Senior Systems Analyst

UMass Amherst • Amherst, NY

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Senior IT Systems Analyst consults with end users, researchers, and stakeholders, including project managers and vendors, and conducts technical analysis of systems and network communications. The role designs, builds, configures, implements, tests, and maintains systems; investigates problems with existing systems; and delivers solutions while maintaining compatibility and enabling integration. The analyst mentors and trains IT systems analysts and serves as a primary technical resource for staff and faculty.

The position analyzes system workflows and risks, including potential life-safety impacts, and recommends and implements systems, configurations, and procedures to mitigate operational and security risks. It helps ensure system availability, manageability, scalability, and security through design, implementation, maintenance, tuning, and auditing.

The analyst leads multiple projects to research, propose, and implement migrations and consolidations of complex distributed systems into a centralized enterprise model. This work may include converting physical servers to virtual servers, reconfiguring networks and firewalls, migrating users and computers to a centrally supported Microsoft SQL Server database cluster, and migrating file-server data. The position also analyzes dependencies and plans and executes migrations to new infrastructure, including virtual environments, hardware firewalls, and authentication systems. The role keeps current with computing technologies and techniques to recommend improvements to manageability, configurations, integrations, and uptime.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree and 4 years of experience in a broad range of computer technologies; or an associate’s degree and 6 years of such experience; or a high school diploma and 8 years of such experience. An equivalent combination totaling 8 years of education and experience will also be considered.
• Expertise across a broad array of computing platforms and/or systems in a distributed computing environment, including workstation software and applications, particularly those running under MS Windows, and physical and virtual guest server operating systems, particularly Windows 2008.
• Practical experience with scripting languages such as PowerShell.
• Experience working with TCP/IP networking and understanding of network firewalls.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to establish and maintain harmonious relationships with co-workers and a broad range of clients, and to work effectively in a leadership role with peers.
• Ability to work effectively and in a highly organized manner, with close attention to detail, accountability, reliability, and meeting project deadlines and requirements.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including consulting and communicating technical matters accurately to non-technical individuals.
• Willingness to take on new and challenging tasks as they arise.
• Ability to pass a Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) background check.
• Valid driver’s license.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related area.
• Experience with Microsoft Active Directory Group Policies, managing layer 2 and layer 3 switches, Microsoft SQL or Oracle databases, and other operating systems such as Linux.

Responsibilities

• Analyze system workflows to identify potential failure points, particularly those with possible life-safety impacts, and recommend and implement mitigations for operational and security risks.
• Design, implement, maintain, tune, and audit systems to support availability, manageability, scalability, and security.
• Mentor and train IT systems analysts in process automation and the use of programming, scripting, and group policies.
• Serve as a primary technical resource for the Help Desk Manager and User Support Operations on complex problems, including testing application compatibility and configurations in virtual computing environments and developing resolution processes for staff.
• Lead projects to research, propose, and implement migration and consolidation strategies for distributed systems moving to a centralized enterprise model.
• Convert physical servers to virtual servers; facilitate network and firewall reconfiguration; migrate users and computers to a centrally supported Microsoft SQL Server database cluster; and migrate file-server data.
• Analyze system dependencies and develop and execute plans to migrate systems to new infrastructure, such as VMware virtual environments, hardware firewalls, and authentication systems.
• Keep current with established and emerging computing technologies and techniques and recommend improvements to system manageability, configurations, integrations, and uptime.
• Perform related duties as assigned or required to meet department, executive area/division, and University goals and objectives.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior