IT Systems Administrator

The Ideal Candidate

A seasoned, senior, hands-on IT professional with ample experience administering systems and end-user devices for a medium sized globally distributed technical business that is interested in enabling the IT team. This position requires a wide range of skills, from contributing to system administration and compliance tasks around Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS and networking, to providing technical support and enabling the team to manage end-user endpoints, as well as plan, manage, maintain and grow the adoption and usage of all administrative and productivity applications and networking infrastructure. 

We want this candidate to ensure our internal networks are secure, our change processes are managed, and our business management and productivity software, hardware and tooling are up to date, tightly administered and always available. We need you to work in a team environment with effective communications and to take accountability. Part of our people promise is to provide great tooling and support systems – you will help us deliver on that. 

The Role

• System Administration:
  • Administer and maintain productivity suites, ranging from Atlassian to Microsoft 365, which includes Entra, Office 365, SharePoint, Teams, Intune, Defender and Purview
  • Administering and maintaining servers and endpoints, including installation, configuration, and troubleshooting, as well as the migration of any on-premises infrastructure to off-the-shelf cloud-based platforms.
  • Facilitate the life cycle of user accounts, permissions, and access across various systems and platforms, which includes the Active Directory and Microsoft Entra.
  • Global telephony switch and VOIP systems (Asterisk based).
  • Implementing and maintaining system backups, disaster recovery plans, and security measures.
• Management and processes:
  • Assist with IT operational and supply chain management.
  • Enable internal service desk to achieve SLA and reporting requirements.
  • Manage contracts with vendors (e.g. development platforms, telecommunication companies, password managers) and software licenses.
  • Assist teams with planning and adoption of new tools and services.
• Security and Compliance:
  • Align the IT environment to industry regulations and best practices, such as SOC2, CIS Benchmark, ISO 27001, GDPR and PCI-DSS, by configuring, implementing and enforcing security policies.
  • Monitor and investigate security alerts and incidents.
  • Facilitate security reviews for new software and tools and critically evaluate risks and define mitigations.
  • Ensure regular security audits and vulnerability assessments are performed and risks identified are addressed promptly.
  • Assist with configuration and evidence gathering.
• Support
  • Effectively enable and delegate within the team to offer prompt global support and collaborate with representatives in other regions where applicable. 
  • Facilitate inquiries by understanding the underlying need, followed by identifying and evaluating the various solutions and finally implement the viable solution.
  • Collaborate with teams to enable integration with IT systems, e.g. SSO integration and configuring access packages. 
  • Serve as an escalation layer for privileged operations as well as complex issues offering prompt and effective resolution, which may vary from hardware/software to network problems and rely on diagnostic skills to resolve.
• Documentation and Knowledge Sharing:
  • Develop IT policies and guidelines.
  • Maintaining accurate documentation of configurations, procedures, and troubleshooting guides.
  • Sharing knowledge and best practices with team members, promoting continuous learning and improvement.

Skills and Experience

Successful candidates for this role will generally possess the following qualifications and skills:

• Completed the following Microsoft Exams:
  • MS-102: Microsoft 365 Administrator
  • MD-102: Endpoint Administrator
  • SC-100: Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect
  • SC-200: Microsoft Security Operations Analyst
  • SC-300: Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator
  • SC-400: Microsoft Information Protection Administrator
  • MS-500: Microsoft 365 Security Administration
  • AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies
• Holds a degree or diploma in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field or have the relevant work experience.
• Networking: IP, ICMP, IPSec, UDP, TCP, DNS, DHCP, NTP, LDAP, HTTP, SMB, SIP, Routing, BGP
• Security: Firewall, CSR, Certificates, SAN, CA, TLS, Mutual TLS, Cipher Suites, Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption
• Load Balancers: Reverse Proxy, HTTP Proxy, NGINX, AWS ALB and NLB 
• Email: MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, S/MIME, Microsoft Purview Advanced Message Encryption
• Platforms: Windows, MacOS, Ubuntu, Android, iOS, Apple Business Manager
• Scripting languages: PowerShell, Bash, SQL, Python, Data Manipulation, Automation
• IdPs: SAML, Microsoft Enterprise Applications, SCIM, Custom App Roles
• Microsoft Identity: Hybrid AD, Mult-Factor Authentication, Conditional Access Policies, External Collaboration, PIM, Retrieving Audit Logs, Entitlement Packages
• Microsoft Endpoint Manager: Intune, Secure Boot, Disk Encryption, Account Protection, Firewall, Windows Defender for Endpoint, Device Profiles, Devices Compliance Polices, Device Configuration Polices, Approved Applications, Device Driver Updates, AutoPilot, Onboarding Operating Systems, Dynamic Groups
• Microsoft Purview: DPL policies, eDiscovery, data life cycle management, subject rights management (GDPR)
• Microsoft Security: Improving Security Score, Configuring Alerts, Investigate Incidents, Leveraging Risky Users detection.
• Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Teams: Creating Teams disallowing Guests, Auditing external shares. 
• Miscellaneous: Monitoring and alerting, Universal Print, Direct Routing SBC, Power Automate, Atlassian
• Microsoft Azure: KeyVaults, Storage Accounts, SQL server, ADF, Virtual Network, NAT Gateways, VPN Tunnels, Azure Sentinel, Azure Virtual Desktop
• Compliance Policies and Data Protection Acts: ISO 27001, CIS Benchmark, SOC2, PCI DSS, POPIA, GDPR, CCPA, CDPA, DSAR

Personality Attributes

• Effective, trustworthy, friendly, positive, detail-oriented and organized, while comfortable starting off with ambiguity.
• Communicative, ability to interact effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, senior management, and exhibit professionalism, using diplomacy to deal with conflict and mediate solutions, as well as excellent written and presentation skills.
• Proactive, self-starter problem solver, which is excellent at diagnosing and troubleshooting, as well as driven to improve security and compliance, evolving processes, and ensuring uptime.
• Pragmatic and adaptable to changing priorities, assignments, and roles, and ability to perform under stressful working conditions and to thrive in a fast-paced environment.
• Enable collaboration, working with teams to achieve organizational goals, assisting outside primary capacity, and educate and mentor team for greater competency.