Senior Systems Administrator, HPC & Research Infra

The University of Chicago; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 100,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Chicago’s Computer Science department seeks a Systems Administrator 3 to design, operate, and secure its computing infrastructure, including HPC clusters, servers, storage, and networking. The role requires independent execution, project leadership, and close collaboration with faculty, researchers, and staff to support instructional and research workflows.

You will monitor performance, plan upgrades, and implement security controls while maintaining cost efficiency and

Qualifications

• Education: college or university degree in related field.
• 5-7 years of work experience in a related job discipline.
• Bachelor's degree in CS or related field.
• Experience managing networked servers and workstations with TCP/IP, system utilities, hardware installation, OS installation.
• Experience with Linux in production environments.
• Experience with multi-tier or cluster architectures.
• Experience with web servers (Apache/Nginx).
• Knowledge of backup tech and monitoring/automation tools.
• Strong experience with Puppet or Ansible.
• Understanding of TCP/IP, subnetting, VLANs, IP addressing.
• Familiarity with Nomad, Docker, Kubernetes.
• Python/Ruby/Bash scripting.
• Networking fundamentals and troubleshooting.
• Ability to mentor others and work with research teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead system and network administration independently and ensure reliable, secure infrastructure.
• Install, upgrade, and maintain server applications and hardware; safeguard software integrity.
• Manage OS security, backups, and recovery procedures.
• Plan and execute patches, upgrades, and migrations for servers and storage subsystems.
• Monitor system health, performance, and capacity; analyze logs to remediate issues.
• Lead large infrastructure projects and collaborate with faculty and researchers to meet requirements.
• Provide purchasing recommendations for research and instructional needs.
• Participate in incident response and disaster recovery planning.
• Document work and share knowledge to improve practices.

Skills

Linux systems

Networking

TCP/IP networking

Puppet

Ansible

Docker

Kubernetes

Python scripting

Security

SLURM

Incident response

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Nomad

Job description

The University of Chicago’s Computer Science department seeks a Systems Administrator 3 to design, operate, and secure its computing infrastructure, including HPC clusters, servers, storage, and networking. The role requires independent execution, project leadership, and close collaboration with faculty, researchers, and staff to support instructional and research workflows.

You will monitor performance, plan upgrades, and implement security controls while maintaining cost efficiency and