Systems Engineer III - Storage

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center•Seattle, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Systems Engineer III - Storage will have technical ownership of a critical 10+ PB data environment that supports our scientific and administrative functions. Collaborating closely with the Principal Storage Engineer, this role drives the design, implementation, and operational excellence of Tier-1 storage ecosystems, specifically Dell Isilon/PowerScale, NetApp and Nimble, as well as data protection platforms like Cohesity and Veeam. Beyond daily administration, the SE III will focus on engineering solutions for scale, utilizing PowerShell or Ansible for automation, driving data governance strategies for unstructured data, and optimizing storage performance for virtualization workloads. This engineer must be capable of analyzing complex performance bottlenecks, forecasting capacity trends for multi-year planning, and translating architectural concepts into executable technical plans. This position offers the autonomy to drive technical improvements while directly supporting the institute’s mission of eliminating cancer.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field desired; or equivalent work experience.
Seven plus years of system administrator or engineer experience in an enterprise with increasing responsibilities.
Five plus years of experience supporting two or more server operating systems in a large complex heterogeneous environment.
Three plus years of experience using Python or PowerShell programming for system administration and automation including Ansible.
Expertise in one or more of the following:
Five plus years of experience supporting a complex messaging environment with multiple platforms, anti-spam, and mail routing systems.
Five plus years of experience supporting an enterprise data protection environment including archiving hundreds of TBs of data.
Five plus years of experience managing large storage platforms containing PBs of data, working with storage protocols (iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS).
Five plus years of experience managing a multi-farm SharePoint environment.
Five plus years of experience building and supporting virtualization technologies.
Advanced skills with server operating systems, such as Microsoft Server, RHEL, and/or Ubuntu.
Expert skills administering Microsoft Active Directory, DFS and WINS; experience of multiple OSes authenticating to AD; experience with AD architecture and integration with Linux systems, LDAP, and Kerberos.
Expert skills administering Linux distribution(s); experience authenticating to AD/LDAP and managing permissions.
Advanced technical knowledge of current software protocols, and Internet standards.
Advance technical knowledge of various RAID configurations and their trade-offs.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing storage environments at significant scale (10+ PB), specifically with scale-out NAS platforms like Dell Isilon/PowerScale.
Deep proficiency with Tier-1 storage ecosystems (NetApp FAS/AFF or HPE Nimble), including advanced usage of management and analytics suites (InsightIQ, SnapCenter, ActiveIQ).
Experience designing and maintaining backup infrastructures (Cohesity) for large datasets, with a focus on policy-based backups, ransomware protection, and immutability.
Experience designing, operating, and troubleshooting storage replication and data center resiliency solutions, including cross-site failover, disaster recovery runbooks, and regular testing of recovery procedures.
Strong understanding of block storage performance requirements (IOPS, latency, throughput) for virtualization platforms.
Proficiency with PowerShell or Python to automate storage provisioning, reporting, and health checks, with the ability to leverage AI-assisted tooling to streamline and enhance automation workflows.
Experience extending on-prem storage to public cloud providers (AWS, Azure), using solutions such as NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP or Azure Files.
Practical experience with unstructured data management, classification, data movement, and auditing workflows (using tools such as Varonis, Globus, Aspera, or native file analytics) to ensure compliance, accessibility, and storage efficiency.
Experience analyzing data growth trends to forecast capacity needs and plan hardware procurements 12-24 months in advance.
Ability to troubleshoot complex performance bottlenecks (SMB/NFS latency) using packet capture or wire-data analysis.
Ability to partner with Principal Architects to translate high-level designs into executable technical plans and architectural diagrams (Visio, Miro, or Draw.io).
Proficiency with Agile work management tools (Jira/Confluence) and a commitment to maintaining comprehensive operational documentation and runbooks.
Experience designing and managing tiered storage architectures, including automated data lifecycle policies that migrate infrequently accessed data to lower-cost storage tiers within on-premises platforms.
Strong multi-faceted, analytical troubleshooting and critical thinking skills.
Strong presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
Competent use of desktop applications to include Visio.
Reliable contributor both individually and as a member of the team.

Responsibilities

Fulfill day-to-day operational tasks associated with maintaining infrastructure systems.
Serve as technical lead or team member for large, complex projects to provide new or improved infrastructure services.
Install/build, configure, administer, and decommission infrastructure systems, including upgrades, patches, and migrations.
On a rotation basis, provide 24/7 on-call support for mission critical infrastructure systems.
Provide Tier 3 Support of infrastructure systems.
Act as an escalation point for technical issues as required.
Monitor and report on infrastructure systems’ usage, capacity, and availability.
Set appropriate monitoring and alerting levels for infrastructure systems.
Respond to incidents and service outages to restore service interruptions in a timely manner.
Fulfill service requests in the most supportable and expedient way.
Monitor and tune infrastructure systems for optimal performance.
Control and limit infrastructure systems’ access in compliance with security policies and best practices to maintain system integrity.
Create new and maintain current and accurate technical documentation and diagrams.
Develop and nurture relationships and collaborate with other members of IT staff and end users to resolve technical challenges.
Lead hardware / software evaluation for infrastructure systems.
Participate in and present at Design Reviews to ensure reasonable and supportable solutions.
Lead and promote the use of and offer improvements for departmental processes such as change management, incident management and problem management.
Perform assigned tasks to improve processes, meet departmental goals.
Analyze, troubleshoot, and resolve infrastructure systems’ issues.
Identify opportunities and improve operational efficiencies.
Eliminate manual tasks via configuration management and automation tools or scripts.
Design, plan, build and lead system and disaster recovery tests.
Train and excel in expertise of specialized technical area(s).
Act as a subject matter expert in specialized technical area(s).
Mentor entry and intermediate level staff.
Perform complex planned maintenance after-hours / weekends as required.
Deliver formal and informal presentations on a variety of technical topics.
Inform leadership of systems status, currently tracked issues or problems.
Perform analysis, capacity planning, and performance planning on infrastructure systems.
Work effectively with vendors, contractors, and other staff to coordinate system installations and provide quality assurance oversight.
Perform other duties as assigned.
Ability to effectively prioritize work, juggling daily support responsibilities with project driven tasks.
Strong ability to analyze, troubleshoot and identify root causes for large and complex technical problems.
Ability to develop reasonable and effective creative solutions.
Ability to interact successfully and communicate clearly.
Able to exercise a high degree of discretion and judgment.
Aptitude for developing scripts and other tools for automations.
Ability to document and diagram complex systems.
Promote a positive and safe work environment.
Strong work ethic, self-directed, and resourceful.