NPR Senior Systems Engineer at NPR leads design, deployment, and administration of core virtualized data center infrastructure. The role focuses on VMware vSphere, SAN/NAS storage, Cisco UCS, and cloud integration.
Responsibilities
Data Center Architecture & Storage Administration
Architect Virtualized Infrastructure: Design, deploy, and manage core virtualized data center infrastructure, leading enterprise VMware vSphere environments, Cisco UCS compute platforms, and SAN/NAS storage arrays.
Administer Enterprise Compute & Storage: Execute routine server builds, security patch management, virtual machine lifecycle administration, and enterprise storage capacity allocation.
Advance Cloud & Hybrid Integration: Evaluate systems architecture and hybrid-cloud strategy, taking operational ownership of the maintenance and integration of cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure).
Systems Governance & Disaster Recovery
Govern Disaster Recovery Strategies: Design, maintain, and rigorously test business continuity and disaster recovery strategies, including enterprise backups, data replication, and automated site failovers.
Manage Structured Change Processes: Recommend, test, and implement system enhancements in strict adherence to established organizational change management policies and procedures.
Publish System Documentation & SOPs: Author and maintain comprehensive systems architecture diagrams, standard operating procedures (SOPs), runbooks, and technical documentation for IT colleagues and system stakeholders.
Incident Escalation & Operational Automation
Lead Tier-3 Escalations & Root Cause Analysis: Serve as the senior technical escalation point for enterprise technology teams, isolating root causes and resolving complex production incidents.
Automate Infrastructure Operations: Design and execute automation scripts using modern scripting languages to streamline routine administrative tasks, infrastructure provisioning, and systems health reporting.
Maintain Operational Communications: Provide timely status reporting on system health to engineering leadership, manage incident response on a 24x7 rotation, and articulate outage impact clearly to technical and operational partners.
Qualification
Proven2+ years of experience planningInfrastructure Automation & ScriptingIdentityIndustry Certifications
Required
5+ years of dedicated experience as a Systems or Infrastructure Engineer supporting, administering, and troubleshooting systems in an enterprise data center environment.
Proven, hands-on experience designing and managing complex VMware vSphere environments (clustering, DRS, HA, vMotion).
Extensive experience with Cisco UCS Manager, configuring service profiles, templates, and physical hardware deployment.
Strong background in configuring and managing enterprise SAN/NAS storage arrays and storage networking protocols.
2+ years of experience planning, designing, and maintaining cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure).
Strong working knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem, including Windows Server (2016+), Active Directory, Azure AD, Office 365, IIS, SQL, DFS, DHCP, and DNS.
Experience creating detailed systems documentation and flow charts.
Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to successfully handle multiple projects in a high-pressure, collaborative environment.
Ability to participate in an on-call rotation and a 2-week onsite rotation every two months (or as required).
Expert-level analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to resolve complex hardware, software, and performance issues under pressure.
Deep understanding of networking concepts (VLANs, routing, switching, LACP, DNS, DHCP) as they relate to virtualization and server infrastructure.
Strong understanding of security best practices for data center infrastructure and virtualization platforms.
Preferred
Infrastructure Automation & Scripting: Experience utilizing configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet) and writing automation scripts (PowerShell, Python, or Bash).
Industry Certifications: Active professional certifications in VMware (VCP), Cisco (CCNA/CCNP Data Center), Microsoft, or AWS/Azure solutions architecture.
