Linux Systems Administrator

Johns Hopkins - Laurel, MD

Full-time - Entry Level

Laurel, MD

Educational Services

About the position

As a Linux Systems Administrator at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), you will play a crucial role in maintaining and administering a high availability environment. Your primary responsibility will be to ensure the seamless operation of our systems, which involves transitioning technical operations from traditional administration to a more automated and efficient infrastructure. This includes demonstrating expertise in automation and configuration management technologies to enhance our operational capabilities. In this position, you will be tasked with maintaining the technical security posture of our computers, which operate in a mixed operating system environment. This responsibility is critical as it is based on stringent information security requirements and data classifications. You will also be involved in engineering, architecting, and operating high-performance computing infrastructure that supports generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and various scientific research initiatives. Collaboration is key in this role, as you will engage with a diverse group of collaborators, including other System Administrators, Information Assurance officers, researchers, and project leadership. Your contributions will be vital in delivering mission-critical solutions that meet the needs of our projects and clients. This position offers an exciting opportunity to work at the intersection of technology and research, making a significant impact in the field of Information Technology.

Responsibilities

• Maintain and administer a high availability environment.
• Lead the transition of technical operations from traditional administration to infrastructure automation.
• Maintain the technical security posture of computers in a mixed operating system environment.
• Engineer, architect, and operate high-performance computing infrastructure for AI and scientific research.
• Collaborate with System Administrators, Information Assurance officers, researchers, and project leadership to deliver mission-critical solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 1+ year of extensive knowledge of Linux system administration, including Red Hat and Ubuntu.
• 1+ year of experience with enterprise virtualization infrastructure such as VMware, Hyper-V, or Proxmox.
• Strong organizational and communication skills with managers and technical staff.
• Experience supporting the Department of Defense or other U.S. government entities.
• Advanced technical skills in networking technologies and static routing (e.g., FTP, SSH, SMTP, DNS, HTTP/S, DHCP, syslog).
• Ability to work in a close-knit, small technical team.
• Ability to plan substantial, long-term projects and respond rapidly to changing requirements and priorities.
• Current DoD 8570 certification (Security+ or CISSP), or ability to obtain certification within 6 months of employment.
• Active Secret security clearance.

Nice-to-haves

• Red Hat administration certifications (RHCSA, RHCE, etc.).
• Experience with HPC management tools such as Slurm, Bright Cluster, or Run.ai.
• Skills in automation tools like Puppet, Ansible, Salt, bash scripting, or Python.
• Experience developing real-time dashboards using Splunk for data visualization and infrastructure monitoring.
• Previous experience supporting Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research and infrastructure.

Benefits

• Robust education assistance program.
• Unparalleled retirement contributions.
• Healthy work/life balance.