Senior Systems Engineer

Boston Public Health Commission - Boston, MA

Full-time - Mid Level

Boston, MA

Administration of Human Resource Programs

About the position

The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) is responsible for providing and maintaining mission-critical technologies that support the City of Boston's more than 18,000 employees and the hundreds of thousands of constituents they serve. As a Senior Systems Engineer, you will play a crucial role in the infrastructure team, focusing on the design, implementation, and support of the infrastructure, applications, and services that are essential for the daily operations of the City. This position offers a unique opportunity to work with a diverse range of enterprise systems and engage with various stakeholders to drive meaningful changes that enhance the services provided to the community. In this role, you will be tasked with designing, deploying, administering, monitoring, and enhancing foundational enterprise systems. This includes working with technologies such as Google Suite, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, DHCP, Microsoft 365, and various email-related systems. You will act as an authority in your domain, leveraging your expert-level proficiency to communicate effectively and collaborate with team members to translate broad requirements into actionable deliverables. Your responsibilities will also include authoring and maintaining automation scripts using languages like PowerShell, Python, JSON, and XML, as well as diagnosing and resolving issues while identifying opportunities for automation to improve efficiency. You will be responsible for producing and maintaining knowledge base documentation, runbooks, and standard operating procedures (SOPs). Additionally, you will have the opportunity to train and mentor other members of the IT team, ensuring that knowledge is shared and best practices are followed. As a primary point of contact for system outages and escalations, you will work closely with business stakeholders and technical staff to analyze, design, test, and implement new systems or improvements to existing systems. Your role will also involve collaborating with various teams to document and implement processes for software and hardware asset management, as well as performing audits of enterprise systems to ensure compliance and security. Staying current with emerging trends and understanding the business area's opportunities and challenges will be essential as you design solutions that align with business objectives. You will also have the chance to take the initiative in developing unique projects, researching new technologies, and solving complex problems. Overall, this position is integral to the success of the Department of Innovation and Technology and the services it provides to the City of Boston.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, administer, monitor, and enhance foundational Enterprise systems.
• Act as an authority on domain expertise, combining expert-level proficiency with clear communication.
• Author, maintain, and leverage automation scripts with languages such as PowerShell, Python, JSON, XML.
• Diagnose and resolve issues while identifying recurring problems that can be remediated through automation.
• Troubleshoot system functional and operational issues, maintaining system operations at all times.
• Produce, maintain, and update knowledge base documentation, runbooks, and SOPs.
• Identify and take advantage of opportunities to train and mentor various members of Information Technology.
• Perform and provide progress on project deliverables, tasks, and milestones, along with project documentation.
• Act as a primary point of contact for system outages and escalations.
• Work directly with business stakeholders, technical staff, and project teams to identify, analyze, design, test, and implement new systems or improvements.
• Collaborate with IT Operations, Service Desk, IAM, Information Security, and other team members for software and hardware asset management.
• Perform occasional audits of enterprise systems, such as file share permissions and access to sensitive systems.
• Maintain current knowledge of solutions for systems engineering, inventory, monitoring, updates, and ongoing maintenance.
• Review system and software releases for new functionality and test to optimize existing systems.
• Work with leadership to gather ROI and complete whitepapers for purchase approval.
• Schedule and report upon the execution of testing and validation efforts as part of ITIL Change Management process.
• Represent team recommendations to leadership and coach on communicating technical issues in business terminology.
• Build strong relationships and influence with vendors, businesses, and technology leaders.
• Keep ahead of emerging trends and understand business area opportunities and challenges.
• Take initiative to develop unique projects, research new technology, and solve complex problems.

Requirements

• A minimum of five (5) years experience in similar roles.
• Experience designing, implementing, and upgrading Active Directory and related services.
• Experience working in robust Enterprise Mobility environments, including Microsoft and Google Suites.
• Experience with automation and integration technologies such as PowerShell, Python, XML, JSON, Soap, API, SFTP, GitHub, Ansible, Terraform, MS Flow, PowerApps, and PowerAutomate.
• Solid understanding of computing and network concepts and troubleshooting skills, including DNS, IP, subnetting, and DHCP.
• A passion for technology and a thirst for knowledge and growth.
• Ability to work well within a team; good interpersonal, relational, and collaboration skills.
• Understanding of downstream integrations to gauge the impact of changes and triage incidents.
• Knowledge of VMware and virtualization technologies.
• Knowledge of Veeam, Netbackup, and other backup technologies.
• Hands-on experience in grooming/mentoring individuals and being the bar raiser in the team.
• Demonstrated attention to detail with the ability to design and develop solutions creatively.
• Customer service-focused approach to interactions with business partners and employee user community.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Demonstrated success in a fast-paced, high-performance, and deadline-driven engineering team.
• Ability to handle escalations and resolve complex hardware and software problems.
• Ability to learn quickly and resolve issues in a rapidly changing environment.
• Ability to discuss complex technical concepts with technical staff and stakeholders in a straightforward manner.
• Familiar with current security protection, encryption, monitoring/auditing, and remediation techniques.
• Familiar with disaster recovery, business continuity, and high-availability concepts.
• Ability to thrive in an open space seating work environment.
• Champion team success over individual accomplishment.

Nice-to-haves

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Self-motivated with the ability to adapt to a dynamic service delivery model.
• Able to build strong relationships and interact effectively at all levels of the organization.
• Continuous contribution of best practices documentation and technical notes for distribution.
• Understanding of software development lifecycle.
• Ability to exercise good judgment and focus on details as required.