Lead Systems Engineer (Hybrid Opportunity)

About UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth's flagship campus, is a nationally ranked public research university offering a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, and offers a rich cultural environment in a bucolic setting close to major urban centers. In addition, the University is part of the Five Colleges (including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College), which adds to the intellectual energy of the region.

 

Job Summary

The Lead Systems Engineer designs, implements, monitors, and continually improves procedures and resource allocations to ensure technology support and services to the Administration and Finance Division.  The Lead Systems Engineer also researches and recommends new technologies, helps plan the future directions of Administration & Finance Information Technology (AFIT), and leads implementation projects through leadership, training and mentoring.

 

Essential Functions

• Serves as primary technical designer, implementer, and administrator for the systems used and supported by Administration and Finance.
• Mentors, coaches and trains IT system engineers and administrators on developing, designing, deploying and supporting enterprise class Windows and Linux configuration management and system deployment.
• Develops and implements security policies and procedures to provide security, confidentiality and audibility of administrative information resources. Designs and implements hardware and software configurations to support these policies.
• Facilitates meetings to enhance communications on IT-related subjects across campus.
• Works on multiple projects as a project leader to research, propose and implement strategies in the migration and consolidation of complex distributed systems to a more centralized enterprise model. 
• Analyzes, monitors and keeps systems current with changing technologies.
• Designs, analyzes and configures Windows and Linux servers in a heterogeneous environment to install, upgrade, monitor, maintain, troubleshoot, patch, compile, secure, and repair the system.  Provides enterprise class Windows and Linux hosts in both physical and virtual environments.  Installs new software, trouble shoot, grants permissions to users, groups, applications and trains administrators.
• Monitors system performance and tunes system resources to maintain efficient and equitable use of managed resources.  Performs system upgrades, makes recommendations on server configurations, and designs and implements changes in multiple environments from test or development to production.
• Responds to escalated alerts and customer reported issues.
• Develops tools for automation of tasks and integration of other IT services.
• Actively participates in the planning of both short- and long-term goals and directions for AFIT. Researches, recommends, and implements industry best practices.

 

Other Functions

• Performs related duties as assigned or required to meet department, executive area/division, and university goals and objectives.
• Provides consulting to AFIT and other campus staff on matters related to system provisioning and centralized maintenance and monitoring, as well as other IT Technologies.

 

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

• High School Diploma (or equivalent) and more than 10 years' experience with Windows and Linux systems administration in a large complex environment.
  • An Associate's Degree may be substituted for 2 years of the required experience.
  • A Bachelor’s Degree may be substituted for 4 years of the required experience.
• Experience providing support for Windows or Macintosh desktops, including software image creation and deployment experience. 
• Cross-platform Systems Administration experience, including experience with UNIX/Linux and Windows.
• Experience with programming and/or scripting languages such as PowerShell, Perl, Bash is required. Must have extensive knowledge of the system internals for at least one multi-user computer system.
• Knowledge and experience working with virtualization environments and tools such as VMWare or Vagrant.
• Knowledge of system and network security, including virus and spam management, intrusion detection, firewalls, various authentication schemes (LDAP, Kerberos, Shibboleth), VPN (Virtual Private Network), and disaster management.
• Experience with syste