The Senior Server Administrator will drive the day-to-day maintenance and operations of on-premises and virtual servers to ensure stability and security of University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) computing environment. This role will coordinate server needs between a broad range of customers, partners, and key stakeholders in administrative and academic units. The Senior Server Administrator will act as a technical subject matter expert for Information Technology (IT) colleagues and provide training assistance and technical mentorship.
This role will support hypervisor deployment and configuration as well as maintain day-to-day operations of centralized, distributed, physical, and virtual servers. The Senior Server Administrator will positively impact UCSF’s operations and culture by ensuring UCSF's IT infrastructure is operable, secure, efficient, and effective in service of UCSF’s academic mission. This team member will advance the UCSF’s mission by delivering exceptional information technology services comprehensively and consistently across faculty, staff, and students.
This role will execute UCSF’s vision while modeling UCSF’s culture and values. This role is expected to support the strategic modernization of UCSF’s UNIX platform services, including the transition of AIX-based workloads to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on virtualized infrastructure. The incumbent will provide technical leadership in planning, migration, performance tuning, and operational stabilization of RHEL environments supporting critical healthcare and other Tier 0/Tier 1 applications.
Department Overview: University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is distinguished as a leading academic healthcare organization, home to groundbreaking discoveries, world-class education, and exceptional healthcare services. Infrastructure Services (IS) is the backbone of the technological infrastructure, assuring the technical services that enable the academic, medical, and research missions of the organization.
Beyond a focus on maintaining systems and resolving issues, we are committed to nurturing the potential of our team members and empowering them to excel. UCSF Infrastructure Services provides 24x7 support to the University community, always upholding the highest level of responsiveness and reliability for our customers. IS values innovation and excellence in ensuring secure and efficient Information Technology (IT) services, regardless of the hour or complexity of the issue.
The Platform Services team within Infrastructure Services is committed to empowering the academic, medical, and research mission of UCSF by ensuring that all customers have seamless, secure, and accessible technological support. The team oversees the management and maintenance of various technology platforms, including system and cloud services, to guarantee they are secure, readily available, and performing optimally.
Platform Services handles the management of critical software, such as Epic, ensuring it supports the highest level of medical service delivery by operating at peak performance. The team also oversees data center operations, including server management, storage, and networking equipment, to ensure the reliable delivery of health services. Additionally, it manages databases with a focus on data security, availability, and top-tier performance.
All these tasks are critical not only for the smooth operation of the University’s technological infrastructure, but also for enhancing productivity, enabling the provision of high-quality health services and learning, and ultimately, improving patient and student outcomes. Responsibilities % of Time Essential Function (Yes/No) Key Responsibilities 50% Yes Systems and Clouds Services, Servers Oversees the installation, configuration, and regular updates of server and hypervisor software to ensure the security and reliability of the virtual environments.
Monitors performance and security vulnerabilities to maintain functionality. Leads configuration and deployment of new servers installing operating systems, establishing network connectivity, configuring storage, and implementing security measures. Oversees the monitoring of the health and performance of servers on an ongoing basis; selects, maintains, and utilizes monitoring tools to track server resources.
Performs regular maintenance tasks such as applying patches and updates, optimizing server configurations, and ensuring proper backup and recovery mechanisms. Oversees the planning and implementation of server updates, maintenance, and configuration. Ensures that operations are consistent with university processes and policies.
Identifies ways to improve existing procedures. Develops realistic recommendations for technology adoption and communicates recommendations to key stakeholders. Manages collaboration across the organization, including with vendor partners, to ensure the delivery of high-quality server administration services.
Creates and supports procedures for prioritizing and addressing support escalated issues. Serves as a technical expert for highly complex issues. Oversees the integrity of platform services and related hardware by providing direction and technical expertise to the configuration and maintenance of server platforms.
Facilitates optimization and automation activities. Develops and implements effective disaster recovery plans and procedures to support 24x7 service reliability and effective emergency response. This includes designing and managing backup systems, conducting regular disaster recovery tests to ensure system resilience, and leading recovery efforts in the event of failures or data breaches to minimize downtime and data loss.
This position will be filled with a primary technical focus in UNIX/AIX/Linux. 20% Yes Problem Solving Works closely with University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Platform Services, Infrastructure Services (IS), and Information Technology (IT) leadership to identify, implement, and support cost-effective, leading solutions for servers. Leverages best practices to support decision-making processes and effectively solve problems.
Presents opportunities for improvement and measures success factors when implementing change. Makes sound decisions to benefit the organization. 10% Yes Customer Service Builds and maintains strong relationships with customers, partners, and stakeholders to ensure that consistent, reliable service is delivered to a range of university stakeholders. Utilizes best practices established around user experience and support to make decisions and define future platform services priorities. 5% Yes Continuous Improvement Keeps up to date with changes in laws, regulations, and technologies that may affect Platform Services operations and informs senior management and staff.
Facilitates innovation and continuous improvement by leveraging the latest industry knowledge. Advises and guides the server administration team on emerging technologies. Encourages collaboration when exploring new ideas and approaches.
Manages new and ongoing process improvement efforts within the team. 5% Yes Project Planning and Management Contributes to the successful execution of Platform Services projects, ensuring projects are delivered on time, within budget, and with the desired outcomes and impact on UCSF’s overall Platform Services plans. Delegates tasks as needed and leverages the skills and experiences of team members. Supports the vision for Platform Services.
Works closely with team members and management to implement and support effective solutions. Supports process improvement efforts within the team and across IS. 5% Yes Communications and Training Creates, updates, and maintains comprehensive documentation of the server infrastructure, including system configurations and operational procedures. This involves managing and sharing technical knowledge within the team, ensuring that crucial information is accessible and understood by relevant stakeholders.
Trains and mentors’ junior employees. This involves passing on technical expertise, guiding them in understanding Platform Services processes, and providing hands-on training to ensure they are equipped to maintain and enhance the Platform Services systems. Proactively communicates with other departments and central IT units within UCSF to safely support UCSF’s server administration needs. 5% Yes Other Actively promotes the University’s core values and consistently integrates innovation, employee fulfillment, teamwork, respect, excellence, integrity, service, and accountability into each aspect of their work.
Maintains current knowledge of university policy and procedures; effectively, consistently, and fairly applies university policy and/or campus/division procedures for assigned area and team members supervised; complies with university, campus, and division policies and procedures regarding privacy of information, authorized use of university resources and the security of university systems and data. Participates in an on-call rotation for high and critical 24x7 incident response, as needed.
Performs other related responsibilities as requested and when necessary. The University reserves the right to add or change duties at any time. Total : 100%
Full time · Day shift REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent combination of experience/training, in one or more of the following fields: computer science, engineering, computer information systems, etc. 5 years of experience with enterprise server administration with primary focus in IBM AIX on IBM POWER platforms in large-scale production environments. 3 years of experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in enterprise environments. 3 years of experience supporting high availability (IBM PowerHA), clustering, and disaster recovery architectures for mission-critical applications. 3 years of experience managing UNIX (i.e.
PowerVM) and other virtualization technologies including logical partitioning and I/O virtualization. 3 years of experience planning and executing operating system migrations or platform modernization initiatives 3 years of experience deploying automation frameworks (Ansible, etc). Advanced knowledge of IBM AIX system administration, including LPAR management, VIOS, PowerVM, and Live Partition Mobility. Advanced knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux administration, including system hardening, lifecycle management, and performance tuning.
Ability to implement and support clustering technologies such as PowerHA and/or Linux-based HA solutions. Ability to integrate UNIX/Linux systems with enterprise storage platforms. Ability to deploy and manage Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) frameworks.
Ability to deploy and manage Managed File Transfer (MFT) frameworks using scripts or 3rd-party products (GoAnywhere, etc)l Demonstrated extensive experience in information technology, platform services, virtualization, and server administration (Unix, Linux, and Windows). Extensive experience with installing, configuring, modifying, and supporting hypervisors, Unix, Linux, and other operating systems. Experience with platform automation and orchestration methodologies and tools.
Extensive experience with monitoring, auditing, tuning, and analysis and optimization of system performance, security, and capacity planning, patching, and upgrades. Proven ability to interpret, analyze, and apply pertinent service level agreements, updates, policies, procedures, regulations, and other requirements and turn them into actionable outcomes. Understanding of system performance monitoring and actions that can be taken to improve or correct performance.
Demonstrated skills associated with adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs. Demonstrated comprehensive understanding of how system management actions affect other systems, system users, and dependent/related functions. Demonstrated advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with system problem identification and resolution.
Experience with design, configuration, operation, repair, tracking and tuning of technology systems. Proficiency in key Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies and principles. Knowledge of IaC tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or equivalent, and proficiency in scripting languages associated with IaC tools.
Ability to write and maintain clear, concise, and effective infrastructure code. Proficiency in automating deployments, scaling, and management of infrastructure components. Advanced knowledge of computer security best practices and policies including demonstrated experience securing complex server-based software.
Strong customer service skills. Ability to triage and escalate to supervisors and/or other teams for resolution. Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to communicate technical information and ideas to a diverse community of colleagues and stakeholders.
Ability to establish and advance positive working relationships and a strong rapport with team members, stakeholders, and customers. Strong organizational skills and ability to balance competing priorities and support concurrent projects. Experience working in a project-based environment using leading project management practices including schedule management, status reporting, and communication of project risks and issues.
Strong demonstrated problem-solving skills; ability to scope solutions based on knowledge of available resources and timelines. Ability to ask questions, gather information, evaluate options, and make decisions with integrity. Ability to think creatively and propose innovative ideas, including the incorporation of new technologies or processes.
Ability to work with agility in a fast-paced environment.
Certifications Server Certification (Microsoft, Red Hat) CompTIA Server+ or equivalent VMware Certified Professional (VCP) or equivalent Citrix Certified Associate – Virtualization (CCA-V) or equivalent