business operations of the university. These systems are required to be in operation 24 hours per day, 365 days of the year.

Functions include responding to user trouble tickets, responding to system generated trouble tickets, hardware maintenance, system patching, problem determination/resolution, performance and security monitoring, and usage reporting.

This position requires the incumbent to use problem solving skills to analyze and correct software and hardware problems and to automate administration tasks. The incumbent also must possess effective communications skills in order to provide technical assistance to peers and the user community.

This position will work offset week-day hours within 7am to 10pm and will occasionally be required to work other pre-scheduled hours or emergency call-outs. There may be occasions when this position is required to travel out of town/country for training.

Job Requirements

This position requires a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or other relevant discipline plus at least three years of experience in system administration in a large enterprise environment.

An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.

This position requires in-depth system administration experience on either Windows or Linux and a strong ability to learn both as both will be used daily.

In-depth system administration ability for Windows would include:

• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Windows Server
• Experience with administering Active Directory
• Proficiency with programming in PowerShell
• Experience with SCCM, SCOM, WSUS and other Windows enterprise tools will be considered an asset

In-depth system administration ability for Linux would include:

• Advanced knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Proficiency with programming in PERL
• Working knowledge of Bash and Python
• Working knowledge of RPM (building packages and maintaining repositories)
• Experience with Ansible will be considered an asset

In addition, this position requires:

• High degree of attention to detail is required, as is the ability to understand complex technical concepts and the need to maintain broad and in-depth technical knowledge of all aspects of servers and server operating systems.
• Must possess problem solving abilities; must be able to effectively identify and resolve unusual and complex technical problems.
• Ability to effectively manage multiple tasks and priorities and work under pressure to meet time sensitive and mission critical deadlines in a complex environment.
• Ability to take initiative and work with limited direction.
• Ability to work collaboratively.
• Ability to successfully contribute to complex projects.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills.

Additional preference for:

Experience in an academic/research environment.