System Administrator

System Administrator

Computer & Information Science, Rose Hill

Fordham University

 

Fordham University has an excellent reputation as a dynamic institution located in New York City.  Founded in 1841, Fordham enrolls more than 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students in its 9 Colleges and Schools. 

 

• Fordham University offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package to its employees, which includes medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance.
• We offer tuition remission for employees and their dependents 
• A generous immediate employer match towards a 403(b) retirement plan.
• As a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), Fordham is considered a qualifying employer for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, a federal program designed to forgive student loan debt for employees of certain public and certain nonprofit employers.
• As part of its work-life balance program, the University provides generous PTO including 15 vacation days, 12 sick days, 2 personal days, 6 summer Fridays, and holidays that include paid time off between Christmas and New year.  
• University employees have access to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). EAP provides no-cost, professional, and confidential services, to help employees and family members address a variety of personal, family, life, and work-related issues.

Position Summary

The System Administrator (SA) is responsible for effective provisioning, installation, configuration, operation, and maintenance of the hardware and software systems, networking infrastructure, and teaching and research labs in the Department of Computer and Information Science (CIS) of Fordham University. The SA, who reports to the Department Chair, supervises student lab assistants, participates in departmental discussions about innovations within and acquisitions for the infrastructure.

 

The SA ensures that systems hardware, operating systems, software systems, and related procedures adhere to university standards and values, thereby enabling and supporting the teaching, research, learning and communications of the CIS Department’s faculty and students. The SA manages computer systems for multiple teaching labs on the Rose Hill campus and Lincoln Center campus to support the following programs: undergraduate programs in Computer Science, master programs in Computer Science, Data Science, and Cybersecurity, and Ph.D. program in Computer Science.

 

This individual is responsible for managing Unix/Linux systems, Apple desktops, Windows systems, high performance computing clusters, network attached storage devices (NAS) and networking equipment connecting these systems to each other and to the University networks.

 

Essential Functions        

SA Engineering and Provisioning:

• Assists in the provisioning and planning of teaching and research labs hardware and software systems.
• Recommends and implements acquisition of needed equipment subject to approval by department chair.
• Installs and configures software systems and platforms.
• Develops and maintains procedures and guidelines for software installation, students account creation and management, account usage policies (file system quotas, backup plan and scope), backup procedures, and disaster recovery plans.
• Contributes to and maintains system standards.
• Researches and recommends innovative and automated approaches for system administration tasks, e.g., Icinga Director. Identify approaches that leverage resources and provide economies of scale.

Operations and Support:

• Performs daily system monitoring, verifies the integrity and availability of all hardware, server resources, system, and key processes, reviews system and application logs, and verifies completion of scheduled jobs such as backups.
• Performs regular security monitoring to identify vulnerabilities and any possible intrusions.
• Manages frequent and regular (at least daily) backup operations, ensures that all required file systems and system data are successfully backed up to appropriate media, including cross-site on the various network attached storage devices. . Performs regular file archive and purges as necessary.
• Creates, changes, and deletes user accounts per request.
• Creates, and maintains scripts for faculty members to create, change, and delete student accounts.
• Provides technical support per request from faculty members and staff members, investigates and troubleshoots issues.
• Plans for Business Continuity in coordination with faculty members, repairs and recovers from hardware or software failures, coordinates and communicates with faculty members and staff members.
• Applies OS patches and upgrades on a regular basis and upgrades administrative tools and utilities. Configures/adds new services as necessary. Maintains operational, configuration, and other procedures, and periodically reviews them with the department chair.
• Performs periodic performance reporting to support capacity planning.
• Performs ongoing performance tuning, hardware upgrades, and resource optimization as required. Configure CPU, memory and disk partitions as required.

 

Educational and Communication Service:

• Develops and implements a proactive replacement plan to keep pace with educational and research needs.
• Gives service workshops to staff and faculty members, students. Interprets and/or discusses information, provides advice, and recommends actions. Oversees students working as lab assistants.
• Liaises with Fordham IT to keep up with available software and services.

 

WORKING CONDITIONS AND REQUIREMENTS:

• Occasional 24/7 on-call for urgent needs in dealing with system issues.
• Some evenings and weekends work with little advance notice.

 

Additional Functions      

• Fedora/CentOS, Ubuntu, Windows, MacOS, Rocks Cluster, Bright Computing, Icinga2/Icinga Director, Fail2ban, SLURM, Matlab, Network Information Service (NIS), sendmail, ClamAV, Ivanti/LANDESK

 

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor (4-year) degree, major in computer science, engineering or equivalent.
• Minimum of one, ideally three or more years system administration experience.
• Competence in System administration including Unix shell scripting, web server, HPC cluster management, Windows system management, or willingness to receive training in these areas.
• Successful candidates should have a knowledge of and commitment to the goals of Jesuit Education.

 

Preferred Qualifications 

• MS in computer Science

 

Minimum Starting Salary: $76,000

 

Maximum Starting Salary: $95,000

 

Note: Salary is commensurate with qualifications, experience, and skills.

 

FLSA CATEGORY: Exempt

 

START DATE: ASAP

 

APPLY HERE: https://careers.fordham.edu/postings/4321

 

ABOUT FORDHAM

Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering an exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 16,000 students in its 9 colleges and schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in West Harrison, N.Y., the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y., and the London Centre in the United Kingdom. 

 

Fordham University is committed to excellence through diversity and welcomes candidates of all backgrounds.

 

Fordham is an Equal Opportunity Employer – Veterans/Disabled and other protected categories