System Administrator, Linux

About the role

The Linux System Administrator is responsible for the installation, configuration, maintenance, security, and performance of Linux-based servers and infrastructure. This role ensures system availability, reliability, and operational efficiency while supporting business applications, users, and IT initiatives. This is a hybrid working role that requires 3 days onsite, in office, per week.

Responsibilities

• Administer Linux servers and operating systems across development, test, and production environments.
• Monitor system health, performance, and availability.
• Perform operating system installations, upgrades, and patching.
• Implement and maintain security controls and compliance requirements.
• Troubleshoot and resolve hardware, software, and infrastructure issues.
• Manage user accounts, permissions, and authentication services.
• Maintain backup and recovery processes.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure automation solutions.
• Create and update technical documentation, procedures, and system diagrams.
• Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, and problem resolution.
• Support change management and system maintenance activities.
• Collaborate with application, network, security, and cloud teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field; or equivalent work experience.
• Relevant certifications preferred (RHCSA, RHCE, Linux+, LPIC, AWS SysOps, or equivalent).
• 3+ years of experience administering Linux operating systems in enterprise environments.
• Experience supporting physical, virtual, and cloud-hosted Linux servers.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring, backup, and security tools.
• Strong experience with Linux distributions such as: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise.
• System Administration: Installation, configuration, and maintenance of Linux servers; user and group administration; filesystem management and disk provisioning; service management using systemd; performance tuning and system optimization; patch management and operating system upgrades.
• Scripting and Automation proficiency in: Bash shell scripting, Python (preferred), Ansible or similar automation tools; ability to automate routine administrative tasks.
• Networking understanding of: TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, SSH, NFS, LDAP, VPN technologies; experience troubleshooting network connectivity issues.
• Virtualization and Cloud experience with: VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, KVM; AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud; managing virtual machines and cloud infrastructure.
• Security knowledge of Linux security best practices; experience with SELinux/AppArmor, firewall configuration (firewalld, iptables, nftables), vulnerability remediation, access controls and auditing, security compliance standards.
• Monitoring and Logging experience with tools such as: Nagios, Zabbix, Splunk, ELK Stack, Prometheus, Grafana.
• Storage and Backup knowledge of: RAID configurations, LVM management, SAN/NAS environments, backup and recovery procedures, disaster recovery planning.

Preferred Skills

• Container technologies (Docker, Podman).
• Kubernetes or OpenShift administration.
• Configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef).
• DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines.
• Git version control.
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
• Enterprise directory services integration.
• Experience in highly available and clustered environments.

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting abilities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and within a team environment.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills.
• Customer service and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Physical and Operational Requirements

• Ability to participate in on-call rotations and after-hours support.
• Ability to support maintenance windows during evenings or weekends as needed.
• Ability to lift and install server hardware when required.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain any required security clearances.

Success Factors

• Maintain high system availability and uptime.
• Proactively identify and resolve issues before service impact.
• Automate repetitive tasks to improve operational efficiency.
• Ensure systems remain secure, patched, and compliant.
• Provide excellent support to users and technical teams.

This response is AI-generated, for reference only.