Facilities Automation Systems Administrator

Penn State; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant seeks a Facilities Automation Systems Administrator Supervisor to lead administration, maintenance, and security of facility automation systems across critical university facilities.

The role supervises a team of automation administrators, coordinating daily work, improving reliability, and ensuring systems align with university requirements. This is a hybrid role with on-campus and remote work options.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; 6+ years of relevant experience preferred.
• Experience administering BAS/OT infrastructure in complex facilities.
• Knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems.
• Strong troubleshooting and documentation skills.
• Experience supervising staff and coordinating project work.

Responsibilities

• Administer and support BAS, LMS, SCADA platforms, and OT infrastructure.
• Manage virtualization, storage, backup, and network environments.
• Lead incident response and post-incident analyses; ensure security and reliability.
• Coordinate design, testing, and deployment of integrations across enterprise systems.
• Supervise Facilities Automation Systems Administrators and develop staff capabilities.

Skills

BAS/OT infrastructure

Windows & Linux

System integration

Troubleshooting

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

Proxmox

VMware vSphere/ESXi

Veeam

NetApp

Juniper

Job description

**POSITION SPECIFICS**The Office of Physical Plant (OPP) is an organization driven by its mission to “Provide Excellent Facilities Services for Penn State.”OPP is seeking an experienced **Facilities Automation Systems Administrator** **Supervisor** to lead the administration, maintenance, security, integration, and lifecycle management of facility automation systems supporting critical University facilities.Reporting to the Manager, Operational Technology Infrastructure and Security, this position provides technical leadership for facilities automation systems and supervises a team of Facilities Automation Systems Administrators.This position offers a flexible work arrangement that combines remote and on-campus work. Questions related to flexible work should be directed to the hiring manager during the interview process.The successful candidate will establish priorities, coordinate daily work, develop staff capability, and ensure that automation systems are secure, reliable, resilient, and aligned with University requirements. **Technical Responsibilities*** Administer and support BAS, Environmental Control Systems, LMS, SCADA platforms, servers, databases, controllers, field devices, and related OT infrastructure.* Administer and troubleshoot virtualization, storage, backup, and network environments supporting OT systems, including Proxmox VE, VMware vSphere/ESXi, Veeam, NetApp, and Juniper technologies.* Management of Windows and Linux Operating Systems.* Support Automated Logic/ALC and Johnson Controls systems, including supervisory workstations* Monitor system/infrastructure performance, communications, alarms, trends, and operational data; identify anomalies and improve reliability.* Design, maintain, and troubleshoot integrations among BAS, SCADA, LMS, energy management, maintenance management, and enterprise systems.* Support BACnet/IP, BACnet MS/TP, Modbus TCP/RTU, SNMP, REST/API integrations, serial communications, and related protocols.* Maintain OT infrastructure; DNS, DHCP, NTP, secure remote access, gateways, and protocol-conversion technologies.* Develop standards for configuration, capacity planning, performance tuning, backup and recovery, business continuity, asset inventories, and infrastructure lifecycle management.* Evaluate, test, validate, and deploy software, firmware, operating-system, and application updates through formal change-control processes.* Diagnose complex hardware, software, networking, communications, and control-system issues.* Coordinate incident response, outage recovery, root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and system-health assessments.* Maintain system architectures, network diagrams, configuration baselines, procedures, maintenance schedules, recovery plans, and other technical documentation.* Support alignment with NIST SP 800-82, ISA/IEC 62443, University policies, and applicable safety, environmental, laboratory, and security requirements.* Participate in commissioning, acceptance testing, inspections, audits, upgrades, and project implementation activities.**Leadership/Supervisory*** Supervise a team of Facilities Automation Systems Administrators, including assigning work, establishing priorities, reviewing performance, coaching staff, supporting professional development, and participating in hiring and onboarding.* Promote cross-training, knowledge sharing, consistent work practices, accountability, and a customer-focused culture.* Collaborate with Facilities Operations, Operational Technology, Information Technology, Information Security, vendors, consultants, project teams, and campus stakeholders.* Communicate technical information clearly to technical and nontechnical audiences.**Preferred Skills and Knowledge*** Proficiency in Windows and Linux environments.* Comprehensive knowledge of BAS, SCADA, and OT infrastructure.* Familiarity with Proxmox, VMware, Veeam, NetApp, Juniper, Automated Logic/ALC, Johnson Controls, BACnet, Modbus, OPC UA, MQTT, and SNMP.* Understanding of OT environments and their differences from traditional IT environments, including availability, safety, deterministic communications, long equipment lifecycles, vendor dependencies, and change-management risks.* Knowledge of virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, network administration, cybersecurity, system integration, and infrastructure monitoring.* Strong troubleshooting, documentation, analytical, organizational, and project-coordination skills.* Demonstrated ability to supervise, coach, mentor, and develop technical staff.* Experience in higher education, healthcare, research, laboratory, or large-scale facilities operations preferred. **MINIMUM EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE & REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS**Bachelor's Degree6+ years of relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience acceptedRequired Certifications:None