System Administrator

System AdministratorImmediate need for a talented System Administrator. This is a 05+ months contract opportunity with long-term potential and is located in Owings Mills, MD (Hybrid). Please review the job description below and contact me ASAP if you are interested.Pay Range: $65/hr - $70/hour. Employee benefits include, but are not limited to, health insurance (medical, dental, vision), 401(k) plan, and paid sick leave (depending on work location).Key Responsibilities:Provide hands on support for delivery and maintenance of IT solutions.Provide IT teams and business personnel with technology solutions by weighing advantages of technology standards, market availability of products, and risks and benefits of technology to meet business/IT needs.Maintain significant customer engagement, work planning, project management services provided to IT customers.Manage RedHat 6, 7, 8, 9 servers from both a hardware and operating system standpoint.Manage support of VMware vSphere hypervisor to allow hosting of servers in a virtualized highly available environment.Configure and maintain server processes, configurations, and backupsMaintain and monitor Linux and VMware platform health and performanceMaintain server inventory information to ensure accuracy of configuration management DB.Support the production release management system for documenting, planning, and implementing IT changes.Plan, coordinate, communicate and implement security patching activities for Linux server platforms.Refine and automate regular processes, track issues, and document changesAssist in racking and stacking of servers in datacentersProvide 24x7 support and participate in on call rotation for critical production systemsPerform scheduled maintenance and support release deployment activities after hoursProvide technical expertise and/or solution delivery support for maintaining performance and reliability of server solutions.Maintain and enhance engagement with business and IT partners to sustain service levels and high availability of server compute services.Visible and accessible to clients providing guidance for how to successfully request new devices as needed.Build and maintains knowledge of new technologies or technology opportunities for on-prem and Cloud based services.Assists in coordinating and implementing planned infrastructure changes for business and/or IT clients.Ensures proper implementation of technology both within the production and the development environments.Looks for ways to automate processes to allow more efficient use of resources.Finds ways over, around and through barriers to success. Self-starter. A results-oriented doer.Promotes and encourages Diversity, Equity & InclusionKey Requirements and Technology Experience:Certifications such as Azure Administrator, Oracle Cloud Administrator, VMware, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server preferredBachelor's Degree (Computer Science or related field) and 5-7 years relevant experience (IT infrastructure support, application support, cloud computing, disaster/recovery) or 6-9 years of relevant work experienceDemonstrated proficiency in at least one operational domain such as storage, compute, database, collaboration, application support, [cloud hosting and related technologies]Ability to lift up to 25lbs to rack servers with assistance and use of server lifts as needed.Ability to travel domestically.24/7 on-call rotational dutiesExperience administrating servers on-prem (physical and virtual) and in Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.Experience with Oracle Enterprise Linux, Solaris, Exadata hardware helpfulExperience with scripting language such as Python, ShellZerto experience.Certifications such as Azure Administrator, Oracle Cloud Administrator, VMware, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server preferred.Demonstrated ability with knowledge in current versions of VMware hypervisor technology.Working level knowledge: Backups, RAID, SAN, and NAS storageExcellent communications skills - Able to effectively communicate highly technical information in non-technical terminology (written and verbal).Makes well-thought-out decisions on complex or ambiguous issues.Understanding of change management principles associated with sustaining high availability of systems and preventing change related incidents due to human performance factors.Takes good directions from Team Leads and Manager in performing required work.Independence level: works under supervision of Team Leads and/or Manager.