Director, Systems Engineering

Responsible for the architecture, engineering, reliability, security, and operation of the University’s enterprise systems infrastructure. Leads and develops the Systems Engineering team while serving as a senior technical contributor, participating directly in infrastructure design, complex implementations, automation, troubleshooting, incident response, major upgrades, and disaster recovery.

About the role

The Systems Engineering portfolio includes on-premises and cloud infrastructure, Windows and Linux systems, virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, directory and authentication services, monitoring, automation, and related enterprise platforms. Collaborates with Information Security, Network Engineering, Enterprise Applications, Research Computing, Client Services, Academic Technology, and departmental technology teams to provide secure, resilient, scalable, and supportable services for the University’s academic, research, and administrative missions.

Responsibilities

• Lead, supervise, mentor, and develop the Systems Engineering team by establishing clear responsibilities, service ownership, performance expectations, technical documentation, professional development opportunities, and service outcomes while reducing dependency on individual employees through cross-training and knowledge sharing.
• Develop and maintain a multiyear roadmap for systems infrastructure, hybrid cloud, platform modernization, automation, resilience, and lifecycle replacement.
• Establish technical standards and architecture that promote security, reliability, scalability, interoperability, maintainability, accessibility, and cost effectiveness.
• Communicate infrastructure strategy, service performance, operational risks, incidents, and investment needs to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Manage infrastructure budgets, contracts, licensing, cloud consumption, lifecycle planning, procurement, and vendor performance.
• Oversee the reliable operation of enterprise infrastructure services by establishing measures for availability, performance, capacity, patching, vulnerability remediation, backup, and recovery readiness, while maintaining a comprehensive backup, restoration, and disaster-recovery program with documented recovery requirements and regular testing of critical services.
• Serve as a hands-on senior technical contributor and escalation resource for complex enterprise infrastructure and systems reliability issues, including major incident response, service restoration, technical troubleshooting, post-incident reviews, and corrective action planning.
• Lead and participate directly in major infrastructure implementations, upgrades, migrations, recovery activities, and cross-functional technology initiatives while advancing the use of infrastructure as code, configuration management, scripting, version control, automated deployment, monitoring, and other repeatable engineering practices.
• Partner with Information Security to implement system hardening, privileged-access controls, vulnerability remediation, logging, auditability, and compliance requirements.
• Partner with Research Computing and academic units to provide infrastructure that supports research growth, specialized computing needs, regulated data, and cloud-based research environments.
• Promote an inclusive, collaborative, and service-oriented environment in which employees are supported, accountable, and encouraged to develop their technical and leadership capabilities.
• Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related field.
• At least ten years of progressively responsible experience designing, implementing, and operating complex enterprise infrastructure environments.
• At least five years of experience leading technical staff, teams, projects, or major infrastructure functions. Formal supervisory experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to serve as both a people leader and a hands-on senior technical contributor.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise infrastructure technologies and practices, including several of the following:
  • Windows or Linux systems
  • Cloud infrastructure
  • Virtualization
  • Enterprise identity and authentication
  • Storage, backup, and disaster recovery
  • Infrastructure automation or scripting
  • Systems monitoring and observability
  • Infrastructure security and vulnerability management
• Experience leading complex technical implementations, upgrades, migrations, or production incident response.
• Demonstrated ability to establish priorities, make sound technical decisions, delegate effectively, develop staff, and maintain accountability.
• Strong communication, collaboration, customer-service, and documentation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, disciplines, and organizational levels.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting technology in higher education, research, government, healthcare, or another complex institutional environment.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, Entra ID, VMware or comparable virtualization platforms, enterprise backup technologies, and Linux systems.
• Experience with infrastructure automation and configuration-management technologies such as PowerShell, Python, Ansible, Git, or comparable tools.
• Experience supporting research computing, regulated data, cloud-based research environments, or data-intensive academic work.
• Experience with service-management, site-reliability, or disaster-recovery practices.
• Relevant technical, cloud, security, service-management, project-management, or leadership certifications.

Schedule

Requires participation in planned maintenance, major upgrades, incident response, and recovery activities that may occur outside normal University business hours. Generally expected to work on campus at least four days per week. Limited remote work may be available consistent with University policy and operational needs. Must be available to respond to significant incidents, emergencies, and critical system activities that require an on-campus presence outside the regular work schedule. On-call responsibilities apply.

Background check required, including criminal felony & misdemeanor (7 years), federal criminal, Massachusetts CORI, education verification (highest degree), employment verification (7 years), national sex offender search, professional licenses (as applicable), SSN trace, and SSN validation.