Lab Administrator

Sira Consulting, an Inc 5000 company; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Sira Consulting is seeking a hands-on Lab Engineer to operate and support a telecom/cloud validation lab in Chicago. You will ensure infrastructure availability, manage access, deploy Linux servers, and automate routine tasks to keep projects flowing smoothly.

The role involves coordinating with distributed engineering teams, maintaining accurate lab inventories and documentation, and applying security and governance policies in shared environments. Onsite work is expected.

Qualifications

• Hands-on Linux administration and troubleshooting.
• Strong understanding of TCP/IP, routing, switching, VLANs, DNS, DHCP, NTP, firewalls, and remote access.
• Experience with VMware, KVM, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Ansible, monitoring, or backup tools.
• Experience with virtualization platforms and basic container administration.
• Ability to diagnose server, storage, network, and connectivity issues using logs and system tools.
• Experience maintaining lab documentation, inventory, access records, and support tickets.
• Willingness to provide onsite support and coordinate with distributed engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Operate and support a telecom or cloud validation lab, ensuring infrastructure availability, secure access, environment readiness, asset control, and timely troubleshooting for engineering and test teams.
• Provision and maintain physical and virtual servers, network devices, storage, test tools, and shared lab services.
• Install, configure, patch, and monitor Linux systems, hypervisors, containers, and supporting middleware.
• Manage user access, credentials, network connectivity, IP plans, VLANs, DNS, NTP, certificates, and remote-access services.
• Coordinate environment reservations, build deployments, test-data setup, resets, backups, and recovery activities.
• Monitor lab health and capacity; troubleshoot hardware, operating system, network, and infrastructure issues.
• Maintain inventory, rack diagrams, topology documents, licenses, warranties, spares, and asset movement records.
• Apply security, safety, change-control, and access-governance procedures for shared environments.
• Automate repetitive administration, monitoring, health checks, and reporting using scripts or configuration tools.

Skills

Linux administration

Networking fundamentals

Troubleshooting

Onsite support coordination

Lab documentation & tickets

Security/access governance

Scripting/automation basics

Tools

VMware

KVM

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Ansible

Monitoring tools

Backup tools

Wireshark

Job description

Key Responsibilities

• Operate and support a telecom or cloud validation lab, ensuring infrastructure availability, secure access, environment readiness, asset control, and timely troubleshooting for engineering and test teams.
• Provision and maintain physical and virtual servers, network devices, storage, test tools, and shared lab services.
• Install, configure, patch, and monitor Linux systems, hypervisors, containers, and supporting middleware.
• Manage user access, credentials, network connectivity, IP plans, VLANs, DNS, NTP, certificates, and remote-access services.
• Coordinate environment reservations, build deployments, test‑data setup, resets, backups, and recovery activities.
• Monitor lab health and capacity; troubleshoot hardware, operating system, network, and infrastructure issues.
• Maintain inventory, rack diagrams, topology documents, licenses, warranties, spares, and asset movement records.
• Apply security, safety, change‑control, and access‑governance procedures for shared environments.
• Automate repetitive administration, monitoring, health checks, and reporting using scripts or configuration tools.

Mandatory Skills

• Hands‑on Linux administration and troubleshooting.
• Strong understanding of TCP/IP, routing, switching, VLANs, DNS, DHCP, NTP, firewalls, and remote access.
• Experience with VMware, KVM, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Ansible, monitoring, or backup tools.
• Experience with virtualization platforms and basic container administration.
• Ability to diagnose server, storage, network, and connectivity issues using logs and system tools.
• Experience maintaining lab documentation, inventory, access records, and support tickets.
• Willingness to provide onsite support and coordinate with distributed engineering teams.

Must Have Skills

• Laboratory equipments
• Telecom : Networking

Preferred / Good‑to‑Have Skills

• Exposure to telecom test environments, 4G/5G network elements, traffic generators, or protocol analyzers.
• Scripting using Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Tools / Platforms: Linux, VMware or KVM, Kubernetes or OpenShift, Ansible, Python or Bash, Wireshark, monitoring tools, ticketing and asset systems