Senior Systems Engineer- Managed Services
Company: Contour Data Solutions, LLC
Role: Senior Systems Engineer- Managed Services
Location: Remote / Hybrid (US‑based preferred)
Department: Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering
Reports To: Head of Engineering / Infrastructure/Cloud
Salary Range: $80K-$120K
Shift: 11AM-7:30PM EST
Role Overview
Contour Data Solutions seeks a highly motivated Systems Engineer to make an immediate impact in a fast-paced, 24x7x365 environment. As part of the Managed Services Technology Team, you will design, build, and support the server, virtualization, storage, and backup infrastructure that runs proprietary and third-party applications across Windows and Linux. This is a systems-first role: deep, hands-on ownership of virtualization (VMware, with exposure to alternative hypervisors such as Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox, Xen, or KVM), backup and DR (Veeam and Zerto), and enterprise compute and SAN storage. Automation is central to the work - you will use scripting and infrastructure-as-code tooling to standardize builds, patching, and recovery. You will focus on performance tuning, hardening, design, implementation, and break/fix resolution, and provide both technical and business input into projects. A working knowledge of the surrounding network is expected, but the core of the job is systems engineering.
Job Description
Own the day-to-day operation, change control, and maintenance of the systems estate - servers, hypervisors, storage, and backup/DR - including patching, upgrades, builds, replacement, and troubleshooting. Serve as an escalation point and mentor to the Contour Operations Center, and manage the ticket queue to ensure all work is handled appropriately.
Systems Engineering & Operations
- Design, build, and administer virtualization environments - primarily VMware vSphere/ESXi (clusters, vCenter, resource pools, HA/DRS, capacity planning), with exposure to alternative hypervisors such as Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE, Xen, or KVM.
- Own backup and disaster recovery using Veeam and Zerto, including replication, failover/failback testing, retention policies, and recovery validation.
- Provision, patch, harden, and maintain Windows Server and Linux systems, including Active Directory, DNS/DHCP, and core platform services.
- Manage SAN storage and SAN switching - provisioning, zoning, LUN/datastore management, performance, and capacity.
- Build and maintain automation for provisioning, patching, configuration, and reporting using scripting and infrastructure-as-code tooling (e.g., PowerShell/PowerCLI, Bash, Python, Ansible/Terraform), reducing manual effort and standardizing repeatable tasks.
- Develop runbooks and scheduled jobs to automate routine maintenance, health checks, and backup/DR validation.
- Monitor system health and resource usage, tuning parameters to improve throughput, stability, and efficiency.
Design & Strategy
- Create engineering designs that meet business and operational objectives, including business continuity and disaster recovery solutions.
- Define standard designs, templates, and procedures for projects following existing architectures, and develop new patterns where required.
- Provide subject matter expertise across the technology lifecycle - risk, refresh, migration, and retirement.
- Estimate and plan domain activities to feed end-to-end project plans and advise leadership on architecture and infrastructure planning.
- Evaluate and recommend tools with a cost-conscious approach, drawing on industry best practices and prior project executions.
Support
- Manage the ticket queue and lead resolution of complex systems issues across compute, virtualization, storage, and backup.
- Lead or participate in medium-to-high complexity projects and on-call production support.
- Proactively implement procedures to prevent and reduce the severity of outages.
- Perform upgrades and installations alongside application teams and keep asset and time-tracking systems current.
- Be available for 24/7 on-call on a rotating team schedule once onboarded.
Qualifications
- MSP experience required.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, MIS, or a related field preferred; equivalent work experience accepted.
- 5+ years in design, implementation, and support of enterprise systems infrastructure.
- Strong hands-on expertise with VMware (vSphere/ESXi/vCenter) in production environments; experience with alternative hypervisors (Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE, Xen, or KVM) is a plus.
- Strong experience with backup and disaster recovery platforms - Veeam and Zerto (or comparable replication/DR tooling).
- Solid Windows Server and Linux administration, including core services such as Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP.
- Hands-on knowledge of server hardware (e.g., Dell), SAN switching, and SAN storage.
- Proven automation experience - scripting with PowerShell/PowerCLI, Bash, or Python, and familiarity with configuration management or infrastructure-as-code tools such as Ansible or Terraform to standardize and scale operations.
- Understanding of systems and network security best practices and hardening.
Networking (Nice to Have)
- Working knowledge of routing and switching, firewalls, and VPNs sufficient to support and troubleshoot the systems environment.
- Familiarity with Cisco, Palo Alto, or Fortinet, and common protocols (TCP/UDP, HTTP/HTTPS, NFS, SMB), is a plus but not the primary focus of the role.