sr. System Engineer with VMware

GENERAL SUMMARY

The Systems Engineer’s role is to design, install, administer, and optimize servers and related components to achieve high performance of the various business applications supported by City of Cedar Rapids. This includes local, remote, and cloud-based solutions, ensuring the availability of applications, configuring new implementations, and developing processes and procedures for ongoing management of the server environment. Where applicable, the Systems Engineer will assist in overseeing the physical security, integrity, and safety of the data center/server environment. 

The Systems Engineer plays a key role in providing creative, dynamic solutions for a variety of needs at the City of Cedar Rapids.  The city maintains a highly available environment requiring coordination with local departments and providing critical services.  As a customer-centric Division of the City, IT staff must display the highest levels of professionalism, teamwork, and flexibility.  

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

The intent of this job description is to provide a representative summary of the major duties and responsibilities performed by incumbents of this job. Employees may be requested to perform job-related tasks other than those specifically presented in this description.

•  Collaborate with IT, City management and leaders to assess near- and long-term virtualization capacity needs with financially sound solutions.
• Develop strategies for service implementations; architect the infrastructure required to support those strategies.
• Act as project lead in the design and review of new services, applications, and hardware; conduct capacity planning as needed.
• Lead, coordinate and participate in key process improvements as they relate to the server environment.
• Coordinate and collaborate with network engineering, business application, and database administration function to ensure availability, reliability, and scalability of servers and cloud services to meet business demands.
• Collaborate on and implement policies, procedures, and technologies to ensure services security and compliance.
• Develop, implement and maintain policies, procedures, and associated training plans for systems administration, usage, and disaster recovery.
• Check the service desk database for Incidents and Service Requests; prioritize and respond to tickets as appropriate and within stated SLAs.
• Serve as cornerstone for escalating server issues; provide timely response to customer escalations.
• Define and document best practice procedures for implementation and maintenance of the environment.
• Perform file system configuration and management; define and perform server backups and recovery procedures.
• Plan and implement strategies for Disaster recovery and Business continuity solutions within the environment. 
• Plan and implement server upgrades, software upgrades, maintenance fixes, and vendor-supplied patches and coordinate those efforts with System Engineer and applications team.
• Provide Web administration support by overseeing and maintaining Web server functions, such as assuring logging and metrics data are stable.
• Monitor and test system performance and provide performance statistics and reports.
• Stay current on security related trends and make recommendations based on research.
• Create shell scripts as required.
• Manage enterprise directory services and supporting server infrastructure.
• Manage all cloud-based back-office services and provide integration support for all other cloud-based services.  
• Define and implement strategies for integrating disparate operating environments.
• Recommend and execute modifications to server environment to improve efficiency, reliability, and performance.
• Develop and server documentation and maintain training materials.
• Manage and/or provide guidance to junior members of the team.
• Perform services and security audits, and backups and recovery.

MINIMUM ENTRANCE QUALIFICATIONS

• University degree in computer science or related files and / or 5 – 7 years equivalent work experience.
• Microsoft Certified Professional or higher 
• VMware Certifications

COMPETENCIES FOR SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCE OF JOB DUTIES

Knowledge of:

• At least five years’ equivalent work experience in a senior technical analytical position responsible for managing server environments.
• Moderate to advanced knowledge of VMware.
• Experience implementing a new ESX cluster, migrating clusters, decommissioning hosts, updating VMware tools, and building a new vCenter.
• Troubleshooting ESX issues related to storage, network and performance issues.
• Advanced knowledge of the following: Windows Server, Active Directory, RedHat, SharePoint and MS Teams.
• Moderate to advanced knowledge of the following Technologies including Pure Storage, Nimble Storage and Dell Servers.
• Not required, but beneficial if familiar with; VEEAM.
• Experience installing, configuring, and maintaining all manners of server hardware and associated network equipment, including SCSI, RAID, and I/O topology.
• Experience with server performance tuning and monitoring tools.
• Excellent hardware troubleshooting experience.
• Ability to follow the City’s change management policy.
• Ability to work tickets through the City’s service desk ticketing system with detail. 
• Working technical knowledge of scripting code using VBScript, Command Shell, PowerShell or related tools.  
• Good understanding of the organization’s goals and objectives.
  • Knowledge of applicable data privacy practices and laws.