Linux Administrator

Neurealm; Chennai District; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Neurealm is seeking an experienced Linux Server Admin - L2 to join our Chennai team. You will manage day-to-day Linux systems, containers, and virtualization, ensuring reliable operations and rapid incident response.

You will work closely with L1/L3 teams, oversee patch cycles, and implement automation using scripts and configuration management tools. The role requires rotational shifts and on-call support as per business needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in CS/IT.
• 4–8 years Linux server administration experience.
• Strong Linux OS administration and scripting skills.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with virtualization (VMware/Nutanix).
• On-call rotation and incident management.

Responsibilities

• Manage Linux server environments including installation, configuration, patching, and upgrades.
• Handle incident and problem management with L2 escalations (L1 to L2).
• Administer user/group management, file systems, and storage configurations (LVM, disks).
• Manage core Linux services (SSH, cron, DNS, NFS, Samba) and patch cycles.
• Configure high availability and clustering for Linux workloads (Pacemaker/Corosync).
• Automate tasks using Shell/Bash, Python and Ansible/Puppet/Chef.
• Container platform administration: Docker and Kubernetes operations.
• Coordinate with Platform Eng/DevOps for CI/CD in containerized environments.
• Support virtualization/hypervisor tasks (VMware/Nutanix) relevant to Linux workloads.

Skills

Linux administration

Shell scripting

Docker

Kubernetes

RBAC and Secrets

System monitoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/IT

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

VMware vSphere

Nutanix AHV

Job description

Role & responsibilities

Looking for immediate joiner

Job Description: Linux Server Admin L2

Job Title: Linux Server Admin - L2

Band: Band 2

Experience: 4 to 8 years

Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field (or equivalent experience)

Location: Chennai (work from Office)

Shift: Rotational shifts, including 24x7 on-call/support rotation as per business requirement

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced L2 Linux Server Admin to manage, support, and troubleshoot our Linux-based server and container environment. The ideal candidate will bring strong, hands-on Linux OS administration skills as the primary requirement for this role, along with working knowledge of container platform administration (Kubernetes and Docker), and virtualization/hypervisor platforms (VMware or Nutanix) as a secondary skill. The candidate will handle day-to-day Linux and container operations, deep-dive troubleshooting, and platform reliability tasks, working closely with L1 support and L3/Infrastructure Architects, and coordinating with the Hypervisor/Virtualization and Platform Engineering teams where Linux workloads are hosted on virtualized or containerized infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

Linux Server Administration (Primary Skill)

• Manage and support Linux server environments (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu/SUSE) including installation, configuration, patching, and version upgrades.


• Perform day-to-day operations, incident and problem management (L2 escalations from L1), and RCA within defined SLAs for Linux-hosted systems and applications.


• Administer user/group management, file system and LVM management, disk/partition management, and storage mount configurations.


• Manage core Linux services - SSH, cron/systemd job scheduling, DNS/NFS/Samba, web/application servers, and package management (yum/dnf/apt).


• Perform kernel and OS patch management, including patch cycle planning, testing, deployment, and compliance reporting.


• Configure and manage high availability and clustering solutions for Linux workloads (Pacemaker/Corosync or equivalent).


• Manage backup and recovery activities for Linux systems, including backup job monitoring, restore validation, and DR drills.


• Automate routine administrative tasks using Shell/Bash and Python scripting, and configuration management tools (Ansible/Puppet/Chef).

Container Platform Administration (Kubernetes & Docker)

• Administer and support Docker container environments - image management, container lifecycle operations, networking, volumes, and Docker daemon/host-level configuration.


• Provide L2-level administration and support for Kubernetes clusters - node management, pod/deployment troubleshooting, namespace and resource quota management, and cluster health monitoring.


• Perform routine Kubernetes operations - cluster upgrades, node patching, certificate renewal, and etcd/control-plane health checks, in coordination with L3/Platform Engineering teams.


• Troubleshoot container and orchestration-level issues - pod crash loops, image pull failures, networking (CNI) issues, persistent volume/storage class problems, and resource contention (CPU/memory limits and requests).


• Manage container registries, image builds/pipelines integration points, and basic Helm chart deployment/troubleshooting.


• Support RBAC, secrets management, and namespace-level access control within Kubernetes environments.


• Monitor container and cluster health using tools such as Prometheus/Grafana, Kubernetes Dashboard, or equivalent, and proactively flag capacity or performance risks.


• Coordinate with Platform Engineering/DevOps teams on CI/CD pipeline-related deployment issues affecting containerized Linux workloads.

Hypervisor & Virtualization Support (Secondary Skill)

• Provide L2-level support for Linux virtual machines hosted on VMware vSphere/ESXi or Nutanix AHV/Prism environments, including basic VM lifecycle operations (provisioning, cloning, snapshots, resizing).


• Coordinate with the Hypervisor/Virtualization team on host-level issues affecting Linux VMs - resource contention, storage/datastore connectivity, and VM performance degradation.


• Support basic troubleshooting of VM-level issues - boot failures, guest tools/VM tools issues, and resource allocation problems - for Linux guest OS instances.


• Assist with capacity and performance monitoring of Linux VMs within the virtualization platform (vROps, Nutanix Prism monitoring, or equivalent).

Troubleshooting

• Diagnose and resolve Linux OS-level issues - boot failures, kernel panics, service crashes, driver conflicts, disk/memory pressure, and performance degradation.


• Troubleshoot networking issues on Linux systems - interface configuration, routing, firewall (iptables/firewalld), and DNS resolution problems.


• Investigate storage-related issues - filesystem corruption, LVM errors, disk space exhaustion, and mount point failures.


• Troubleshoot authentication and access issues - LDAP/AD integration (SSSD/Winbind), sudo/permission errors, and SSH key-based access problems.


• Perform root cause analysis for recurring incidents and drive permanent fixes in coordination with L3/Architecture teams.

Security & Access

• Implement and manage role-based access control (RBAC), sudo policies, and least-privilege access principles across Linux systems and Kubernetes namespaces.


• Support hardening of Linux servers and container environments as per organizational security baselines and CIS benchmarks (including CIS Docker and Kubernetes benchmarks).


• Manage SSH key management, certificates, and integration with enterprise secret/credential stores, including Kubernetes secrets management.


• Ensure compliance with patch SLAs, vulnerability remediation timelines (including container image vulnerability scanning), and audit requirements.

Platform & Automation

• Contribute to platform standardization - golden image/template creation, baseline configuration, and build documentation for Linux servers and container base images.


• Work with monitoring and observability tools (Nagios, Zabbix, Grafana, Prometheus, or similar) to proactively identify performance and capacity issues across Linux and container environments.


• Support Infrastructure as Code practices for provisioning and managing Linux servers and Kubernetes resources where applicable (Terraform, Ansible, Helm).


• Document runbooks, SOPs, architecture diagrams, and knowledge base articles for recurring Linux and container-related issues.


• Participate in on-call rotation and support during planned maintenance/outages.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field (or equivalent experience).


• 4 to 8 years of hands-on experience in Linux server administration (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu/SUSE) as the primary skill set.


• Strong command over Linux system administration - user/file/storage management, service management, patching, and shell scripting.


• Hands-on working knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes administration - container lifecycle management, cluster operations, and troubleshooting of container/pod-level issues.


• Working knowledge of virtualization/hypervisor platforms (VMware vSphere/ESXi or Nutanix AHV/Prism) sufficient to support Linux VMs and coordinate with the virtualization team.


• Deep troubleshooting experience across Linux OS, storage, networking, and authentication/access issues.


• Working knowledge of backup and DR tools/processes for Linux-based workloads.

Preferred / Good to Have

• Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) or equivalent Linux certification.


• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Docker Certified Associate (DCA) certification.


• VMware Certified Professional (VCP) or Nutanix Certified Professional (NCP) - a secondary/good-to-have certification.


• Experience with configuration management and automation tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Terraform, Helm).


• Exposure to CI/CD pipelines and GitOps practices (Jenkins, GitLab CI, ArgoCD, or similar) for containerized application deployment.


• Experience with monitoring/observability tools (Nagios, Zabbix, Grafana, Prometheus).


• Knowledge of cloud-hosted Linux and Kubernetes environments (AWS EC2/EKS, Azure VMs/AKS) in addition to on-prem virtualization.

Soft Skills

• Strong communication skills to collaborate with Infrastructure, Virtualization, Platform Engineering, and Security teams.


• Ability to work independently under SLA pressure in a 24x7 support environment.


• Analytical, methodical troubleshooting approach with an ownership mindset.


• Continuous learning attitude given the evolving Linux, containerization, and virtualization ecosystem.