Senior Systems Administrator

Company Description

Zayo provides mission-critical bandwidth to the world’s most impactful companies, fueling the innovations that are transforming our society. Zayo’s 141,000-mile network in North America and Europe includes extensive metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centers. Zayo’s communications infrastructure solutions include dark fiber, private data networks, wavelengths, Ethernet, and dedicated Internet access. Zayo serves wireless and wireline carriers, media, tech, content, finance, healthcare and other large enterprises.

Zayo Group is seeking an experienced and highly motivated System Administrator to join our Network Automation Software Engineering team. Our team develops and maintains the software platforms, microservices, and automation solutions that enable the provisioning, configuration, and management of Zayo's large-scale telecommunications network infrastructure.

In this role, you will be responsible for the availability, performance, reliability, security, and ongoing maintenance of the infrastructure and development platforms that support our network automation ecosystem. These systems are critical to both our software engineering workflows and the operational capabilities of Zayo's network.

You will administer and support a variety of platforms, including Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), GitLab, Jenkins, Docker, Docker Swarm, and other supporting development, deployment, and automation technologies. Your responsibilities will include system administration, software installation and upgrades, performance tuning, troubleshooting, capacity planning, and proactive maintenance.

The ideal candidate is a highly capable Linux system administrator who enjoys solving complex infrastructure problems, takes ownership of system reliability, and is comfortable working with both traditional Linux infrastructure and modern containerized application environments.

You will work closely with software engineers and network engineering teams to ensure our platforms are stable, performant, secure, and capable of meeting evolving business and technical requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Systems Administration & Infrastructure Management

• Install, configure, administer, and maintain Linux-based servers and application infrastructure supporting the network automation environment.
• Manage the availability, reliability, and performance of critical platforms, including Cisco NSO, GitLab, Jenkins, Docker, and Docker Swarm.
• Perform routine system administration tasks, including operating system maintenance, software installations, package management, configuration changes, and system health checks.
• Plan and execute software upgrades, patches, and platform migrations while minimizing disruption to development workflows and production operations.
• Monitor system resource utilization, including CPU, memory, disk, network, and application performance, to identify and address potential issues.
• Perform system tuning and configuration optimization to improve performance, stability, and resource efficiency.
• Manage system capacity and resource allocation to support application growth and evolving infrastructure requirements.
• Maintain accurate system documentation, configuration records, operational procedures, and troubleshooting guides.

Platform Administration & Support

• Administer and maintain Cisco NSO environments, including software upgrades, patching, configuration management, application health monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• Support GitLab infrastructure, including repository services, CI/CD runners, application configuration, system upgrades, and performance optimization.
• Maintain Jenkins servers, agents, plugins, integrations, and build execution environments.
• Administer Docker hosts and Docker Swarm clusters, including cluster health, node management, service scheduling, networking, storage, and resource allocation.
• Manage supporting developer tooling and infrastructure services as required by the engineering team.
• Collaborate with software engineers to troubleshoot application deployments, build failures, infrastructure dependencies, and environment-related issues.
• Maintain consistent, reliable development, testing, staging, and production environments.

Monitoring, Troubleshooting & Reliability

• Proactively monitor infrastructure and application health to detect and address potential problems before they impact users or network operations.
• Diagnose and resolve complex system issues involving Linux, application services, containers, networking, storage, and system dependencies.
• Investigate service outages, performance degradation, deployment failures, and unexpected system behavior.
• Analyze system logs, performance metrics, and diagnostic information to identify root causes and implement lasting solutions.
• Participate in incident response, service restoration, root cause analysis, and preventative improvement efforts.
• Develop and maintain monitoring, alerting, and health-check capabilities to improve system visibility and reduce operational risk.
• Identify recurring issues and implement improvements that increase platform stability, recoverability, and maintainability.
• Establish and maintain backup, recovery, and disaster recovery procedures for critical infrastructure and application platforms.

Security, Maintenance & Lifecycle Management

• Apply application updates and security patches in accordance with established maintenance practices.
• Maintain secure system configurations, appropriate access controls, and service account permissions.
• Support certificate management, secrets management, and secure communication between infrastructure components.
• Monitor platform versions, software dependencies, and vendor support lifecycles to identify necessary upgrades or replacements.
• Evaluate the operational impact of proposed changes and coordinate maintenance activities with affected engineering and operations teams.
• Ensure infrastructure changes are documented, tested when appropriate, and implemented with suitable rollback procedures.
• Assist with vulnerability remediation and compliance with organizational security policies.

Automation & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and maintain scripts and automation tools to reduce manual administration tasks and improve operational consistency.
• Use scripting languages such as Bash and Python to automate system maintenance, monitoring, configuration, and troubleshooting activities.
• Identify opportunities to standardize system configurations and improve infrastructure management processes.
• Work with software engineers to improve CI/CD infrastructure, application deployment reliability, and development environment performance.
• Evaluate and recommend improvements to existing tools, platforms, and operational practices.
• Contribute to capacity planning, infrastructure modernization, and lifecycle management initiatives.

Collaboration & Operational Ownership

• Work closely with software engineers, network engineers, security teams, and infrastructure stakeholders to understand system requirements and operational priorities.
• Serve as a primary technical resource for infrastructure and platform administration within the Network Automation team.
• Take ownership of infrastructure issues from initial investigation through resolution and follow-up.
• Participate in team planning, technical discussions, and Agile development activities as appropriate.
• Communicate maintenance activities, outages, risks, and technical issues clearly to affected stakeholders.
• Coordinate changes to critical systems to minimize operational disruption.
• Support production incident response and scheduled maintenance activities, including occasional after-hours work when required.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Systems Administration, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum of eight (8) years of professional Linux systems administration experience, supporting production servers, applications, or infrastructure platforms.
• Strong Linux expertise is required, including proficiency with the command line, system configuration, service management, package management, networking, storage, permissions, and process troubleshooting.
• Demonstrated experience installing, configuring, maintaining, upgrading, and troubleshooting applications running on Linux systems.
• Experience administering Docker or similar container technologies, including container lifecycle management, networking, storage, and resource management.
• Familiarity with CI/CD platforms and developer tooling, such as GitLab, Jenkins, or similar systems.
• Experience diagnosing system performance issues and tuning configurations to improve reliability and efficiency.
• Strong understanding of Linux networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, routing, firewalls, and troubleshooting connectivity issues.
• Experience working with system logs, monitoring tools, and performance metrics to diagnose infrastructure problems.
• Proficiency with shell scripting, particularly Bash, for system automation and administrative tasks.
• Experience performing software upgrades, applying patches, and managing system maintenance activities in production environments.
• Understanding of system security principles, access controls, SSH, authentication, and operating system hardening.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to independently investigate and resolve complex technical issues.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, communicate effectively, and collaborate with software engineers and other technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience administering Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), including installation, configuration, upgrades, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.
• Experience supporting GitLab in a self-managed environment, including GitLab Runners, CI/CD execution infrastructure, backups, and upgrades.
• Experience administering Jenkins, including controllers, agents, plugins, job execution environments, and integrations.
• Hands-on experience managing Docker Swarm clusters, including manager and worker nodes, service deployment, overlay networking, persistent storage, and cluster troubleshooting.
• Experience supporting distributed applications and microservices architectures.
• Proficiency in Python for scripting and infrastructure automation.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code or configuration management tools such as Ansible or Terraform.
• Experience with monitoring and observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, or similar tools.
• Familiarity with centralized logging and log analysis solutions.
• Experience with Linux performance analysis tools and techniques.
• Knowledge of high availability, redundancy, load balancing, backup strategies, and disaster recovery.
• Familiarity with TLS certificates, PKI, secrets management, and application security practices.
• Experience supporting development teams and maintaining infrastructure used for software development, testing, and continuous delivery.
• Understanding of network infrastructure, telecommunications systems, or service provider environments.
• Familiarity with network automation technologies, including NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG, or network device management systems.
• Experience supporting applications that interface with APIs, databases, or external infrastructure services.

What Success Looks Like

• Maintain high availability and reliable performance of the systems that support network automation and software development.

• Ensure critical platforms, including Cisco NSO, GitLab, Jenkins, and Docker Swarm, are properly maintained, monitored, and kept on supported software versions.

• Quickly identify, diagnose, and resolve infrastructure issues while minimizing disruption to engineering activities and network operations.

• Proactively identify performance bottlenecks, capacity constraints, security risks, and emerging infrastructure problems.

• Establish effective monitoring, maintenance, backup, and recovery practices that improve the overall reliability of our systems.

• Reduce recurring operational issues through automation, documentation, and systematic improvements.

• Become a trusted technical resource for engineers who depend on the infrastructure you manage.

• Demonstrate strong ownership of system health, operational stability, and continuous improvement.

Why Join Our Team?

At Zayo, network automation plays a critical role in supporting the scale, reliability, and operational efficiency of our telecommunications infrastructure.

Our Network Automation Software Engineering team builds and operates the software systems that enable network provisioning, configuration, and service management across Zayo's network.

As a System Administrator on this team, you will be responsible for maintaining the foundational infrastructure that allows our software engineers to develop, test, deploy, and operate these critical automation capabilities.

You'll work with a diverse technology stack spanning Linux systems, Cisco NSO, GitLab, Jenkins, Docker, Docker Swarm, and modern software development infrastructure, giving you the opportunity to solve meaningful technical challenges and directly influence the reliability of our engineering platforms.

If you enjoy working hands-on with Linux systems, troubleshooting complex infrastructure problems, and keeping mission-critical platforms running smoothly, we'd love to hear from you

Estimated base salary range: $112,800 - $173,600 USD/annually.

Work Authorization Requirement: This position is not eligible for employment-based visa sponsorship. Zayo will not provide, transfer, or assume sponsorship for any employment visa or work authorization for this position now or in the future.

The base pay range shown is a guideline and reasonable estimate for this role. It takes into account the wide variety of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions. Actual compensation offered may vary from the posted range based upon geographic location, work experience, skill level, certifications, and other business and organizational needs. Non- sales roles may be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive plan. Sales roles may be eligible to participate in a sales incentive plan.

Additionally, this position may be eligible for certain benefits, such as health insurance, life insurance, disability retirement plans, paid time off.

The posting will be active for a minimum of 3 days. The active posting will continue to extend by 3 days until the position is filled.

Benefits, Rewards & Wellness

• Excellent Health, Dental & Vision Insurance
• Retirement 401(k) Savings Plan
• Generous paid time off policy including paid parental leave

Zayo is an equal opportunity employer to all protected groups, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact us.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

As part of the application, hiring, onboarding, and/or employment process, Zayo or its affiliates, partners, and vendors may collect, store, and use biometric identifiers and biometric information (collectively, “Biometric Data”), such as fingerprints, facial geometry scans or other unique biological characteristics. Zayo uses CLEAR1, a third-party identity verification service, to verify applicant identity during the hiring process. CLEAR1 may collect Biometric Data, including facial geometry scans and/or other biometric identifiers, to authenticate your identity. Biometric Data will be retained pursuant to CLEAR1’s policies, which can be found here: https://www.clearme.com/clear1-credential-policy-crp. Zayo will not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from any applicant's or employee's Biometric Data. By proceeding with your application, you acknowledge this disclosure. Prior to any collection of Biometric Data - including through CLEAR - you may be presented with a separate consent form and asked to provide your written authorization in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI), and other applicable biometric privacy statutes.