Senior Systems Engineer

NPR•Columbia, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

NPR is seeking an experienced Senior IT Systems Engineer to serve as a primary technical lead for the design, deployment, administration, and optimization of its core virtualized data center infrastructure. The role focuses on VMware vSphere, enterprise SAN/NAS storage, and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) environments, helping ensure enterprise systems are highly available, scalable, performant, and secure. The engineer will partner across Technology on infrastructure modernization and automation initiatives supporting NPR’s public media mission. The position also covers cloud and hybrid infrastructure, disaster recovery, enterprise backups, system documentation, incident escalation, and operational automation. The engineer will provide Tier-3 technical support, report system health to engineering leadership, and participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation. This is a hybrid-permitted, full-time, exempt position. The employee must work onsite at NPR’s Washington, D.C. facility for a two-week block approximately every two months and onsite as needed for projects. The anticipated U.S. salary range is $125,000–$145,000, plus benefits.

Requirements

At least 5 years of dedicated experience as a Systems or Infrastructure Engineer supporting, administering, and troubleshooting systems in an enterprise data center environment.
Hands-on experience designing and managing complex VMware vSphere environments, including clustering, DRS, HA, and vMotion.
Extensive experience with Cisco UCS Manager, including service profiles, templates, and physical hardware deployment.
Strong background configuring and managing enterprise SAN/NAS storage arrays and storage networking protocols.
At least 2 years of experience planning, designing, and maintaining AWS or Azure cloud infrastructure.
Working knowledge of Microsoft technologies, including Windows Server 2016 or later, Active Directory, Azure AD, Office 365, IIS, SQL, DFS, DHCP, and DNS.
Experience creating detailed systems documentation and flow charts.
Strong verbal and written communication skills and the ability to manage multiple projects in a high-pressure, collaborative environment.
Ability to participate in an on-call rotation and a two-week onsite rotation every two months, or as required.
Expert analytical and troubleshooting skills for complex hardware, software, and performance issues under pressure.
Deep understanding of networking concepts, including VLANs, routing, switching, LACP, DNS, and DHCP, as they relate to virtualization and server infrastructure.
Strong understanding of security best practices for data center infrastructure and virtualization platforms.
Strong project management skills and ability to independently lead infrastructure upgrades and migrations.
Self-motivated team player willing to participate in an on-call rotation and perform after-hours maintenance.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience with configuration management tools such as Ansible or Puppet and automation scripting in PowerShell, Python, or Bash.
Practical experience managing enterprise SSO/MFA solutions, Exchange Online or hybrid environments, or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
Active professional certifications in VMware (VCP), Cisco (CCNA/CCNP Data Center), Microsoft, or AWS/Azure solutions architecture.

Responsibilities

Design, deploy, and manage virtualized data center infrastructure, including VMware vSphere, Cisco UCS compute platforms, and SAN/NAS storage arrays.
Perform server builds, security patch management, virtual machine lifecycle administration, and enterprise storage capacity allocation.
Evaluate systems architecture and hybrid-cloud strategy, and maintain and integrate AWS or Azure cloud infrastructure.
Design, maintain, and test business continuity and disaster recovery strategies, including enterprise backups, data replication, and automated site failovers.
Recommend, test, and implement system enhancements in accordance with organizational change management policies and procedures.
Create and maintain systems architecture diagrams, standard operating procedures, runbooks, and technical documentation.
Act as a senior technical escalation point, investigate root causes, and resolve complex production incidents.
Develop and execute automation scripts to streamline administrative tasks, infrastructure provisioning, and systems health reporting.
Provide timely system-health status reporting to engineering leadership, manage incident response on a 24x7 rotation, and communicate outage impacts to technical and operational partners.
Participate in an on-call rotation and a two-week onsite rotation every two months, or as required.
Support onsite projects as needed.