Senior Systems Administrator (Linux)

Bluestaq US External; Lincoln; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Workplace pension

Group income protection

Group life assurance

33 days annual leave

Private medical cover

24/7 remote GP access

Professional subscription support

Job summary

Bluestaq Limited in the UK is seeking a skilled Linux systems administrator to own and operate secure environments supporting NATO delivery on AWS. You will configure, monitor, upgrade and respond to incidents, becoming the escalation point for junior staff while improving reliability and documenting solutions.

You will mentor teammates, work with cross‑functional teams, and participate in UK on‑call coverage.

Qualifications

• Strong Linux admin in secure production environments.
• DNS, DHCP, VLANs and IAM fundamentals.
• Experience with IaC tools and patching in accredited environments.
• Capable of working under pressure and documenting fixes clearly.

Responsibilities

• Own one or more systems, including configuration, monitoring and incident response.
• Debug faults and drive root cause analysis to remediation plans.
• Tune services with secure, hardened defaults and turn logs into fixes.
• Plan upgrades under change control with rollback testing.
• Escalate as needed, mentor colleagues and develop runbooks.
• Collaborate with engineering, cyber and data teams on cross‑functional problems.

Skills

Linux admin

NATO delivery

Networking basics

Incident discipline

Communication skills

Tools

Azure

VMware vSphere

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

Ansible

Packer

Job description

About Bluestaq Limited

Bluestaq starts with our people. We are looking for teammates who THINK strategically, SERVE the mission and LEAD from wherever they stand. If you bring curiosity, ownership and a thirst for delivery, we would like to hear from you.

Every society runs on invisible systems; Bluestaq is that, for data. Bluestaq Ltd is the UK sovereign subsidiary of Bluestaq LLC (Colorado Springs, USA), and we build the secure data infrastructure that allied operations depend on: mission-critical solutions, flowing through thousands of global users, from ingest to publication in milliseconds, for customers spanning the NATO, Five Eyes and wider allied partners.

We are in our formative years in the UK, building on proven foundations in the USA and Australia. That means real opportunity, early: decisions at your level, and colleagues who know their craft and trust you to know yours.

The Role

You will own specific Linux systems supporting our NATO delivery on AWS, from configuration and monitoring to upgrades and incident response. You will be the specialist the team escalates to when a fault defeats first-line troubleshooting, and you will improve reliability as well as restore it.

You will mentor Systems Administrators in troubleshooting and operational hygiene. This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports, reporting to the Systems Administration Manager, with a clear technical path to Lead Systems Administrator.

What You Will Do

• Own one or more systems or environments, covering configuration, monitoring and alerting, upgrades and incident response.
• Debug difficult faults, including performance problems, resource exhaustion and integration failures, and take each incident from first symptom to a root cause and a remediation plan that holds.
• Configure and tune services with secure, hardened defaults, and turn scan output and logs into lasting remediation.
• Plan and execute upgrades and changes under change control, with realistic risk assessment and a tested rollback.
• Act as the escalation point for Systems Administrator colleagues, mentor them, and document patterns others can reuse in runbooks and standard operating procedures.
• Work across engineering, cyber and data teams on cross-functional problems.
• Take part in UK operational coverage, including on-call rotation and structured handovers with the US team.

What You Bring

• Strong hands-on Linux systems administration in complex, secure production environments, with depth in service behaviour, performance tuning and hardened configuration. Experience on Microsoft Azure, VMware vSphere or similar platforms is transferable.
• Sound networking fundamentals, including DNS, DHCP, VLANs, firewalls and routing, and hands-on identity and access management across directory services and cloud platforms.
• Working experience with automation and infrastructure-as-code tooling such as Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker or Packer, and with patching discipline and configuration compliance in an accredited environment.
• Curiosity and incident discipline: you diagnose faults under pressure, find the root cause, and record what you found as well as what you fixed.
• Experience owning systems, escalating only genuinely novel problems, and mentoring less experienced colleagues deliberately.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including when the news is bad, and confident use of ITSM workflows and platforms such as Confluence and Jira.
• Judgement with AI tools: applying them where they help, reviewing what they produce and handling sensitive data responsibly.

Essential Conditions

• Right to work in the UK.
• Ability to meet the security requirements above.
• Willingness to work 10-hour shifts on a four-on, four-off rota, including weekends and bank holidays. Night shifts may follow as further systems come online and the service moves to 24/7.
• Willingness and eligibility to travel to Bluestaq headquarters in the United States for onboarding, and occasionally to sites across the UK and Europe thereafter.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with NATO structures, the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), the MOD or other allied defence programmes.
• Linux certification such as RHCSA, RHCE or LPIC.
• CISSP, CompTIA Security+ or an equivalent security certification.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, DevSecOps or Secure by Design delivery.
• Experience with database administration or data-platform operations.
• A background in cloud, cyber security or C4ISR environments.

Why Join Us

• Workplace pension through salary exchange.
• Group income protection and group life assurance from day one.
• 33 days’ annual leave including bank holidays, applied to your shift pattern.
• Private medical cover and 24/7 remote GP access for you and your family.
• Professional subscription support and ongoing development.

Bluestaq Ltd is an Armed Forces Covenant signatory. Service leavers and reservists who know watch-keeping, escalation and operating under pressure will recognise this work.

Join the Mission

Protect data that matters. Build capability the United Kingdom depends on. Launch into operations, not pitch decks.

Bluestaq Ltd is committed to an inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, including career returners, service leavers, reservists and people underrepresented in defence technology. We recruit on capability and potential in line with the Equality Act 2010. If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage, tell us when you apply.

We are proud to support the Armed Forces Covenant. Service leavers and reservists who know watch-keeping, escalation and operating under pressure will find this role speaks their language.

Bluestaq Limited is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, including those returning from career breaks, military service-leavers, and those underrepresented in the defence technology sector. We make recruitment decisions based on merit, in line with the Equality Act 2010.