Senior Server Administrator

University of California, San Francisco; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) seeks a Senior Server Administrator to drive daily maintenance and operations of on-premises and virtual servers, ensuring stability and security of UCSF's computing environment.

The role provides technical leadership in planning migrations, performance tuning, and operational stabilization of RHEL environments while collaborating with faculty, staff, and students to deliver reliable IT services.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in computer science, engineering, or related field.
• 5 years of enterprise server administration focusing on IBM AIX on IBM POWER.
• 3 years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux administration in enterprise environments.
• 3 years supporting high availability, clustering, and DR architectures for mission-critical apps.
• 3 years managing UNIX virtualization (PowerVM, LPAR) and related I/O virtualization.
• 3 years planning OS migrations or platform modernization initiatives.
• 3 years deploying automation frameworks (Ansible, etc.).
• Advanced knowledge of AIX and RHEL administration, security hardening, and performance tuning.
• Ability to implement and support PowerHA and Linux HA solutions.
• Experience integrating UNIX/Linux with enterprise storage and SFTP/MFT frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Drive day-to-day maintenance and operations of on-premises and virtual servers.
• Coordinate server needs with customers, partners, and stakeholders across units.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to IT colleagues.
• Support modernization of UNIX platform services, including AIX-to-RHEL migrations.
• Lead planning, migration, performance tuning, and stabilization of RHEL environments.

Skills

AIX administration

PowerVM

RHEL administration

UNIX/Linux virtualization

High availability (PowerHA)

Automation frameworks (Ansible)

IaC (Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet)

Security hardening

SFTP/MFT frameworks

System performance tuning

Collaboration with stakeholders

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering or equivalent

Tools

VIOS

GoAnywhere

Live Partition Mobility

Job description

Job Description

The Senior Server Administrator will drive the day-to-day maintenance and operations of on-premises and virtual servers to ensure stability and security of University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) computing environment. This role will coordinate server needs between a broad range of customers, partners, and key stakeholders in administrative and academic units. The Senior Server Administrator will act as a technical subject matter expert for Information Technology (IT) colleagues and provide training assistance and technical mentorship. This role will support hypervisor deployment and configuration as well as maintain day-to-day operations of centralized, distributed, physical, and virtual servers.

The Senior Server Administrator will positively impact UCSF’s operations and culture by ensuring UCSF's IT infrastructure is operable, secure, efficient, and effective in service of UCSF’s academic mission. This team member will advance the UCSF’s mission by delivering exceptional information technology services comprehensively and consistently across faculty, staff, and students. This role will execute UCSF’s vision while modeling UCSF’s culture and values.

This role is expected to support the strategic modernization of UCSF’s UNIX platform services, including the transition of AIX-based workloads to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on virtualized infrastructure. The incumbent will provide technical leadership in planning, migration, performance tuning, and operational stabilization of RHEL environments supporting critical healthcare and other Tier 0/Tier 1 applications.

Department Overview

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is distinguished as a leading academic healthcare organization, home to groundbreaking discoveries, world-class education, and exceptional healthcare services. Infrastructure Services (IS) is the backbone of the technological infrastructure, assuring the technical services that enable the academic, medical, and research missions of the organization. Beyond a focus on maintaining systems and resolving issues, we are committed to nurturing the potential of our team members and empowering them to excel. UCSF Infrastructure Services provides 24x7 support to the University community, always upholding the highest level of responsiveness and reliability for our customers. IS values innovation and excellence in ensuring secure and efficient Information Technology (IT) services, regardless of the hour or complexity of the issue.

The Platform Services team within Infrastructure Services is committed to empowering the academic, medical, and research mission of UCSF by ensuring that all customers have seamless, secure, and accessible technological support. The team oversees the management and maintenance of various technology platforms, including system and cloud services, to guarantee they are secure, readily available, and performing optimally. Platform Services handles the management of critical software, such as Epic, ensuring it supports the highest level of medical service delivery by operating at peak performance. The team also oversees data center operations, including server management, storage, and networking equipment, to ensure the reliable delivery of health services. Additionally, it manages databases with a focus on data security, availability, and top-tier performance. All these tasks are critical not only for the smooth operation of the University’s technological infrastructure, but also for enhancing productivity, enabling the provision of high-quality health services and learning, and ultimately, improving patient and student outcomes.

Qualifications

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent combination of experience/training, in one or more of the following fields: computer science, engineering, computer information systems, etc.
• 5 years of experience with enterprise server administration with primary focus in IBM AIX on IBM POWER platforms in large-scale production environments.
• 3 years of experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in enterprise environments.
• 3 years of experience supporting high availability (IBM PowerHA), clustering, and disaster recovery architectures for mission-critical applications.
• 3 years of experience managing UNIX (i.e. PowerVM) and other virtualization technologies including logical partitioning and I/O virtualization.
• 3 years of experience planning and executing operating system migrations or platform modernization initiatives
• 3 years of experience deploying automation frameworks (Ansible, etc).
• Advanced knowledge of IBM AIX system administration, including LPAR management, VIOS, PowerVM, and Live Partition Mobility.
• Advanced knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux administration, including system hardening, lifecycle management, and performance tuning.
• Ability to implement and support clustering technologies such as PowerHA and/or Linux-based HA solutions.
• Ability to integrate UNIX/Linux systems with enterprise storage platforms.
• Ability to deploy and manage Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) frameworks.
• Ability to deploy and manage Managed File Transfer (MFT) frameworks using scripts or 3rd-party products (GoAnywhere, etc)l
• Demonstrated extensive experience in information technology, platform services, virtualization, and server administration (Unix, Linux, and Windows).
• Extensive experience with installing, configuring, modifying, and supporting hypervisors, Unix, Linux, and other operating systems. Experience with platform automation and orchestration methodologies and tools.
• Extensive experience with monitoring, auditing, tuning, and analysis and optimization of system performance, security, and capacity planning, patching, and upgrades.
• Proven ability to interpret, analyze, and apply pertinent service level agreements, updates, policies, procedures, regulations, and other requirements and turn them into actionable outcomes.
• Understanding of system performance monitoring and actions that can be taken to improve or correct performance. Demonstrated skills associated with adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs. Demonstrated comprehensive understanding of how system management actions affect other systems, system users, and dependent/related functions.
• Demonstrated advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with system problem identification and resolution. Experience with design, configuration, operation, repair, tracking and tuning of technology systems.
• Proficiency in key Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies and principles. Knowledge of IaC tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or equivalent, and proficiency in scripting languages associated with IaC tools. Ability to write and maintain clear, concise, and effective infrastructure code. Proficiency in automating deployments, scaling, and management of infrastructure components.
• Advanced knowledge of computer security best practices and policies including demonstrated experience securing complex server-based software.
• Strong customer service skills. Ability to triage and escalate to supervisors and/or other teams for resolution.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to communicate technical information and ideas to a diverse community of colleagues and stakeholders.
• Ability to establish and advance positive working relationships and a strong rapport with team members, stakeholders, and customers.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to balance competing priorities and support concurrent projects. Experience working in a project-based environment using leading project management practices including schedule management, status reporting, and communication of project risks and issues.
• Strong demonstrated problem-solving skills; ability to scope solutions based on knowledge of available resources and timelines. Ability to ask questions, gather information, evaluate options, and make decisions with integrity.
• Ability to think creatively and propose innovative ideas, including the incorporation of new technologies or processes. Ability to work with agility in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certifications
• Server Certification (Microsoft, Red Hat)
• CompTIA Server+ or equivalent
• VMware Certified Professional (VCP) or equivalent
• Citrix Certified Associate – Virtualization (CCA-V) or equivalent

About Us

About UCSF

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It is the only campus in the 10-campus UC system dedicated exclusively to the health sciences. We bring together the world’s leading experts in nearly every area of health. We are home to five Nobel laureates who have advanced the understanding of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, aging and stem cells.

Pride Values

UCSF is a diverse community made of people with many skills and talents. We seek candidates whose work experience or community service has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to professionalism, respect, integrity, diversity and excellence – also known as our PRIDE values .

In addition to our PRIDE values, UCSF is committed to equity – both in how we deliver care as well as our workforce. We are committed to building a broadly diverse community, nurturing a culture that is welcoming and supportive, and engaging diverse ideas for the provision of culturally competent education, discovery, and patient care. Additional information about UCSF is available here .

Join us to find a rewarding career contributing to improving healthcare worldwide.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or other protected status under state or federal law.

Salary Information

The final salary and offer components are subject to additional approvals based on UC policy.

Your placement within the salary range is dependent on a number of factors including your work experience and internal equity within this position classification at UCSF. For positions that are represented by a labor union, placement within the salary range will be guided by the rules in the collective bargaining agreement.

To learn more about the benefits of working at UCSF, including total compensation, please visit: https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/compensation-and-benefits/index.html