Northwestern University on the Evanston, IL campus is looking for a senior Linux systems administrator.

Job Summary:

Completes system installation and management, system monitoring and performance tuning, diagnostics and troubleshooting, user support coordination, backup and storage management, data center maintenance, and other related tasks.

Please note: As a primarily systems administration positon that involves critical infrastructure support, there will occasionally be times when the occupant of this position will be required to work outside of normal business hours or on weekends in order to complete some time-dependent tasks.

Specific Responsibilities:

Strategic Planning

• Provides recommendations regarding infrastructure planning and budgeting.

Administration

• Ensures data/media recoverability by implementing a schedule of system backups and database archive operations.
• Supports media management through internal methods and procedures or through offsite storage and retrieval services.
• Develops and promotes standard operating procedures.
• Conducts routine infrastructure audits to ensure compliance with established standards, policies, and configuration guidelines.
• Develops and maintains a comprehensive infrastructure configuration database/library of all supporting documentation.
• Creates and maintains user accounts, security, permissions, and file systems in accordance with standards and operational requirements

Development

• Performs infrastructure installations and upgrades.
• Schedules installations and upgrades and maintains them in accordance with established IT policies and procedures.

Performance

• Monitors and tunes the system to achieve optimum performance levels.
• Ensures infrastructure integrity by evaluating, implementing, and managing appropriate solutions.
• In collaboration with system administrators, performs ongoing support and maintenance for systems and related applications.
• Prioritizes, troubleshoots and resolves issues

Miscellaneous

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in a major such as computer science, information technology, or related; OR appropriate combination of education and experience.
• 2 years system administration or other relevant experience required.
• Please see information in tables below.

Infrastructure (extends across applications):

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Apache web server
• Code Repositories (Git, Subversion, etc)
• High Performance Computing (HPC)
• Identity management/provisioning
• Information security
• Linux Operating System
• System Monitoring (Nagios, Zabbix, Prometheus, etc)
• Automation tool (Puppet/Chef/Ansible)
• Server hardware
• SQL/MySQL/PostgreSQL
• Storage hardware
• VMware vSphere
• Docker
• DNS (ISC BIND), ISC DHCP, SSL cert mgmt.

Programming Languages and Frameworks:

• Shell Scripting (bash, perl,awk, sed, etc)

Compliance:

• FERPA
• HIPAA
• PCI-DSS

Analytical:

• Critical thinking
• Debugging
• Decision making
• Enterprise architecture
• Judgment
• Metadata creation and management
• Problem solving
• Troubleshooting

Project:

• Budgeting
• Agile environment
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Cost/benefit analysis
• Evaluate resources
• Facilitate collaboration
• Functional documentation
• Organizational skills
• Planning

Minimum Competencies: (Skills, knowledge, and abilities.)

• Advanced level Ubuntu server and desktop administration, docker management and deployment, DNS & DHCP management, practical virtualization technology, public key encryption, data backups systems, openssl, shell script programming
• Documentation experience for institutional memory and for user & team training
• Good written and oral communication skills
• Experience mentoring junior sysadmin team members
• Ability to quickly and competently acquire and apply new skills as needed
• Experience configuring and managing Linux computing clusters
• Strong foundation in OS hardening and system security best practices

Preferred Qualifications:

• 4 years of senior level server and desktop Linux systems administration experience.

Preferred Competencies: (Skills, knowledge, and abilities)

• Professional experience with portainer, kubernetes, Infoblox, Juniper SRX firewalls, CrashPlan Pro (or other) cloud backups system, WebDAV configuration, CertBot, HADOOP, CUDA, LDAP, and python, PHP, perl programming.
• Experience using a ticket management system to track requests a plus.

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer of all protected classes, including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Hiring is contingent upon eligibility to work in the United States.