Senior UNIX Administrator

About the role

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) manages the efficient flow of electricity on more than 11,000 circuit-miles of high-voltage transmission lines, dispatching power from hundreds of generating units across the state. The NYISO’s Information Technology department invites applications for a full-time Senior UNIX Administrator to join our Information Technology Team.

Responsibilities

• Performs advanced and/or highly complex work with minimal or no supervision.
• Establishes work plan for department based on organizational goals; sets independent objectives to accomplish specific tasks supporting the larger plan.
• Leads functional or virtual departmental or inter-departmental teams and demonstrates accountability for completion of team-wide objectives.
• Acts as key contributor and represents team for larger organizational teams; regularly interacts with peer departments, business partners, market participants, vendors, and other external constituents.
• Learns and maintains proficiency with assigned technology platforms and disciplines; has broad knowledge of ancillary information technologies, methodologies and platforms.
• Has broad knowledge of IT service management, governance, continuity, financial, project, and lifecycle management.
• Has basic understanding of the energy vertical, energy markets, the electric industry, and the NYISO’s business & operations.
• Represents the organization to external entities. May speak or present at external conferences and seminars or write papers and formal correspondence on behalf of the NYISO.
• Creates, installs, patches and upgrades UNIX, Linux and VMware operating systems and server software packages.
• Performs on-going performance tuning, hardware upgrades, and resource optimization.
• Leads and participates in capacity planning and system lifecycle management.
• In partnership with other subject matter experts and our Business Continuity department, design, test and implement complex solutions that support high availability and inter-site and intra-site fail over capabilities. This includes a monthly review of recovery plans and yearly testing for cyber infrastructure protection (CIP) assets.
• Provisions and controls user permissions and privileges with strict adherence to access guidelines following SOC1 and CIP standards.
• Maintains IT automation and cloud technologies.
• Maintains data and information requests to support internal and external audit requests. Audit requests are from external auditors as well as industry specific regulation agencies e.g. NERC, FERC. Investigate and resolve any compliance issue. Targeting zero deviations from the compliance policies and procedures.
• Provides 24x7 technical support on a rotational basis.
• Mentors and trains associate and UNIX Administrators.
• Establishes and communicates NYISO UNIX and Linux server standards and policies and procedures.
• Participates in on-going IT strategic planning with primary focus on UNIX and VMware server technologies.
• Participates in procurement activities and support contract management.
• Participates in license management and compliance.
• Creates and maintains detailed documentation of Linux, Unix and VMware configurations and functions.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Active Directory.
• Establishes and maintains working relationship with key strategic vendors to understand technical direction of server technologies. Subject matter expert is responsible to identify correct hardware and software for NYISO requirements, then size, configure and implement the identified solution.
• Direct impact and responsibility for the organization’s security posture as related to system integrity and security. This includes zero-day analysis and response, advanced security system hardening knowledge and techniques, analysis and implementation of industry security protocols like CIS benchmarks. Subject matter expert is held accountable for adherence to all prescribed security standards and protocols.
• Develops and champions innovative solutions that improve operational efficiency through the automation of administrative tasks necessary to maintain portfolio of infrastructure assets.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree (BS), Computer Science, Information Systems, Red Hat Certificatied Engineer or greater, or similar technical program required.
• Seven years experience as a UNIX or Linux Server Administrator.

Qualifications

• AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, or RHEL Server Administration certification required.
• Ability to read, analyze and interpret common scientific and technical journals, financial reports and legal documents.
• Ability to respond to common inquiries or complaints from members of the business community.
• Ability to speak effectively before other technical staff and stakeholders.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
• Intermediate competency in Windows operating environment using MS Office applications, e-mail and Internet programs.
• Advanced hands-on experience with UNIX/Linux OS administration including IBM/AIX, HP/HP-UX, and RedHat/Linux systems, server virtualization technologies, server automation technologies and server clustering technologies.
• Thorough knowledge of advanced networking concepts, storage area networking concepts, file system management concepts, system backup concepts and hardware administration/support.
• Desirable competencies: Cisco UCS, VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter, Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Ansible Tower, IBM Power VM and Veritas InfoScale.