Senior Systems Engineer

An employee in this class is responsible for technical analysis work with an emphasis on internetworks and telecommunications. Under general direction, employees are required to exercise extensive initiative and independent judgment in selection of work methods and formulation of recommendations to meet program needs, objectives, and goals.

Employees coordinate and monitor the work of other team members in the completion of specified assignments. Tasks require that the employees consult with user departmental personnel and other departmental technical staff in order to resolve technical issues. Under general supervision, employees are expected to exercise considerable initiative and independent judgment in selecting work methods and performing assigned tasks. Employees in this class are subject to on-call status on a rotating schedule to provide 7 day/24 hour per day service and, at times, are required to work unusual hours to accommodate installation, maintenance and/or upgrading of City infrastructure. Work is reviewed while in progress and upon completion through discussions and reports submitted.

Assist management to ensure departmental objectives are met, programs are maintained, participate in the development and maintenance of policies and procedures to ensure compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and standards.

Problem Determination and Resolution: uses remote monitoring tools, protocol analyzers and other network monitoring tools to accurately diagnose problems or performance degradation, and takes appropriate corrective actions; provides second level technical support for Active Directory, virtual infrastructure, virtual networks, SAN storage, Microsoft Windows Servers and related network services which may include operating system, backup and recovery systems, file and print sharing, email, network protocols, data protection and replication, and OSI layer 4-7 troubleshooting. Researches, resolves, and responds to complex questions received via telephone calls, callbacks, email, through help desk software or escalations.

Project Management and Technical Supervision: Manages high profile/high impact infrastructure projects. Coordinates and monitors work of technical team members, consultants, and vendors. Designs, architects, integrates, and implements storage and computing systems. Participates in training programs to develop new skills and maintain existing competencies. Conducts training for other technical staff in areas of expertise.

Management of the Developmental Lifecycle: Researches and advises development teams of potential issues. Provides written documentation, including reports and technical drawings. Provides assistance with modeling and conducts testing of systems and applications using common testing tools.

Business Continuity and Incident Response: Leads and/or assists in the analysis of events and participates as a member of the incident response team. Communicates incidents updates to internal team members as appropriate.  Assists in the management and testing of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

Remain informed of new developments and technology trends: Researches, evaluates and reports on new technology trends as appropriate to the organization. Makes recommendations to the department on desirable and beneficial additions and developments. Work with other departments to advise on new and existing technology.

Performs related work as required.

Knowledge of: Networking protocols, monitoring tools, and services; virtual network switches, storage systems, physical and virtual servers and desktops. VMware vSphere, VMware Horizon, Microsoft Windows Servers, Active Directory Services, Microsoft Exchange, network load balancers, SAN storage management, data center disaster recovery planning strategies.

Skills in: Diagnostic and troubleshooting virtual infrastructure and enterprise Storage Area Networks and fibre channel technologies; operating system performance measurement; physical hardware problem isolation and resolution techniques. Server hardware and storage capacity planning within virtual environments. Systems deployments, upgrades, and migrations. Administering enterprise backup solutions, Microsoft Windows Server roles and operating system upgrades. Technical process documentation.

Ability to:  Learn new technologies; design and implement complex infrastructure projects; implement and maintain enterprise class storage, compute solutions on-premises and cloud based. Troubleshoot and resolve escalated service issues, coach other engineers to resolutions; coordinate and review the work of others; express oneself clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing. Develop and document technical processes and procedures as needed. Maintain system configuration documentation and facilitate changes in documentation and system monitoring as devices are added and retired from the environment. Establish and maintain effective working relationships with others.

Possession of a valid driver’s license may be required.

Certification following specialties preferred: VMware VCP-DV, VCP-NV, VCP-DTM, Microsoft 365 Administrator, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, MCSE, RHCSA or Cisco CCNP Data Center.

Evaluation of education and experience. Drug testing is included in all pre-employment processing.

During periods when the Mayor issues an emergency declaration for the City of Tampa, all employees may be required to work in preparation, response or recovery activities related to the stated emergency.

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