Application Support System Administrator

Michigan Farm Bureau Family of Companies•Lansing, MI

About The Position

The Application Support System Administrator supports the reliability and ongoing administration of assigned enterprise applications. The role handles platform maintenance, tuning, problem resolution, implementation, configuration, upgrades, patches, and other routine administrative tasks. It supports and improves systems and serves as a liaison among users, vendors, and development teams. The administrator monitors application performance, troubleshoots production issues, participates in outage resolution, documents resolution activities, and maintains troubleshooting procedures. The role conducts root cause analysis, recommends ways to prevent recurring problems, tracks uptime and downtime, and reports on application efficiency. It also assists the Senior Systems Administrator with daily production operations and supports scheduling and batch job flows. The position maintains monitoring solutions, notifies users and vendors about outages or degraded service, reviews vendor updates for potential impacts, and installs or upgrades systems. It helps ensure application licenses and service agreements are acquired, executed, and renewed. The administrator advises business and project teams on administrative functions, reviews system architecture and infrastructure considerations with project teams, and supports data and metadata backup practices for business continuity. The role works with business teams to understand processes and requirements, considers the impact of new requirements on connected applications and processes, and learns the application ecosystem to support ongoing operations. It collaborates across teams, tracks its work, communicates risks and issues, participates in mitigation, and shares knowledge with associate-level team members.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field is preferred; equivalent work experience may be considered.
Two to four years of system administration experience required.
Two to four years of application support or other technical experience required.
At least one System Administrator Certification is required, such as Salesforce, Guidewire, Garvin-Allen, or Profisee; equivalent work experience may be considered.
Expert knowledge of at least one enterprise application system.
Application implementation experience required.
Ability to customize applications such as Salesforce, Garvin-Allen, Guidewire, and other systems with little to no external consultant assistance.

Nice To Haves

Microsoft Certification preferred.
AINS, FLMI, or equivalent designation preferred.

Responsibilities

Monitor application performance and troubleshoot production issues.
Participate in outage resolution, document resolution activities, maintain troubleshooting procedures, and conduct root cause analysis.
Identify and recommend measures to prevent recurring system problems.
Track production issues, report application uptime, downtime, and efficiency, and research and escalate abnormalities.
Assist the Senior Systems Administrator in overseeing daily production operations of enterprise applications.
Maintain monitoring solutions and notify appropriate users and third-party vendors about outages or system degradation.
Review vendor documentation for updates and assess potential impacts on the enterprise and active projects.
Install and upgrade systems following new releases; assist with training and communication as directed.
Ensure application licenses and service agreements are acquired, executed, and renewed as necessary.
Act as a liaison among users, vendors, and development teams, following established guidelines.
Advise business and project teams on administrative functions, including platform maintenance, reports and dashboards, and workflows.
Review high-level systems architecture, network integrity, server deployment, and security expectations with project teams.
Participate in training on technology enhancements, tools, and application capabilities, and support adoption of relevant practices.
Learn business processes and requirements and collaborate with business teams to contribute to solutions.
Execute established guidelines for backing up data and metadata for business continuity.
Assess the impact of new requirements on upstream and downstream applications, systems, and processes for review with peers.
Learn the ecosystem of applications to support ongoing operations.
Engage and communicate with team members, sub-teams, and project teams to achieve shared goals.
Organize and track work, adhere to priorities, communicate issues and risks, and participate in mitigation.
Support operations processes, including scheduling and batch job flows.
Share knowledge, advice, and mentoring with associate-level team members.