Job Description

Job Title: Network & Systems Administrator

Location: Annapolis, MD

Work Model: On-Site

Hours: 40.0

Job Summary: Based in Maryland, you will be a key member of a 24/7/365 operations team responsible for supporting highly available, mission-critical communications infrastructure. This role serves as a senior escalation point, ensuring the performance, reliability, and security of networking and IT systems

Responsibilities:

• Provide L3 technical support through OpenKyber's 24/7/365 service desk, including on-call rotations and shift-based coverage; respond to, triage, escalate, and resolve incidents in accordance with defined SLAs.
• Proactively monitor all IT systems, networks, and cloud infrastructure using observability tooling; identify and remediate issues before they impact operations.
• Design, deploy, and maintain OpenKyber's IT networks including cloud-hosted environments with a focus on resilience, redundancy, and security; augment infrastructure to support new projects and services.
• Ensure IT systems meet security and compliance standards; plan and execute upgrades, patches, and hardening activities.
• Maintain and administer user accounts, access controls, and application software licenses.
• Conduct regular audits of IT systems and software; maintain an accurate, up-to-date asset register.
• Document policies, procedures, infrastructure, and system configurations to a professional standard.
• Analyze, test, and deploy software patches and updates in a controlled, risk-managed manner.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior team members; contribute to knowledge base articles and training materials.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in a field related to IT, computer science, or telecommunications.
• Juniper Engineer level certification in Routing and Switching (JNCIP) and Network Security (JNCIP-SEC).
• Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), and Red Hat Certified Specialist in Security certifications.
• At least three years of senior-level experience in systems and network administration, ideally within a 24/7 operations or NOC environment, with demonstrable on-call and shift rotation experience in a mission-critical setting.
• Proven experience in an ISP or carrier-grade networking environment.
• Experience deploying and maintaining virtualized Linux servers (on-premises and cloud).
• Experience designing and implementing secure, robust network architectures including VPNs, VLANs, and firewall configurations; hands-on experience with Cisco, Juniper, and open-source tools such as FRR routing.
• Strong scripting and automation proficiency in Bash, Python, and Ansible.
• Experience with Linux on virtualized platforms (OpenStack, OpenShift, VMware, Microsoft Azure), with strong expertise in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), including Subscriptions, Licensing, IdM Server, and Satellite Server.
• Experience configuring, troubleshooting, and hardening VMs and servers using Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS).
• Hands-on experience with monitoring and observability stacks: Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, or Thanos.
• Excellent written and oral English communication skills, including the ability to write clear incident reports and post-mortems.
• Ability to remain composed and make sound decisions under pressure during critical incidents; strong professional relationship skills in a fast-paced, always-on environment.

Routing & Switching: Deep expertise in IP routing and switching, including MPLS, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, RIP, Multicast, VLANs, Inter-VLANs, Spanning Tree, BFD, VXLAN, eVPN, IS-IS, and VRRP.

VPN & Security: Solid experience with IPSec VPNs, SSL VPNs, and advanced firewall configuration.

Network Troubleshooting: Strong ability to diagnose and resolve complex, time-sensitive networking issues efficiently.

Systems Administration: Installation, configuration, hardening, maintenance, and patching of network and server infrastructure; advanced troubleshooting in disk/storage management including LVM, RAW, XFS, EXT4, and BTRFS.

Monitoring & Observability: Configuring, troubleshooting, and managing systems including Grafana, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, and related tooling.

DevOps Practices: Familiarity with Git-based workflows and automated deployment strategies in production environments.

Cloud certification (Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud) and experience with Terraform or similar IaC tools for cloud provisioning.

Cybersecurity training and certification (e.g., CompTIA Security+, CISSP).

Experience contributing to DevOps or SRE frameworks, including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible), and version-controlled configuration management.

Quality of Service (QoS) configuration on routers, switches, and firewalls.

Experience with network management tools (e.g., Nagios) and protocols (e.g., SNMP); expertise in authentication technologies, particularly Active Directory and LDAP.

Familiarity with ITIL or similar service management frameworks relevant to 24/7 operations.

OpenKyber, and its subsidiaries including Joul and Mountain Ltd., are leaders in delivering outsourced services and workforce solutions across North America. We help clients get work done more efficiently and economically, without compromising quality. OpenKyber not only serves as a valued partner for our clients, but we offer eligible employees health and welfare benefits coverage options including medical, dental, vision, spending accounts, life insurance, voluntary plans, as well as participation in a 401(k) plan. OpenKyber is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, family care or medical leave status, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

For applications and inquiries, contact:hirings@openkyber.com

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