Senior System Administrator

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas•Topeka, KS

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior System Administrator serves as the senior technical administrator for Information Services responsible for maintaining and optimizing the organization's infrastructure to meet business needs and service-level expectations. This role oversees complex system analysis, project management activities, and critical maintenance to ensure reliable and secure operations. By guiding technology decisions, mentoring team members, and collaborating with senior leadership, the position helps balance performance, cost, and long-term strategic objectives. This position is eligible to work remote, hybrid or onsite in accordance with our Telecommuting Policy.

Requirements

Advanced knowledge of enterprise infrastructure technologies, architecture, and system administration principles.
Knowledge of networking, security, operating systems, storage, databases, disaster recovery, and related technologies.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to assess impacts and implement effective solutions.
Ability to plan, coordinate, and manage complex technical projects and initiatives.
Skill in developing and maintaining technical documentation, procedures, and standards.
Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Ability to organize work, manage competing priorities, and meet deadlines.
Ability to build collaborative relationships and influence stakeholders across technical and business functions.
Knowledge of IT service management, change management, and industry best practices such as ITIL, COBIT, and Agile.
Ability to work independently, exercise sound judgment, and provide technical leadership and mentoring.
High school diploma or equivalent required.
Minimum of eight years’ experience in I.T. and/or application development required.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree or completion of a Computer Science Program from a Technical Trade School preferred.
Technical training with certification in assigned technology is required as applicable.
Demonstrated experience with managing assigned technology by performing regular and critical maintenance tasks within defined service levels preferred.
Experience administering and supporting large-scale IBM WebSphere Application Server (Traditional WAS), WebSphere Liberty, and IBM HTTP Server environments, including clusters, cells, deployment managers, and enterprise application deployments preferred.
Experience managing Red Hat OpenShift and Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) platforms, including cluster operations, operator management, application onboarding, platform upgrades, and hybrid cloud support preferred.
Experience implementing and maintaining high-availability and disaster recovery solutions, leveraging load balancers, reverse proxies, SSL/TLS, and failover architectures to ensure service reliability is preferred.
Experience automating infrastructure and operational processes using scripting, configuration management, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, and enterprise automation frameworks such as Red Hat Ansible preferred.
Experience leading troubleshooting and resolution of complex application, middleware, operating system, network, and messaging (IBM MQ/Kafka) issues in mission-critical environments preferred.
Experience collaborating with development, cloud, security, database, and network teams to deliver secure, scalable, and compliant enterprise platforms, including platform hardening, vulnerability remediation, monitoring, and observability integrations preferred.

Responsibilities

Administer and support assigned infrastructure technologies to ensure reliability, availability, and performance.
Analyze business and technical requirements and develop infrastructure solutions that support organizational objectives.
Lead and support infrastructure projects using established project management methodologies.
Design, implement, and maintain infrastructure architecture, standards, procedures, and documentation.
Monitor infrastructure performance and perform maintenance, upgrades, and remediation activities.
Evaluate infrastructure processes and recommend improvements that enhance efficiency, service quality, and cost effectiveness.
Develop project estimates, resource requirements, and cost analyses to support planning and decision making.
Collaborate with business leaders, vendors, and technical teams to deliver technology solutions and service commitments.
Provide technical guidance, mentoring, and knowledge sharing to team members and stakeholders.
Ensure compliance with organizational standards, security requirements, governance frameworks, and business continuity practices.
Must be accessible via mobile services (i.e. text, voice, data) during non-working hours for upgrades, system outages, and configuration changes.