About UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth's flagship campus, is a nationally ranked public research university offering a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, and offers a rich cultural environment in a bucolic setting close to major urban centers. In addition, the University is part of the Five Colleges (including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College), which adds to the intellectual energy of the region.

Job Summary

The Systems Engineer will implement, monitor and continually improve procedures and resource allocations to ensure professional, high quality technology support and services to the UMass Amherst Campus including its executives, faculty, staff, and administrators. Provide mentoring, coaching and training to IT Systems Analysts; provide support and monitor enterprise class Windows and Linux systems; provide system administration as well as integration with other campus services.

Essential Functions

• Monitor, coach and train IT administrative staff on developing, designing, deploying and supporting enterprise class Windows, Linux, cloud environment configuration management and system deployment.
• Work on multiple projects as a project leader to research, propose and implement strategies in the migration and consolidation of complex distributed systems to a more centralized enterprise model. This may entail converting physical servers to virtual servers or cloud infrastructure facilitating the reconfiguration of networks and firewalls, and building and configuring centralized logging and monitoring solutions.
• Analyze, monitor and keep systems current with changing technologies for the campus community.
• Analyze and configure endpoint management solutions (e.g. Active Directory, InTune, KACE, Jamf, BeyondTrust), Windows and Linux servers in a heterogeneous environment in order to install, upgrade, monitor, maintain, troubleshoot, patch, compile, secure, and repair the system. Using the tools implemented, provide enterprise class Windows and Linux hosts in both physical and virtual environments. Install new software, trouble shoot, grant permissions to users, groups, applications and train users.
• Monitor system performance and tune/adjust system resources to maintain efficient and equitable use of managed resources by the campus community. Perform system upgrades, make recommendations on server configurations, and implement changes in multiple environments from test or development to production which may include creating scripts using various languages and automate various tasks in multiple environments.
• Respond to alerts and customer reported issues. Escalate or resolve problems as needed exercising independent judgement and within established support practices.
• Develop tools for automation of tasks and integration of other central IT services.
• Participate in the planning of both short and long term goals and directions for UMass IT.

Other Functions

• Perform related duties as assigned or required to meet Department, Executive Area/Division, and University goals and objectives.
• Provide consulting to IT and other campus staff on matters related to system provisioning and centralized maintenance and monitoring.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

• Bachelor's degree plus four years of professional experience providing network systems administration in either Windows or Linux enterprise environment -OR- An associates degree plus six years of experience.
• Knowledge and experience with system scripting using technologies such as Powershell, Perl, Bash.
• Knowledge and experience working with virtualization environments and tools such as VMWare and Vagrant.
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills to plan, recommend, implement and monitor effective and efficient processes and to identify problems and implement solutions.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Experience using cross-platform system administration, including UNIX/Linux and Windows.

Preferred Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

• Experience working in a large complex educational environment is a plus.
• Experience with centralized automated configuration management and provisioning solutions for Linux systems such as RedHat Satellite, Puppet or Ansible.
• Experience working in a team-based environment and a proven history of implementing cross-departmental initiatives.
• Experience with system monitoring solutions such as Nagios and Solarwinds.

Physical Demands/Working Conditions

• Balancing, carrying, pushing/pulling, standing, bending, driving, reaching, sitting, twisting, lifting required.
• Typical Office Environment Activity.

Work Schedule

• Monday – Friday 37.5 hours a week.
• Required to work some nights and some weekends.
• Team on-call rotation may be required.
• This position has the opportunity for a hybrid work schedule, which is defined by the University as an arrangement where an employee’s work is regularly performed at a location other than the campus workspace for a portion of the week. As this position falls within the Professional Staff Union, it is subject to the terms and conditions of the Professional Staff Union collective bargaining agreement.

Salary Information

Level 28

PSU Hiring Ranges

Special Instructions to Applicants

Along with the application, please submit a resume and cover letter. References will be checked at the finalist stage, please be prepared to provide contact information for three (3) professional references.

UMass Amherst is committed to a policy of equal opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, caste, creed, sex, age, marital status, national origin, disability, political belief or affiliation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related condition(s), veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, genetic information, natural and protective hairstyle and any other class of individuals protected from discrimination in employment, admission to and participation in academic programs, activities, and services, and the selection of vendors who provide services or products to the University. To fulfill that policy, UMass Amherst is further committed to a program of affirmative action to eliminate or mitigate artificial barriers and to increase opportunities for the recruitment and advancement of qualified minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and covered veterans. It is the policy of UMass Amherst to comply with the applicable federal and state statutes, rules, and regulations concerning equal opportunity and affirmative action.