Senior Systems Engineer

OMERS; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 86,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading pension plan provider in Toronto seeks a Senior Systems Engineer to manage hybrid-cloud infrastructure and enhance automation practices. Responsibilities include monitoring systems, providing customer support, and ensuring documentation compliance. The ideal candidate has a Bachelor's degree, significant IT experience, and proficiency in Windows and Linux server management, along with automation technologies like Terraform and Ansible. The position offers a salary range of $86,000 to $130,000, along with additional benefits.

Benefits

Annual Incentive Award

Group benefits

Retirement plans

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant IT experience.
• 5+ years of experience as a systems/cloud engineer.
• Experience with automation systems and infrastructure-as-code.

Responsibilities

• Manage and monitor infrastructure platforms and workloads.
• Design and implement infrastructure automation systems.
• Provide daily customer support for server operations.

Skills

Windows Server management

Linux Server management

Infrastructure automation

Terraform

PowerShell scripting

Python

Ansible

GitHub

Data protection strategies

Disaster recovery operations

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science

Tools

Azure

Google Cloud Platform

VMware

Job description

Choose a workplace that empowers your impact.

Join a global workplace where employees thrive. One that embraces diversity of thought, expertise and experience. A place where you can personalize your employee journey to be — and deliver — your best.

We are a purpose-driven, dynamic and sustainable pension plan. An industry leading global investor with teams in Toronto to London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and other major cities across North America and Europe. We embody the values of our 640,000 members, placing their best interests at the heart of everything we do.

Join us to accelerate your growth & development, prioritize wellness, build connections, and support the communities where we live and work.

Don’t just work anywhere — come build tomorrow together with us.

Know someone at OMERS or Oxford Properties? Great! If you’re referred, have them submit your name through Workday first. Then, watch for a unique link in your email to apply.

The Senior Systems Engineer plays a pivotal role in the design, implementation, and full lifecycle management of hybrid-cloud infrastructure. This role requires a breadth of technical knowledge to support and maintain all levels of the infrastructure and virtualization stack. Knowledge and experience, complemented by skills in automation to enhance administration and processes is key to the role. The successful candidate will play a crucial part in evolving our infrastructure technologies and processes, aligning them with a modern cloud operating model.

Key Responsibilities

1. Infrastructure Management

Contribute to the installation, configuration, and operational management of the following platforms and technology with full accountability across the technology lifecycle. Candidate will have the ability to construct and administrer Windows and/or RHEL servers in a hybrid cloud infrastructure; configure advanced security and vulnerability management; identity and access; storage and replication; data protection and recovery; networks and connectivity. You will be able to use and manage all the tools and services that contribute to a well managed and maintained VM and infrastructure environment.

• Virtualized server workloads include:
  • Windows Server
  • RedHat Linux (or equivalent)
  • Leading public and hybrid cloud platforms:
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Azure Local (and/or Hyper‑V)
    • Google Cloud Platform
    • VMware vSphere
  • Scripting enthusiast – PowerShell for Azure/Azure local, KQL queries for Azure monitor
  • Infrastructure‑as‑code (IaC) and automation technologies (Terraform, Ansible)
  • Availability and disaster recovery capabilities, including data replication, orchestration, and run books.
  • Responsible for change initiation, approval, and implementation for systems under management.

2. Operational Excellence

Proactively manage and monitor infrastructure platforms and workloads. Perform regular health checks, patches, upgrades, and maintenance as required. Initiate and implement system changes, manage system capacity, and continuously improve delivery and quality of infrastructure and cloud services.

3. Automation and Modernization

Embrace modern-day practices akin to DevOps to operate the environment efficiently. This includes analyzing operations to pinpoint automation opportunities and modernizing management practices with the latest automation strategies. Design and implement infrastructure automation systems essential for an Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC) model. Prioritize consistency of configuration through automation to enhance service levels, manage configuration drift, and detect anomalies at scale. Stay abreast of new automation technologies and practices to foster continuous improvement and innovation.

4. Customer Support

Provide daily support to customers, focusing on server operations, troubleshooting, as well as backup and restore operations. Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and maintain strong customer relationships.

5. Documentation and Compliance

Provide and maintain accurate documentation, including fleet inventory, infrastructure standards, security hardening, configuration specifications, and operational processes. Understand and comply with OMERS security standards and policies. Incorporate and adhere to security requirements with all solution designs and implementations.

6. Strategy and Support

Collaborate on delivering the outcome of strategic roadmaps that evolve the infrastructure portfolio, providing subject matter expertise as these roadmaps are planned and executed. Act as a technical SME involved in major incidents affecting hybrid cloud platforms, server and storage workloads, or related automation systems. Assist in the identification of underlying root causes and remediation activities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant field (computer science, information systems management, engineering)
• Leading technology/vendor certifications including Microsoft, AWS, Google, and VMware

Skills

• Proficiency in Windows Server and Linux Server management, including administration, configuration, optimization, and troubleshooting.
• Expertise in infrastructure automation and coding – Terraform, Bash/PowerShell scripting, Python, Ansible.
• Proficient in using source code management systems for scripts and automations, such as GitHub.
• Comprehensive understanding of multi-tiered, highly available, scalable infrastructure environments.
• Expertise in hybrid cloud (Azure, GCP, Azure Local/VMware) design, implementation, and support.
• Advanced knowledge of containerization and microservices (Kubernetes, AKS, GKE).
• Proven skills in data protection and recovery strategies, including backup, restore, and disaster recovery operations.
• Deep understanding of the solution development and delivery life cycle, as well as governance and operational practices.

Experience

• 8+ years of relevant IT experience
• 5+ years of experience as a systems/cloud engineer
• Experience with automation systems, infrastructure‑as‑code (IaC), and managing environments in an automated fashion.
• Experience with high availability and disaster recovery design, network, and security integrations
• Financial sector experience is an asset.
• Experience with technology product evaluation, selection, acquisition, and deployment processes
• Experience with calculating the total cost of ownership of an infrastructure solution.
• Experience with the preparation of technical design, implementation, system administration, and operational documentation

Personal Attributes

• Ability to analyze, assess systems, processes, and issues and devise creative solutions.
• Strong mentorship skills
• Exceptional project, organizational and time management skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to develop and maintain strong relationships with internal and external technical resources.

We believe that time together in the office is important for OMERS and Oxford, the strength of our employees, and the work we do for our pension members. In delivering on our pension promise, keeping us connected to our work and each other,our flexible hybrid work guideline requires teams to come in to the office 4 days per week.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. The expected salary range for this position is $86,000.00 - $130,000.00 per year.

You may also be eligible to receive an annual Incentive Award pursuant to our Short-term Incentive plan and our Long-Term Incentive plan (if applicable), and to participate in our group benefits and retirement plans – details on these elements of compensation are included within OMERS & Oxford offer letters.

From hire to retire, we are an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive, barrier-free recruitment and selection process that extends all the way through your employee experience. This sense of belonging and connection is cultivated up, down and across our global organization thanks to our vast network of Employee Resource Groups with executive leader sponsorship, our Purpose@Work committee and employee recognition programs.

Note: OMERS uses artificial intelligence tools to assist in the recruitment process.