Lead Linux System Administrator in London

We’re seeking someone to join our team as an experienced Linux System Administrator to help maintain, modernize, and improve the infrastructure supporting Morgan Stanley's distributed systems. This role will work across a complex environment made up of open-source technologies, in-house components, and critical Linux infrastructure services. The focus will be on delivering a stable, secure, and highly reliable platform while increasing automation, agility, and operational efficiency.

The team is responsible for the evaluation, certification, integration, and ongoing support of Linux-based infrastructure, including hardware platforms, Red Hat Linux, configuration management, system services such as DNS, DHCP, and NTP, and a variety of internally developed tools.

This is a Lead Infrastructure Production Management & Reliability Engineering position at Director level (equivalent to AVP) which is part of the job family responsible for maintaining the stability and reliability of the organization's infrastructure systems, ensuring optimal performance and availability to support business operations.

What you’ll do in the role:

• Act as a self-starter and owner, able to prioritize requests, manage ambiguity, and collaborate effectively across global teams.
• Support, deploy, and troubleshoot large-scale production Linux environments with a focus on stability, performance, and reliability.
• Contribute as an Infrastructure SRE with hands-on coding and automation experience.
• Participate in a global follow-the-sun on-call rotation for production issues.
• Work closely with engineers, developers, operations specialists, and project teams to deliver infrastructure improvements.
• Write and maintain clear documentation for systems, processes, procedures, and operational support models.
• Follow strong change management, incident management, and problem management practices.
• Participate in global forums to review projects, operational improvements, technical standards, and delivery priorities.

What you’ll bring to the role:

• 5-7 years of enterprise-level experience supporting large, distributed Linux environments.
• Strong knowledge of Linux systems, hardware platforms, automated builds, and lights-out management.
• Comfortable building systems from scratch, updating configurations, and modifying code paths where needed.
• Understanding of kernel bypass and its relationship to latency-sensitive devices.
• Strong knowledge of TCP/IP, networking concepts, security fundamentals, implementation, and troubleshooting.
• Experience with monitoring tools, alerting, and operational support solutions.
• Proven analytical and troubleshooting skills in a fast-paced, highly visible enterprise environment.
• Coding or scripting experience, preferably with Python.
• Experience working with shared codebases using CI, source control, release management, and change control best practices.
• Solid understanding of Linux kernel internals and performance tuning.
• Experience with trading system application configuration, deployment, and management.
• Experience improving operational processes through automation, tooling, and documentation.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.