Job Description:

Junior Systems Administrator required for a well established small business specialising in software solutions based in central Newbury (Berks). The role involves monitoring and maintaining an estate of around 70 servers, plus virtual PCs, PCs and Chrome boxes and supporting systems. It requires regular communication with colleagues, customers and suppliers who may have differing levels of technical knowledge.

The successful candidate will work closely with an experienced Systems Administrator to maintain customer systems both in a hosted environment and customers own environments. This involves keeping systems updated with latest releases, monitoring, investigating and resolving any reported issues, and testing upgrades.

Please note this role requires being on-site in central Newbury 5 days a week. We are prioritising candidates who already live within easy commuting distance of central Newbury.

Primary tasks:

• Remotely monitor the general health of systems and services provided to customers.
• Review Application, App Server, Database and Operating System (Windows & Linux) logs for issues and unusual occurrences or patterns.
• Provide timely responses to supported customers on queries relating to systems administration and upgrades.
• Carry out regular remote administration such as maintaining / synchronising system properties.
• Test software updates to applications, application server, operating system and database version.
• Install software updates to internal and customer systems.
• Carry out routine maintenance such as regular server reboots.
• Provide ‘on call’ support out of normal working hours on a rota basis (currently one week in 6).

Essential Skills and experience required:

• A basic understanding of server environments, operating systems and networks.  
• A genuine interest in IT systems, infrastructure and technology.
• The ability to learn unfamiliar systems, applications and technical concepts quickly.
• Flexible, happy to ‘roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty’, prepared to assist colleagues and cope with change.
• Education to ‘A’ level or equivalent, with excellent IT, English and Maths skills.

Ideally you will also have experience of some of the following - which may have been gained through employment, education, personal projects, volunteer work or self-directed learning.:

• Windows administration
• Linux administration
• Hypervisor administration
• Network administration
• Server and application monitoring tools, such as Nagios
• JIRA and Confluence
• SQL and relational databases
• Google Workspace
• Configuration management or automation tools, such as Ansible
• Scripting using Python
• Backup, recovery and disaster recovery processes
• Information security and data protection principles
• Software testing or technical support

Training is provided where required and there are clear opportunities for progression  such as taking ownership of systems and activities.