SME IT Systems Administrator - Linux
Redstone Arsenal/Huntsville, AL
At IPT Associates (IPTA), we enjoy solving real-world problems with technology. We work closely with our customers, teammates, experts, and partners to come up with practical solutions that make a difference. Whether it's a government or business organization, we focus on understanding the need and building something that works.
Our Team
At IPTA, everything starts with our people. We're big believers that when you invest in your team, great things happen. That's why we encourage learning, growth, and trying new things-even if you don't have all the answers yet.
Our culture is rooted in fierce determination, fearless integrity, and passionate service-but we also like to keep things collaborative, supportive, and down-to-earth.
We're looking for people who:
- Are curious and excited about technology
- Like solving problems and figuring things out
- Can take initiative but also enjoy working with a team
- Want to keep learning, growing, and challenging themselves
If you're someone who's eager to jump in, learn something new, and make an impact-you'll fit right in here.
The Senior IT Systems Administrator team lead is responsible for the administration, engineering, security, performance, availability, and lifecycle management of enterprise Linux infrastructure while providing technical leadership to a team of systems administrators.
Responsibilities
Team Leadership and Technical Oversight
- Serve as the technical lead for Linux systems administration, operations, maintenance, and engineering activities.
- Provide day-to-day technical leadership and guidance to Linux systems administrators and supporting infrastructure personnel.
- Assist management with workload planning, prioritization, scheduling, and assignment of technical tasks.
- Coordinate team activities to ensure operational requirements, project milestones, service-level objectives, and cybersecurity deadlines are achieved.
- Act as the primary escalation point for complex Linux operating system, infrastructure, application, security, and performance issues.
- Lead troubleshooting sessions and coordinate cross-functional technical teams during major incidents or service disruptions.
- Review technical solutions, system configurations, implementation plans, change requests, and administrative procedures for quality and technical accuracy.
- Provide technical direction for Linux server architecture, configuration standards, operating-system baselines, security configurations, and lifecycle management.
- Mentor junior and mid-level systems administrators and provide technical coaching, knowledge transfer, and cross-training.
- Identify team knowledge gaps and recommend training, certifications, documentation, and cross-training initiatives.
- Promote standardized processes, repeatable procedures, automation, and engineering best practices across the administration team.
- Support onboarding and technical development of new team members.
- Assist management with evaluating technical capabilities, staffing requirements, resource constraints, and infrastructure support needs.
- Provide technical input for employee development, training plans, and performance discussions when requested.
- Coordinate work across Linux, Windows, network, virtualization, storage, cybersecurity, and application support teams.
- Represent the Linux administration team during technical meetings, engineering reviews, CAB meetings, project planning sessions, and operational reviews.
- Lead technical planning for infrastructure upgrades, migrations, modernization initiatives, and major maintenance activities.
- Ensure team documentation, procedures, system records, and knowledge articles remain accurate and current.
Linux Systems Administration and Engineering
- Install, configure, administer, maintain, engineer, and troubleshoot enterprise Linux operating systems, primarily Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Perform server provisioning, configuration, patching, upgrading, hardening, optimization, and lifecycle management.
- Maintain Linux systems supporting production, development, test, engineering, and infrastructure workloads.
- Develop and maintain standardized enterprise Linux server builds, configurations, templates, and security baselines.
- Perform advanced troubleshooting of operating system, application, networking, authentication, storage, virtualization, and performance issues.
- Monitor system availability, CPU utilization, memory, storage, processes, services, logs, and resource utilization.
- Perform Linux package and repository management using RPM, YUM, DNF, Satellite, or comparable technologies.
- Configure and maintain SSH, systemd, NTP/Chrony, logging, file systems, network services, and remote administrative capabilities.
- Manage users, groups, file permissions, sudo access, authentication policies, privileged access, and administrative security controls.
- Integrate Linux systems with Authentication, LDAP, Kerberos, SSSD, PAM, or other enterprise identity platforms.
- Configure and maintain local and network-based file systems, including LVM, NFS, SAN, and NAS integrations.
- Support Linux virtual machines hosted on VMware infrastructure.
- Build and configure servers using approved templates, OVAs, automated deployments, or infrastructure provisioning processes.
- Perform advanced performance analysis and recommend CPU, memory, storage, network, or architectural improvements.
- Lead root-cause analysis for significant outages, recurring incidents, and complex infrastructure problems.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Computer Engineering, Management Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; equivalent combinations of education, technical certifications, and relevant professional experience may be considered.
- Minimum of 15 years of IT systems administration or infrastructure engineering experience.
- Minimum of 8-10 years of hands-on enterprise Linux administration experience.
- Minimum of 3 years of technical lead, team lead, senior administrator, or comparable technical leadership experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading technical teams or coordinating work across multiple administrators and engineering disciplines.
- Demonstrated ability to prioritize technical workloads, assign tasks, track technical activities, and coordinate completion of operational and project deliverables.
- Demonstrated experience mentoring junior and mid-level technical personnel.
- Strong hands-on experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
- Advanced knowledge of Linux operating-system architecture, services, processes, permissions, file systems, logging, security, and troubleshooting.
- Experience designing, implementing, administering, and maintaining enterprise Linux server environments.
- Experience performing Linux server builds, configuration, patching, upgrades, migrations, hardening, and lifecycle management.
- Active Security Clearance Required.
Technical Qualifications (Preferred)
- Strong Linux command-line administration and shell-scripting experience.
- Experience using RPM, YUM, DNF, repositories, or related Linux package-management technologies.
- Experience administering users, groups, sudo policies, SSH, PAM, and privileged access.
- Experience integrating Linux systems with Active Directory, LDAP, Kerberos, SSSD, or comparable enterprise identity platforms.
- Strong understanding of TCP/IP networking, DNS, routing, subnetting, VLANs, ports, protocols, and network troubleshooting.
- Experience supporting Linux systems in VMware or comparable enterprise virtualization platforms.
- Experience troubleshooting complex operating-system, application, storage, networking, authentication, and infrastructure problems.
- Experience performing vulnerability remediation and implementing operating-system security controls.
- Knowledge of cybersecurity hardening standards and secure system-administration practices.
- Experience supporting formal Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Configuration Management, and Service Request processes.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct root-cause analysis and develop corrective action recommendations.
- Experience developing and maintaining technical documentation, SOPs, system build guides, configuration standards, and troubleshooting procedures.
- Strong analytical, troubleshooting, organizational, and technical leadership skills.
- Ability to communicate complex technical issues to technical teams, management, customers, and stakeholders.
- Ability to independently lead complex technical activities while coordinating across multidisciplinary teams.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
IPTA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are based on individual merit, including qualifications, experience, performance, and business needs, consistent with applicable federal laws and federal contracting requirements. IPTA provides equal opportunity and utilizes merit-based principles to make employment-related decisions.
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