Systems Operations Engineer

Recruit-It; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 450,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

Recruit-It is seeking an experienced IT operations professional in the Western Cape. The role focuses on maintaining and improving a secure, highly available Linux-based estate, including Proxmox/VMware/Xen virtualization, storage, backups, and network services.

You will manage identity platforms, secure connections, and HA database clusters while contributing to runbooks, recovery procedures, and documentation. A senior or lead capacity is preferred.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s level or higher information systems qualification.
• 5+ years in IT operations or systems administration.
• 2+ years in a senior or lead capacity.

Responsibilities

• Drive continuous improvement of the estate and reduce complexity and risk.
• Maintain internal and external infrastructure for development and production.
• Patch and harden operating systems across the server estate.
• Manage virtualised environments (Proxmox/VMware/Xen) and HA setups.
• Own storage and data protection with backups and replication.
• Manage network and edge security including VPNs and firewalls.
• Operate identity platforms and wire services securely.
• Manage HA databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB) and clustering.
• Maintain DCIM/IPAM and ensure redundancy and monitoring.
• Produce design docs, runbooks, and recovery procedures.
• Participate in after-hours and weekend support rotation.

Skills

Linux administration

Patching discipline

Networking fundamentals

OSI model knowledge

Package management

Git

Education

Degree/Diploma in Information Systems

Tools

Proxmox

VMware

Xen

Zabbix

Prometheus

Grafana

Nagios

Bash

Python

Git

Ansible

Job description

Key responsibility areas:

• Drive continuous improvement of the existing estate - securing, simplifying, consolidating, and reducing complexity and risk over time.
• Maintain and manage internal and external infrastructure for software development and production - servers, switches, firewalls, routing, virtual machines, and storage.
• Keep operating systems and platforms patched, current, and hardened across the server estate.
• Manage virtualised environments (Proxmox / KVM; VMware experience welcome) - VM lifecycle, high availability, and capacity.
• Own storage and data protection - ZFS/NFS pools, snapshots, replication, and documented, tested backups.
• Manage network and edge security - firewall policy, VPN, segmentation, and gateway platforms (OPNsense, FortiGate).
• Operate the identity platform (Authentik / SSO) and wire services into it securely.
• Operate the MariaDB/MySQL high-availability database cluster (Galera/MaxScale) - replication, failover, and recovery.
• Maintain the infrastructure source of truth (DCIM/IPAM) so the estate is accurately documented.
• Ensure redundancy across systems and continuous monitoring of critical services.
• Produce and maintain design and systems documentation, runbooks, and recovery procedures.
• Continuously improve operational practices, processes, and infrastructure.
• Participate in an after-hours and weekend support rotation shared across the infrastructure team.

Required skills:

• Excellent Linux system administration (Ubuntu, CentOS/RHEL) and associated technologies.
• Strong Linux command-line proficiency and a genuine patching / currency discipline.
• Working knowledge of network services (NFS, iSCSI, SMB/Samba, LDAP, DNS).
• Strong understanding of the OSI model and networking fundamentals.
• Working knowledge of package management (rpm, deb).
• Basic version control familiarity (Git).

Required experience:

• Configuring and maintaining virtualised environments (Proxmox, VMware, or Xen).
• Storage administration with real depth - pool design, replication, and recovery (ZFS a strong plus).
• High-availability or load-balancing environments - implementing and operating them.
• Relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB) and HA clustering concepts.
• Backup and recovery tooling (Veeam, Bacula, or similar).
• Monitoring tooling (Zabbix, Prometheus/Grafana, Nagios, or similar).
• Scripting for automation (Bash, Python).
• Working within agile delivery (Jira, Bitbucket) and a change-control discipline.

Advantageous Experience:

• Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) - relevant to the company’s international expansion.
• Identity and access management platforms (Authentik, Keycloak, WSO2).
• Networking depth and troubleshooting (TCP/IP, DNS, VPN, routing/switching, firewalls).
• Server hardening and defensive systems (file integrity, IDS/IPS, Fail2Ban, auditing).
• PKI and certificate lifecycle management (Let’s Encrypt, commercial CAs).
• Security audits and standards exposure (PCI-DSS, ISMS, ISO 27000) - important in the company’s regulated industry.
• Configuration management (Ansible).

Attributes:

• Leadership that comes from experience; able to set and execute direction in your area.
• Self-motivated, proactive, and comfortable working independently with little supervision.
• Strong team spirit and able to collaborate across technical and non-technical staff.
• Logical, objective, and able to think beyond the obvious solution.
• Comfortable working under pressure and juggling multiple initiatives.
• Clear written and verbal communication, up and down the organisation.

Qualifications:

• Degree/Diploma in Information Systems or related field.
• At least 5 years in IT operations and/or systems administration.
• At least 2 years in a senior or lead capacity.