Systems Engineer

Towson University•Towson, MD

About The Position

Operations and Support: Serve in an operational capacity as a primary and/or secondary (backup) engineer for assigned services, performing standard service operations including patching, upgrades, monitoring, and incident response. Perform systems administration activities such as server provisioning and management, operating system and application patching, upgrades, and hardware installation, replacement, and maintenance. Execute regular and recurring operational tasks, including security and vulnerability monitoring, remediation, and compliance-related activities. Process service requests and incidents within established service level expectations, delivering timely responses and a high standard of customer service. Provide technical assistance and consultation to other teams within the Office of Technology Services related to assigned platforms and services. Participate in on-call rotations and perform off-hours maintenance, monitoring, and support activities as required to ensure system availability and reliability. Perform additional operational and support responsibilities as assigned to support team objectives and organizational needs. Project Involvement: Participate in the execution of technical project activities, including but not limited to service and infrastructure deployments, upgrades, migrations, integrations, and platform enhancements. Provide systems administration and engineering support for IT projects by performing configuration, implementation, testing, troubleshooting, and validation tasks related to assigned systems and services. Collaborate with project teams, service owners, and other technical staff to ensure project deliverables align with Platform Engineering standards, operational requirements, and security best practices. Communications: Participate in cross-training activities as assigned to develop knowledge of additional platforms, services, and operational responsibilities. Collaborate with peers within the Platform Engineering team and across the higher education and industry community to share knowledge, learn best practices, and understand how similar services and challenges are addressed. Communicate and document service changes in a timely and accurate manner in accordance with established change management and communication procedures. Communicate service outages, degradations, and restorations promptly and effectively, following defined incident and outage communication protocols. Communicate proactively with management regarding issues, risks, or dependencies that may delay delivery timelines or impact the reliability, security, or performance of systems and services. Perform task tracking, time tracking, and status reporting as required to support operational transparency, planning, and accountability. Documentation: Create, maintain, and update complete, accurate, and current engineering‑level documentation for assigned platforms, services, and operational procedures. Contribute to and assist in maintaining documentation intended for OTS support staff and other IT support groups, ensuring it is clear, accessible, and appropriate for the intended audience. Review existing documentation and recommend improvements to content quality, structure, consistency, maintenance processes, and documentation standards.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required plus two (2) years of relevant professional work experience.
Equivalent professional experience may be substituted for the education requirement on a year‑for‑year basis, with thirty (30) college credits considered equivalent to one year of experience.
Experience administering both Windows and Linux server operating systems in enterprise environments.
Experience with physical server, storage, and related infrastructure management, including installation, maintenance, and lifecycle support.
Experience with systems and hardware design, systems administration, and operational support, including:
Server and application security
Virtualization and server clustering technologies
Performance, capacity, and availability management
System recovery, backup, and restore operations
Systems and hardware monitoring
Experience administering and supporting enterprise backup and recovery infrastructure.
Experience with scripting, programming, and/or automation to support system administration, deployment, and operational efficiency.
Familiarity with system and network security concepts, controls, and industry best practices.
Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively and collaborate with management, colleagues, and clients while providing high‑quality customer service.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple assigned tasks and priorities to ensure work is completed accurately and on schedule.

Nice To Haves

Experience with virtualization platforms, such as Hyper-V or VMware.
Experience with systems management and lifecycle tools, such as Red Hat Satellite and/or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).
Experience with infrastructure and systems automation tools, such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef.
Experience developing and maintaining automation using scripting languages, such as PowerShell.
Experience supporting infrastructure‑as-a-service (IaaS) and/or platform‑as-a-service (PaaS) environments, such as Microsoft Azure.
Experience with security information and event management (SIEM) platforms, such as Splunk, including log ingestion, integrations, and operational use.
Experience managing services in a Microsoft Active Directory environment.
Experience managing platforms that support complex, enterprise‑scale systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications.
Experience administering or supporting relational database platforms, such as Oracle and/or Microsoft SQL Server.
Relevant technical certifications in systems administration, virtualization, cloud platforms, automation, or related disciplines.
Experience administering systems that support research.
Technical certifications in related disciplines.

Responsibilities

Serve in an operational capacity as a primary and/or secondary (backup) engineer for assigned services, performing standard service operations including patching, upgrades, monitoring, and incident response.
Perform systems administration activities such as server provisioning and management, operating system and application patching, upgrades, and hardware installation, replacement, and maintenance.
Execute regular and recurring operational tasks, including security and vulnerability monitoring, remediation, and compliance-related activities.
Process service requests and incidents within established service level expectations, delivering timely responses and a high standard of customer service.
Provide technical assistance and consultation to other teams within the Office of Technology Services related to assigned platforms and services.
Participate in on-call rotations and perform off-hours maintenance, monitoring, and support activities as required to ensure system availability and reliability.
Perform additional operational and support responsibilities as assigned to support team objectives and organizational needs.
Participate in the execution of technical project activities, including but not limited to service and infrastructure deployments, upgrades, migrations, integrations, and platform enhancements.
Provide systems administration and engineering support for IT projects by performing configuration, implementation, testing, troubleshooting, and validation tasks related to assigned systems and services.
Collaborate with project teams, service owners, and other technical staff to ensure project deliverables align with Platform Engineering standards, operational requirements, and security best practices.
Participate in cross-training activities as assigned to develop knowledge of additional platforms, services, and operational responsibilities.
Collaborate with peers within the Platform Engineering team and across the higher education and industry community to share knowledge, learn best practices, and understand how similar services and challenges are addressed.
Communicate and document service changes in a timely and accurate manner in accordance with established change management and communication procedures.
Communicate service outages, degradations, and restorations promptly and effectively, following defined incident and outage communication protocols.
Communicate proactively with management regarding issues, risks, or dependencies that may delay delivery timelines or impact the reliability, security, or performance of systems and services.
Perform task tracking, time tracking, and status reporting as required to support operational transparency, planning, and accountability.
Create, maintain, and update complete, accurate, and current engineering‑level documentation for assigned platforms, services, and operational procedures.
Contribute to and assist in maintaining documentation intended for OTS support staff and other IT support groups, ensuring it is clear, accessible, and appropriate for the intended audience.
Review existing documentation and recommend improvements to content quality, structure, consistency, maintenance processes, and documentation standards.