SME IT Systems Administrator - Linux Redstone Arsenal/Huntsville, ALThe Senior IT Systems Administrator team lead is responsible for the administration, engineering, security, performance, availability, and lifecycle management of enterprise Linux infrastructure while providing technical leadership to a team of systems administrators.
ResponsibilitiesTeam Leadership and Technical Oversight- Serve as the technical lead for Linux systems administration, operations, maintenance, and engineering activities.
- Provide day-to-day technical leadership and guidance to Linux systems administrators and supporting infrastructure personnel.
- Assist management with workload planning, prioritization, scheduling, and assignment of technical tasks.
- Coordinate team activities to ensure operational requirements, project milestones, service-level objectives, and cybersecurity deadlines are achieved.
- Act as the primary escalation point for complex Linux operating system, infrastructure, application, security, and performance issues.
- Lead troubleshooting sessions and coordinate cross-functional technical teams during major incidents or service disruptions.
- Review technical solutions, system configurations, implementation plans, change requests, and administrative procedures for quality and technical accuracy.
- Provide technical direction for Linux server architecture, configuration standards, operating-system baselines, security configurations, and lifecycle management.
- Mentor junior and mid-level systems administrators and provide technical coaching, knowledge transfer, and cross-training.
- Identify team knowledge gaps and recommend training, certifications, documentation, and cross-training initiatives.
- Promote standardized processes, repeatable procedures, automation, and engineering best practices across the administration team.
- Support onboarding and technical development of new team members.
- Assist management with evaluating technical capabilities, staffing requirements, resource constraints, and infrastructure support needs.
- Provide technical input for employee development, training plans, and performance discussions when requested.
- Coordinate work across Linux, Windows, network, virtualization, storage, cybersecurity, and application support teams.
- Represent the Linux administration team during technical meetings, engineering reviews, CAB meetings, project planning sessions, and operational reviews.
- Lead technical planning for infrastructure upgrades, migrations, modernization initiatives, and major maintenance activities.
- Ensure team documentation, procedures, system records, and knowledge articles remain accurate and current.
Linux Systems Administration and Engineering - Install, configure, administer, maintain, engineer, and troubleshoot enterprise Linux operating systems, primarily Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Perform server provisioning, configuration, patching, upgrading, hardening, optimization, and lifecycle management.
- Maintain Linux systems supporting production, development, test, engineering, and infrastructure workloads.
- Develop and maintain standardized enterprise Linux server builds, configurations, templates, and security baselines.
- Perform advanced troubleshooting of operating system, application, networking, authentication, storage, virtualization, and performance issues.
- Monitor system availability, CPU utilization, memory, storage, processes, services, logs, and resource utilization.
- Perform Linux package and repository management using RPM, YUM, DNF, Satellite, or comparable technologies.
- Configure and maintain SSH, systemd, NTP/Chrony, logging, file systems, network services, and remote administrative capabilities.
- Manage users, groups, file permissions, sudo access, authentication policies, privileged access, and administrative security controls.
- Integrate Linux systems with Authentication, LDAP, Kerberos, SSSD, PAM, or other enterprise identity platforms.
- Configure and maintain local and network-based file systems, including LVM, NFS, SAN, and NAS integrations.
- Support Linux virtual machines hosted on VMware infrastructure.
- Build and configure servers using approved templates, OVAs, automated deployments, or infrastructure provisioning processes.
- Perform advanced performance analysis and recommend CPU, memory, storage, network, or architectural improvements.
- Lead root-cause analysis for significant outages, recurring incidents, and complex infrastructure problems.
Required Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Computer Engineering, Management Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; equivalent combinations of education, technical certifications, and relevant professional experience may be considered.
- Minimum of 15 years of IT systems administration or infrastructure engineering experience.
- Minimum of 8-10 years of hands-on enterprise Linux administration experience.
- Minimum of 3 years of technical lead, team lead, senior administrator, or comparable technical leadership experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading technical teams or coordinating work across multiple administrators and engineering disciplines.
- Demonstrated ability to prioritize technical workloads, assign tasks, track technical activities, and coordinate completion of operational and project deliverables.
- Demonstrated experience mentoring junior and mid-level technical personnel.
- Strong hands-on experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Advanced knowledge of Linux operating-system architecture, services, processes, permissions, file systems, logging, security, and troubleshooting.
- Experience designing, implementing, administering, and maintaining enterprise Linux server environments.
- Experience performing Linux server builds, configuration, patching, upgrades, migrations, hardening, and lifecycle management.
- Active Security Clearance Required.
Technical Qualifications (Preferred) - Strong Linux command-line administration and shell-scripting experience.
- Experience using RPM, YUM, DNF, repositories, or related Linux package-management technologies.
- Experience administering users, groups, sudo policies, SSH, PAM, and privileged access.
- Experience integrating Linux systems with Active Directory, LDAP, Kerberos, SSSD, or comparable enterprise identity platforms.
- Strong understanding of TCP/IP networking, DNS, routing, subnetting, VLANs, ports, protocols, and network troubleshooting.
- Experience supporting Linux systems in VMware or comparable enterprise virtualization platforms.
- Experience troubleshooting complex operating-system, application, storage, networking, authentication, and infrastructure problems.
- Experience performing vulnerability remediation and implementing operating-system security controls.
- Knowledge of cybersecurity hardening standards and secure system-administration practices.
- Experience supporting formal Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Configuration Management, and Service Request processes.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct root-cause analysis and develop corrective action recommendations.
- Experience developing and maintaining technical documentation, SOPs, system build guides, configuration standards, and troubleshooting procedures.
- Strong analytical, troubleshooting, organizational, and technical leadership skills.
- Ability to communicate complex technical issues to technical teams, management, customers, and stakeholders.
- Ability to independently lead complex technical activities while coordinating across multidisciplinary teams.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
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