Lead Systems Administrator - Linux

Our client actively encourages diversity, equality and inclusion within its workforce and welcomes applications from a diverse background. REC Solutions Limited does not discriminate in regards to age, gender, national origin, religion or any other basis.

Do you want to join a well-established growing financial services / FinTech (Financial Technology) company who are forward thinking and working with cutting edge technologies? A fantastic opportunity has arisen for a Lead Systems Administrator - Linux to join a friendly collaborative team. Ideally, we seek candidates who have a strong technical background coupled with the ability/experience to lead and manage a team. The successful candidate will be both technically astute and a strong people manager.

Benefits (not exhaustive list):

• Competitive salary
• 25 days annual leave - not including bank holidays
• Can opt to join Private Medical insurance scheme
• Hybrid working
• Flexible working hours
• Company pension
• Group Policies – Life Assurance, Income Protection and Critical Illness
• Discretionary bonus
• Electric Car Scheme
• Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Policy
• Workplace Nursery Scheme

Company Culture:

Culture is one of trust, openness, and excellence. My client works in a collaborative style and takes collective responsibility for successes and failures. We value high personal integrity, innovative thinking, and efficient and reliable performance. You will join a supportive team, where we aim to recruit the best people from all walks of life and diverse business backgrounds. If these sentiments align with your thinking, then this could be the ideal place for you to develop your career.

Job Overview:

My client is looking to hire a technical manager to lead the Linux System Administration teams. This role is responsible for leading and managing the day-to-day operations of the Linux infrastructure team, including both senior-level system administrators and the Linux support desk staff. This role ensures the stability, security, and performance of mission-critical Linux-based systems including multiple exchanges as well as providing strategic direction, operational excellence, effective team leadership and close collaboration with other departments.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• The successful candidate will manage both the Linux internal support team as well as a senior sysadmin team of experienced professionals. These teams oversee the entire Linux estate including development, QA and multiple production trading systems including some belonging to third party clients.
• Collaborate with development, networks, ops and product teams on strategic IT initiatives.
• Assist with planning, management and resource allocation of inter-departmental projects alongside the PM team.
• Oversee incident management, root cause analysis, and rapid resolution of system outages or performance degradation.
• Ensure compliance of procedures such as change management, patch management and security and audit processes. Assist in the maintenance of these procedures.
• Support regular security audits and penetration tests, addressing findings and oversee any remediation work.
• Improve system monitoring, alerting, documentation, operating procedures and incident response processes.
• Manage, mentor, plan and coordinate the activities of both teams.

Required Skills/Experience:

• Ideally 7+ years Linux system administration experience with at least 3 years in a managerial or team lead role.
• Strong expertise with RHEL-based systems, including installation, ongoing management, monitoring, performance tuning, system security hardening, etc.
• Proven track record of managing geographically distributed teams, including senior engineers and tier-1/2 support staff including on-call and rota scheduling.
• Experience in managing complex IT projects, including system migrations and infrastructure upgrades.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles and experience implementing security measures in a regulated environment.
• Ability to coach, mentor, and upskill staff; develop career paths and ensure team resilience.
• Experience undertaking root cause analysis including prevention orientated solution reporting.
• Working experience with deployment tools (e.g. GitLab pipelines) and rollback strategies.
• Proficiency in managing bare-metal servers, virtualization platforms such as VMware, containerised systems as well as familiarity with hybrid cloud environments and DevOPS practices.
• Familiarity with incident / problem management and change control workflows a plus.
• Previous experience with low latency systems or financial experience desirable.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to interface with operations desks, application developers, compliance teams, and executive leadership.