Lead, Systems Engineer

Sony Pictures Entertainment•Culver City, CA

About The Position

The Lead, Systems Engineering is a senior member of the team accountable for the uptime and management of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Global Enterprise Server Infrastructure. The role is responsible for analysis, design, and development of enterprise systems and serves as a senior technical expert for the SPE Global Server Technology environment. It emphasizes enterprise systems analysis, design, architecture, and project management, alongside problem management and positive working relationships with IT organizations, clients, and vendors. Responsibilities are carried out with minimal to no supervision. The position manages server resources and service levels across the enterprise, supports production systems, and contributes to operational policies, procedures, and disaster recovery capabilities. It also reports on service-level progress, capacity, and system status to IT management and customers. Travel of about 10% is expected.

Requirements

At least 8 years of employment in the IT industry working with major systems and vendors.
At least 5 years of experience deploying, managing, and maintaining cloud services on one or more of AWS, Azure, and GCP.
At least 5 years of experience as an Intel and/or x86 systems administrator.
At least 8 years of experience with Windows and Linux operating systems.
At least 3 years of experience with virtualization platforms such as VMware, PowerVM, or Oracle VM.
At least 3 years of experience with multi-tiered application development.
Knowledge of computer networking concepts, including switching, routing, and firewalls.
Recent hands-on experience with cloud technologies and services from AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Linux systems working knowledge, including bash or Python scripting and Ansible or other configuration management tools.
Windows operating system knowledge, including Group Policy, the Windows registry, protocols, and configuration management tools.
Knowledge of virtualization concepts including SDDC, SDN, and SDS; VMware or Nutanix products are preferred.
Knowledge of infrastructure-as-code and DevOps tools such as Jenkins, GitHub, and Terraform.
System design knowledge, including ER diagrams and n-tier architecture, and expertise with architecture drawing tools.
Contextual knowledge of AI technologies, practical real-world implementations, and applications to systems engineering and operations.
Project management knowledge, including Waterfall and Agile methods, ROI, FRD/BRD/TRD, CBA, and budgeting.
Experience working with RDBMS, NoSQL platforms, and other common database platforms.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for conveying architecture and strategic technology issues and plans to all organizational levels.
Strong understanding of organizational goals and objectives.
Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving abilities.
Excellent architecture and technical support documentation skills.
Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
Ability to think strategically and tactically to implement business and technical vision.

Nice To Haves

Two or more years of entertainment experience.
Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering or equivalent experience is preferred.
Experience with VMware or Nutanix virtualization products.

Responsibilities

Serve as a senior team member on the Global Server Technology team.
Install and configure multiple virtualization technologies and operating systems, including Windows and Linux.
Establish standards for server hardware and operating systems.
Establish server usage policies and communicate them to affected audiences.
Develop performance management procedures for server infrastructure.
Manage and maintain server resources globally throughout the enterprise.
Manage relationships with IT staff to ensure server service levels and availability.
Manage outages, identify root causes, and resolve server issues within allowed service levels.
Participate in daily production meetings and report production system status.
Participate in change control, production acceptance, and event management processes.
Participate in developing operational procedures and policies.
Participate in developing a viable, cost-effective disaster recovery capability.
Develop monthly statistics and report progress against internal and external service levels.
Manage server capacity and provide utilization statistics to the capacity planner.
Provide oral and written status reports to IT management and customers.
Communicate architecture and strategic technology issues and plans to all organizational levels.
Solve problems quickly and automate processes while supporting both strategic and tactical implementation of business and technical vision.
Travel about 10% of the time.