Howdens Joinery have a fantastic opportunity to join our Infrastructure department as a new Mid-Range Systems Administrator. You will support and maintain the Linux platforms running on IBM Power-VM and VMWare ESXi virtualisation layers.
A permanent opportunity based from our office on Brackmills in Northampton working onsite 4 days per week with 1 day working from home.

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU

• Demonstrable experience designing, implementing and supporting Linux systems (including but not limited to RHEL and SLES)
• RedHat satellite server experience
• Shell scripting (Bash and Korn)
• Familiar with the principle of server performance analysis and tuning
• Monitoring, alerting and dashboarding using tools such as Zabbix and Grafana
• Automation technologies (including, but not limited to, Ansible, Terraform)
• Technologies such as Docker, GIT, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps
• Ability to travel to other Howdens locations and to work outside of normal hours
• 37.5 hour week contract with a support rota for “Out of Hours” cover.

Applicants with experience in the following is highly desirable

• IBM Power, AIX, VIO, NIM and CMC / HMC administration
• Delivering and supporting high availability architecture and solutions
• Virtualisation and containerisation technologies
• Delivery and support of cloud services in Azure and/or AWS
• Redwood Cronacle/RunMyJobs
• Project Management Methodologies (SAFe Agile, Prince II, ITIL)

• Installation, configuration, documentation and ongoing maintenance of Linux servers, and any underlying management platforms, as per any build or compliance policies
• Proactively monitor and report on the capacity and performance of Howdens platforms.
• Participate in and, where required, lead in IS projects providing expert support and guidance in delivering solutions to meet business needs.
• Provide detailed 2nd / 3rd level design and documentation in support of Linux and IBM-Power platforms
• Ensuring system availability, resolving any service effecting issues and escalating as appropriate
• Ensure projects and introduction of new Mid-Range platforms are delivered in a timely and cost effective manner.
• Ensures adoption of best practise for Linux platforms and any underlying hardware to satisfy capacity, performance, availability and security requirements
• Build and maintain relationships with key internal and external stakeholders and partners