Staff Systems Engineer in City of London

Diligent is the AI leader in governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS solutions, helping more than 1 million users and 700,000 board members to clarify risk and elevate governance. The Diligent One Platform gives practitioners, the C‑Suite and the board a consolidated view of their entire GRC practice so they can more effectively manage risk, build greater resilience and make better decisions, faster. At Diligent, we’re building the future with people who think boldly and move fast. Whether you’re designing systems that leverage large language models or part of a team reimagining workflows with AI, you’ll help us unlock entirely new ways of working and thinking. Curiosity is in our DNA, we look for individuals willing to ask the big questions and experiment fearlessly – those who embrace change not as a challenge, but as an opportunity. The future belongs to those who keep learning, and we are building it together. At Diligent, you’re not just building the future – you’re an agent of positive change, joining a global community on a mission to make an impact.

We are seeking a highly skilled Staff Systems Engineer with deep technical expertise across VMware, Linux, and automation frameworks, to join our global Infrastructure & Operations team. This role is a hands‑on senior engineering position responsible for designing, maintaining, and optimizing our private cloud environments, which underpin mission‑critical SaaS products. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience operating in enterprise data‑center environments, a strong foundation in Microsoft Active Directory and Windows Server, and a proven ability to build—not just run—automation workflows that improve reliability, scalability, and efficiency. You will work closely with other engineering teams (Network, Security, SRE, and DevOps) to ensure the stability and performance of our global platform and drive continuous improvement through automation and infrastructure modernization.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, deploy, and maintain VMware-based private cloud infrastructure across multiple global data‑centers.
• Automate infrastructure operations using PowerCLI, Ansible, Python, or other automation tools to streamline provisioning, configuration, and compliance tasks.
• Administer and optimize Linux (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu) and Windows Server operating systems supporting enterprise workloads.
• Integrate and maintain Active Directory for authentication, policy, and service account management across hybrid environments.
• Collaborate with network and security teams to manage and troubleshoot firewall rules, VPNs, load balancers, and routing dependencies.
• Support and maintain F5 BIG‑IP and AVI (NSX Advanced Load Balancer) for application delivery and traffic management.
• Ensure system availability, performance, and security to meet SLAs and compliance requirements (CIS, NIST, ISO).
• Participate in on‑call rotations and change control processes for infrastructure incidents and maintenance.
• Document architecture, procedures, and automations for cross‑team knowledge sharing and operational continuity.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to long‑term technical strategy for infrastructure automation and modernization.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in systems engineering or infrastructure roles, with at least 5 years at a senior or staff level.
• Expert proficiency in VMware vSphere (6.x/7.x/8.x) – including ESXi, vCenter, DRS, HA, vMotion, and distributed switches.
• Advanced Linux administration skills (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu), including performance tuning, system hardening, and troubleshooting.
• Strong understanding of Windows Server and Active Directory, including Group Policy, DNS, and authentication integrations.
• Demonstrated experience building automation frameworks using PowerShell, PowerCLI, Ansible, Python, or similar tools.
• Hands‑on experience in enterprise data‑center environments, including storage (SAN/NAS), networking, and monitoring systems.
• Solid understanding of TCP/IP networking, email infrastructure, DNS, VPNs, and firewall concepts.
• Experience working with F5 BIG‑IP, AVI / NSX Advanced Load Balancer, or similar ADC platforms.
• Familiarity with configuration management, version control (Git), and CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong problem‑solving and analytical skills with a focus on reliability and scalability.

Nice to Have

• Knowledge of Pure Storage, Cisco UCS, or similar data‑center technologies.
• Experience with Terraform, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps for infrastructure automation.
• Exposure to security hardening and compliance frameworks (CIS, NIST, ISO 27001).
• Experience in SaaS or highly available enterprise environments.

What Diligent Offers You

Creativity is ingrained in our culture. We are innovative collaborators by nature. We thrive in exploring how things can be differently both in our internal processes and to help our clients. We care about our people. Diligent offers a flexible work environment, global days of service, comprehensive health benefits, meeting free days, generous time off policy and wellness programs to name a few. We have teams all over the world. We may be headquartered in New York City, but we have office hubs in Washington D.C., Vancouver, London, Galway, Budapest, Munich, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Sydney. Diversity is important to us. Growing, maintaining and promoting a diverse team is a top priority for us. We foster and encourage diversity through our Employee Resource Groups and provide access to resources and education to support the education of our team, facilitate dialogue, and foster understanding.

To foster strong collaboration and connection, this role will follow a hybrid work model. If you are within a commuting distance to one of our Diligent office locations, you will be expected to work onsite at least 50% of the time. We believe that in‑person engagement helps drive innovation, teamwork, and a strong sense of community.

Diligent is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental disability, age, military status, protected veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer related or HIV/AIDS related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.