Senior Systems Operations Engineer

ApTask•Charlotte, NC

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Systems Operations Engineer with strong experience in product operations, messaging infrastructure, Linux administration and SMTP routing. The ideal candidate will be responsible for maintaining, optimizing, and supporting business-critical messaging platforms while ensuring system reliability, security, and operational excellence. This role requires a combination of systems engineering, application support, troubleshooting, automation, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent experience may be considered.
Several years of experience in systems operations, production support, messaging operations, or systems development.
Strong hands-on experience with Linux operating systems and command-line administration.
Solid understanding of email and messaging technologies, including: SMTP, DNS and MX records, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, TLS and certificate management, SMTP authentication, Mail queues and delivery status codes, Email reputation and anti-spam controls.
Experience with SMTP routing, mail relays, gateways, connectors, and mail-flow troubleshooting.
Experience supporting Proofpoint and Cloudmark products or comparable messaging-security platforms.
Strong troubleshooting, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
Experience working in production environments with incident, change, and problem-management processes.

Responsibilities

Manage and support messaging and email infrastructure in production environments.
Perform day-to-day product operations, including monitoring, incident response, service validation, and operational support.
Administer and troubleshoot Linux-based systems and services.
Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot Proofpoint and Cloudmark messaging and email-security solutions.
Design, implement, and maintain SMTP routing, relays, gateways, connectors, and mail-flow configurations.
Analyze email delivery issues, including bounces, delays, rejections, spam classifications, and routing failures.
Monitor system health, performance, availability, capacity, and message-processing workflows.
Investigate and resolve production incidents using structured root-cause analysis.
Develop scripts and automation to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual processes.
Implement and maintain operational procedures, runbooks, support documentation, and knowledge articles.
Support upgrades, patches, configuration changes, migrations, and production deployments.
Collaborate with engineering, security, network, infrastructure, and support teams to resolve complex issues.
Ensure messaging systems meet security, compliance, availability, and performance requirements.
Participate in on-call rotations and provide timely support for critical production issues.
Identify opportunities to improve monitoring, alerting, reliability, and overall product operations.