Lead Systems Admin

Title: Lead Systems AdministratorSalary: $115,000 - $155,000Location: Hybrid - In-Office 3 days a weekFounded in 1911, this global electrical equipment and grid technology organization employs approximately 1,000 to 5,000 people worldwide, with more than 2,000 employees based in its Chicago headquarters and manufacturing campus. For over a century, the company has designed and manufactured advanced switching, protection, and control solutions for electric power transmission and distribution systems, helping utilities and industrial customers build safer, more reliable, and intelligent electrical infrastructure.The Chicago location serves as the company's primary innovation, engineering, and manufacturing hub, where teams develop and produce medium and high voltage switching equipment, smart grid automation systems, energy storage solutions, and power quality technologies. This facility also houses advanced research and development capabilities focused on grid modernization, automation, and resiliency technologies designed to support a more sustainable and outage resistant power grid.Position OverviewWe are seeking an experienced Lead Systems Administrator to oversee and optimize our infrastructure across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. The Lead Systems Administrator will drive architecture decisions, mentor engineers, implement automation and best practices, and ensure high availability, security, and performance of systems supporting business applications and services.Key ResponsibilitiesLead design, deployment, and maintenance of infrastructure across on-premises, virtual (VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, KVM) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).Manage and administer Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, and core TCP/IP network services to ensure reliable authentication, name resolution and connectivity.Develop, review and maintain automation and orchestration using PowerShell, Bash, Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and container tooling (Docker, Kubernetes).Implement and tune storage solutions (SAN/NAS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, RAID) and file services (NFS, SMB/CIFS) to meet performance and capacity requirements.Administer database and messaging infrastructure including SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL and email platforms (Exchange/Office 365).Manage web and application servers (IIS, Apache, Nginx) and ensure secure, performant application delivery and load balancing.Design and operate high availability and clustering solutions, disaster recovery plans and capacity planning to meet RTO/RPO objectives.Implement and maintain security hardening, IAM, VPNs, firewall integration, and monitoring to protect systems and data; lead patching and vulnerability remediation efforts.Lead incident response, problem management and change processes using ITSM tools such as ServiceNow or JIRA, and produce post-incident analyses and remediation plans.Drive performance tuning, benchmarking and proactive monitoring to optimize system reliability and resource utilization.Mentor and guide system administrators and site reliability engineers, establishing operational runbooks, standards and best practices.Collaborate with engineering, security, and product teams to support deployments, migrations, and new service onboarding.Evaluate new technologies and provide recommendations to improve scalability, cost-efficiency and operational maturity.QualificationsBachelors degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent experience, or relevant certifications (e.g., RHCE, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator, AWS Certified SysOps Administrator).7+ years of systems administration experience with progressive responsibility, including leadership or technical lead roles.Deep hands-on experience with Active Directory, Group Policy, PowerShell and Bash scripting for automation and operational efficiency.Proven expertise in virtualization (VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, KVM) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) including infrastructure-as-code (Terraform).Experience with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef).Strong storage and networking knowledge (SAN/NAS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, RAID, NFS, SMB/CIFS, TCP/IP, VPN).Operational experience with databases and messaging systems: SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL; familiarity with Exchange/Office 365 administration.Experience administering web servers (IIS, Apache, Nginx) and core network services (DNS, DHCP).Demonstrated ability in security hardening, IAM, vulnerability management, and compliance controls.Skilled in high availability, clustering, disaster recovery planning and execution, capacity planning and performance tuning.Familiarity with ServiceNow and/or JIRA for ITSM, and strong incident/change management experience.Excellent communication, documentation and mentoring skills; able to lead cross-functional projects and drive operational improvements.Ability to work flexible hours for on-call rotations and respond to critical incidents as needed.Benefits- 401K with up to 6% matching and an additional 3% added even if nothing has been contributed- Bonus paid annually based on company and individual performance - 10%- 10 days of PTO- 5 Sick Days- 16 Paid Holidays 9 of which are during the Christmas holiday season.- Health Insurance- Vision Insurance- Dental Insurance