Systems Operations Engineer

About The Role

As a Systems Operations Engineer, you will make an impact by ensuring the reliability, performance, automation, and continuous improvement of enterprise infrastructure and mission-critical production systems. You will be a valued member of the Infrastructure Engineering team and work collaboratively with application support teams, platform engineers, cloud architects, security teams, and business stakeholders to deliver resilient, scalable, and highly available technology solutions.

Design, Implement, and Support

You will design, implement, and support enterprise infrastructure solutions across Linux, UNIX, cloud, and hybrid environments. Develop automation and monitoring solutions to improve operational efficiency, system reliability, and incident response. Manage and optimize production systems through proactive monitoring, troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and performance tuning. Support cloud migration, infrastructure modernization, and platform enhancement initiatives while ensuring high availability and operational excellence.

Collaboration

Collaborate with engineering, security, and operations teams to maintain compliance, improve system observability, and implement best practices for infrastructure management.

Work Model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Columbus, OH. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of experience supporting enterprise infrastructure, systems engineering, or production operations environments.
• Extensive experience administering Linux and UNIX operating systems in large-scale enterprise environments.
• Experience with infrastructure monitoring, alerting, and observability tools such as Zabbix, ThousandEyes, PagerDuty, StatusCast, or similar platforms.
• Strong experience with systems automation, scripting, and operational process improvement.
• Experience supporting mission-critical applications and performing advanced troubleshooting and root cause analysis in production environments.
• Experience with cloud platforms, particularly AWS, including migration and infrastructure modernization initiatives.
• Knowledge of high-availability architectures, disaster recovery, capacity planning, and performance optimization.
• Experience working with hybrid cloud and on-premises infrastructure environments.
• Strong understanding of incident management, change management, and IT operational best practices.
• Experience working in highly regulated environments with security, compliance, and audit requirements.
• Excellent communication, analytical, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.

Desired Skills

• Experience leveraging AI or machine learning technologies to improve operational efficiency and infrastructure monitoring.
• Experience with enterprise job scheduling platforms such as AutoSys.
• Experience supporting large-scale financial services, banking, payment processing, or higher education environments.
• Experience integrating predictive analytics and proactive monitoring strategies into operational workflows.
• Experience leading infrastructure migration, OS upgrade, or modernization programs.
• Familiarity with Java-based application support and troubleshooting.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers and leading operational initiatives across distributed teams.

Pay & Benefits

The annual salary for this position is between $88,000 - $120,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.

Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Disclaimer

The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.