Darigold is seeking a highly skilled and motivated System Administrator to join our IT Operations team. The Systems Administrator provides support to and management of Darigold servers, storage, power, backup and recovery systems. Your expertise will ensure the smooth functioning, security and reliability of our critical IT systems, enabling our organization to operate efficiently and effectively. This role focuses on reliable execution, adherence to standards and collaboration within a security‑ and uptime‑critical environment.
Darigold is the fifth largest dairy cooperative in the United States based on milk volume and one of the largest privately held organizations headquartered in the state of Washington. Since 1918, our producers have taken pride in producing dairy products with unsurpassed quality. Today, we are one of the nation's largest agricultural cooperatives, producing over 8.5 billion pounds of milk every year.
Through innovative technology and our efficient, flexible production capabilities, we deliver value-added products and customer-driven solutions. Darigold is now known throughout the world for bringing fresh, wholesome dairy products and ingredients from the Northwest to people all around the globe.
What You Will Do:
- Infrastructure Management: Deploy, configure and maintain Dell server hardware, Dell Storage, Pure Storage arrays, APC UPS’s and other related infrastructure components, ensuring optimal performance and uptime.
- Hyper-V / VMware Virtualization: Manage and administer virtualization platforms, including cluster management, virtual machine deployment, resource allocation and performance tuning, to support efficient utilization of server resources and scalability.
- Windows Domain Services: Manage and administer Windows Domain Services, including Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS and DHCP, File Servers and Exchange Hybrid.
- Backup and Recovery: Implement and oversee backup and recovery solutions to protect our data and ensure business continuity in case of any system failures or disasters.
- System Monitoring and Troubleshooting: Continuously monitor system performance, identify issues and promptly resolve technical problems to minimize downtime and disruptions.
- Patch and Update Management: Plan and execute regular software updates, security patches and firmware upgrades for the server and storage infrastructure.
- Capacity Planning: Assess and forecast system capacity requirements to anticipate future needs and recommend necessary upgrades or expansions.
- Documentation and Reporting: Maintain comprehensive documentation of IT systems, configurations, procedures and incidents. Generate regular reports on system performance, availability and security status.
- Collaboration and Support: Participate in required meetings, incident calls and remediation discussions, provide status updates and work collaboratively with team members, architects, security and vendors.
- Technical Validation: Validate configuration changes, assumptions and identified issues using documented standards, vendor documentation, system data or peer review before presenting findings or escalating concerns.
- Security Remediation & Hardening: Remediate vulnerabilities identified through penetration testing, audits and security assessments, including directory services, certificate services, virtualization platforms and management interfaces, in coordination with security and operations stakeholders.
- Technology Evaluation: Stay informed about the latest industry trends, best practices and advancements in server, storage and backup technologies identifying opportunities for improvement and supporting evaluation efforts to enhance the infrastructure’s efficiency and reliability.
- Work Prioritization & Execution: Execute assigned work according to defined priorities and timelines, including redirecting effort when priorities change due to incidents, security findings or business needs.
- On Call Support: Provide 24 x 7 On-Call support as part of a rotating schedule.
- Travel: Local and regional travel estimate of 25%.
What You Will Bring:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or related field (or equivalent work experience).
- Minium of 5 years of proven experience as a System Administrator, preferably in a manufacturing or similar critical uptime environment.
- Knowledge of Dell server hardware, Dell Storage, Pure Storage and APC UPS systems.
- Experience with centrally managed virtualization environments, such as VMware vSphere or Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).
- Linux experience.
- Understanding of high-availability clustering concepts and experience in implementing and managing failover clustering solutions.
- Strong expertise in Windows Domain Services administration, including Active Directory, DNS and DHCP and File shares.
- Familiarity with backup and recovery solutions, such as Druva, Veeam, Commvault or similar platforms.
- Foundational knowledge of networking concepts to support on-call operations.
- Proficiency in PowerShell scripting for automating tasks, configuration management and system administration.
- Ability to diagnose and resolve technical issues independently and efficiently.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively in a team-oriented environment.
- Demonstrated ability to follow technical direction, validate work before escalation and communicate issues clearly and professionally.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities with attention to detail.
- Relevant certifications (e.g., MCSE, CCNA, Dell EMC Proven Professional, Pure Storage Certified Administrator).
- IT experience in a manufacturing environment or other critical up-time environments such as medical, banking and utilities is a plus.
- Experience with NetBox, LogicMonitor, GitHub and PagerDuty is preferred.
Benefits of Working at Darigold:
We understand that as an employee, benefits that support you and your family in and out of work are important. We’re proud to offer eligible positions a competitive total rewards package that includes:
- 401k competitive employer matching
- Comprehensive medical, dental & vision benefits
- Employer paid life & disability coverage
- Paid time off and paid holidays
- 8 weeks paid parental leave
- Education assistance
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible hybrid working arrangement where it applies (up to 1 day/week after initial 90 days and approval by hiring manager and HR)
Our Commitment to Diversity:
Achieving our vision to Lead Dairy Forward requires cultivating and supporting a team with varying backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We are committed to providing a workplace based on mutual respect where all employees feel included and can bring their best and authentic selves to work every day. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and Affirmative Action Employer. We welcome all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran status, disability, marital status, creed, religion, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. As a condition of employment applicants offered a role will be required to successfully pass our pre-employment background screen, receive a negative drug screen result & confirm eligibility to work in the U.S. We participate in E-Verify - please follow the links for details, English / Spanish & view our Right to Work Statement, English / Spanish.