Senior Systems Engineer

Description:

• [Company] is a leading producer of industrial minerals, including sand proppants, whole grain silica, ground silica, fine ground silica, calcined kaolin clay and aplite clay. In addition to offering over 200 products in this category, [Company] also operates as a research and development specialist for customized products and solutions utilizing the same raw materials. The wide variety of industries and applications served by [Company] includes oil and gas, glass, chemicals, foundry, building products, fillers and extenders, recreation, industrial filtration and treatment, and testing and analysis. The company operates on a platform of ethics, safety and sustainability.
• The Senior Systems Engineer will be reporting directly to the Director of IT Infrastructure. This position will be responsible for the design, administration, analysis, evaluation, troubleshooting, and documenting of complex existing technology systems. The SSE will also be responsible for the most complex testing and analysis of all elements of the systems’ capabilities and will need to understand and present to the IT Team the business impact of events and decisions made relating to system changes.
• The Senior Systems Engineer will require the ability to respond to issues quickly and to work scheduled times around the company’s timetable. The candidate will need to have the ability to display not only a solid ability to predict and prevent issues, but also a strong sense of urgency when issues do arise.

Specific Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain technical infrastructure and architecture standards to ensure that systems are scalable, reliable, secure, cost-effective, and maintainable; will contribute to the development of the technology roadmap for the company
• Design and build test and production environments while maintaining proper documentation and adhering to all corporate policies and procedures
• Maintain server build standards and update as new technology or processes emerge
• Perform system administration tasks to configure the pre-production and production environments
• Perform application-specific systems administration (JD Edwards, etc.)
• Monitor, maintain and upgrade all aspects of Active Directory
• Perform root cause analysis of issues and provide recommendations to improve efficiencies and resolve problems
• Configure and maintain architecture and components to support the wide area network connecting plants, offices, and data centers
• Monitor and tune networks to optimize performance and recommend improvements
• Manage and operate network security related applications
• Actively monitor and respond to information security incidents; responsible for vulnerability scanning and remediation
• Monitor and support server infrastructure and server-related technologies
• Provide 24x7 on-call support on a rotating basis

Qualifications
Experience and Education

• Minimum High School Diploma or equivalent required, College degree preferred
• Minimum of 9 years of experience required in similar position
• Must have previous experience in management of a corporate infrastructure for a medium or larger environment with connectivity between two or more locations

Other Qualifications

• Knowledge – strong networking skills required involving Cisco, Juniper or similar technologies for wide area, site-to-site connectivity, firewall controls, VPN technologies, Active Directory, anti-virus
• Special Skills – strong vendor escalation management
• Organization – strong organizational skills – must be strong in task planning, coordination of changes, tracking required maintenance, and responding to production issues effectively
• Communication – verbal & written – documentation of all systems, deployment options, architecture interdependence, troubleshooting guides, build standards, etc. must be clear, concise, and accurate
• Cooperation – foster positive working relationships by maintaining an environment of professionalism and open communication
• Problem Analysis – ability to perform detailed analysis of complex environments and situations to assist in the definition of certain root causes from a significant amount of data points and conflicting information; possess a broad range of skills and subject matter expertise in the following areas: desktop, telecom, internet, VPN, WAN, virtualization
• Creativity – must be able to work within a budget to accomplish the most possible with the given resources
• Computer – extensive skills – advanced knowledge of computer concepts, design, and implementation; working knowledge of programming languages, database, internet/intranet and on-line systems, ERP; proficient in Microsoft Office, Visio, Project, and other related tools
• Other – must be capable of working after hours (on-call) and weekends