Senior Systems Engineer

OVERVIEW

A thriving mission-driven multimedia organization NPR produces award-winning news information and music programming in partnership with hundreds of independent public radio stations across the nation. The NPR audience values information creativity curiosity and social responsibility and our employees do too. We are innovators and leaders in diverse fields from journalism and digital media to IT and development. Every day our employees and member stations touch the lives of millions worldwide.

Across our organization were building a workplace where collaboration is essential diverse voices are heard and inclusion is the key to our success. We are committed to doing the right thing in our journalism and in every role at NPR . This means that integrity adherence to our ethical standards and compliance with legal obligations are fundamental responsibilities for every employee at NPR.

Intro to Position

NPR is seeking an experienced technically rigorous Senior IT Systems Engineer to join our IT Systems this role you will serve as a primary technical lead responsible for the design deployment administration and optimization of NPRs core virtualized data center infrastructure. The ideal candidate brings deep hands-on expertise in VMware vSphere enterprise Storage Area Networks (SAN/NAS) and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) environments.

You will play a critical role in ensuring the high availability scalability performance and security of our enterprise systems while partnering across Technology to advance infrastructure modernization and automation initiatives in support of our nationwide public media mission.

Responsibilities

Data Center Architecture & Storage Administration

1. Architect Virtualized Infrastructure: Design deploy and manage core virtualized data center infrastructure leading enterprise VMware vSphere environments Cisco UCS compute platforms and SAN/NAS storage arrays.
2. Administer Enterprise Compute & Storage: Execute routine server builds security patch management virtual machine lifecycle administration and enterprise storage capacity allocation.
3. Advance Cloud & Hybrid Integration: Evaluate systems architecture and hybrid-cloud strategy taking operational ownership of the maintenance and integration of cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure).

Systems Governance & Disaster Recovery

1. Govern Disaster Recovery Strategies: Design maintain and rigorously test business continuity and disaster recovery strategies including enterprise backups data replication and automated site failovers.
2. Manage Structured Change Processes: Recommend test and implement system enhancements in strict adherence to established organizational change management policies and procedures.
3. Publish System Documentation & SOPs: Author and maintain comprehensive systems architecture diagrams standard operating procedures (SOPs) runbooks and technical documentation for IT colleagues and system stakeholders.

Incident Escalation & Operational Automation

1. Lead Tier-3 Escalations & Root Cause Analysis: Serve as the senior technical escalation point for enterprise technology teams isolating root causes and resolving complex production incidents.
2. Automate Infrastructure Operations: Design and execute automation scripts using modern scripting languages to streamline routine administrative tasks infrastructure provisioning and systems health reporting.
3. Maintain Operational Communications: Provide timely status reporting on system health to engineering leadership manage incident response on a 24x7 rotation and articulate outage impact clearly to technical and operational partners.

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list of required responsibilities duties and skills. Other duties may be assigned and this job description can be modified at any time.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5 years of dedicated experience as a Systems or Infrastructure Engineer supporting administering and troubleshooting systems in an enterprise data center environment.
• Proven hands-on experience designing and managing complex VMware vSphere environments (clustering DRS HA vMotion).
• Extensive experience with Cisco UCS Manager configuring service profiles templates and physical hardware deployment.
• Strong background in configuring and managing enterprise SAN/NAS storage arrays and storage networking protocols.
• 2 years of experience planning designing and maintaining cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure).
• Strong working knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem including Windows Server (2016) Active Directory Azure AD Office 365 IIS SQL DFS DHCP and DNS.
• Experience creating detailed systems documentation and flow charts.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to successfully handle multiple projects in a high-pressure collaborative environment.
• Ability to participate in an on-call rotation and a 2-week onsite rotation every two months (or as required).

Preferred Qualifications

• Infrastructure Automation & Scripting: Experience utilizing configuration management tools (Ansible Puppet) and writing automation scripts (PowerShell Python or Bash).
• Identity Access & Messaging Services: Practical experience managing enterprise SSO/MFA solutions Exchange Online/Hybrid environments or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
• Industry Certifications: Active professional certifications in VMware (VCP) Cisco (CCNA/CCNP Data Center) Microsoft or AWS/Azure solutions architecture.

Required Skills/Competencies

• Expert-level analytical and troubleshooting skills with the ability to resolve complex hardware software and performance issues under pressure.
• Deep understanding of networking concepts (VLANs routing switching LACP DNS DHCP) as they relate to virtualization and server infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of security best practices for data center infrastructure and virtualization platforms.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills capable of translating technical challenges to cross-functional teams and leadership.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to lead infrastructure upgrades and migrations independently.
• Self-motivated team player with a willingness to participate in an on-call rotation and perform after-hours maintenance.

Education Requirements

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science Information Technology or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Work Location & Requirements

• Hybrid Permitted: This is a hybrid permitted role. Some aspects of this role require duties better performed at an NPR facility. The employee will be required to be in the office at the Washington D.C. location for a two-week block approximately every two months. The employee will also be expected to be onsite as needed to support onsite projects.

Job Type

• This is a full-time exempt position.

Compensation

Salary Range : The U.S.-based anticipated salary range for this opportunity is $125000 - $145000 plus benefits. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salaries NPR expects to provide for new hires for the position across all US locations.

NPR Benefits : NPR provides comprehensive benefits for employees and dependents. Regular full-time employees scheduled to work 30 hours or more per week are eligible to enroll in NPRs benefits options. Benefits include access to health and wellness paid time off and financial well-being. Plan options include medical dental vision life/ accidental death and dismemberment long-term disability short-term disability and voluntary retirement savings to all eligible NPR employees.

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The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salaries NPR expects to provide for new hires for the position across all US locations.

NPR Pay Range

$125000 - $145000 USD

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