Platform Systems Administrator 2

Basic Purpose

Leads and develops technical solutions to address business problems.  Works with IT and Business Leadership to promote innovative and integrated solutions across the organization and demonstrates proficiency in all aspects of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) – through requirements gathering, project leadership, architecting, developing, testing, modifying and supporting enterprise application systems for internal and external customers as well as vendor partners.  Provides problem solving and troubleshooting in support of application environments.

Essential Education, Skills, and Environment

Education and Work Experience
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited school and 3 years of related progressive work experiences as software development.

Candidates that do not possess a bachelor’s degree must have a minimum of 7 years of related work experience with a minimum of 3 years of software development experience.

Specialized Knowledge and Skills
Demonstrated knowledge of:

• modern programming and IT architecture concepts including cloud native design, microservices, containerization
• cloud model architectures and distributed, high volume computing design
• designing and deploying applications and architectures for resiliency and continuous availability
• working with event driven streaming architectures
• developing diagnostic and configuration tools to improve deployment and operation of web apps, mobile apps, and 3rd party integrations
• virtualized infrastructure and Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Technical experience with:
  •  Linux and OS tools and monitoring
  • containers and orchestration technologies
  • DevOps via CI/CD, automated configuration, provisioning and deployment tools
  • hands-on experience of relational (Oracle, PL/SQL/Postgres) and no SQL databases (Couchbase)
  • upgrades and security/application patching

Demonstrated skills such as:

• Communicate effectively vis multiple channels (written and verbal) including composing and delivering executive level presentations and communicating with OS administrators in identifying and resolving issues related to highly visible/customer facing 24x7 enterprise applications
• Problem solving skills, initiative, and the ability to thrive under pressure and with changes in requirements
• Taking ownership of platform/application health checks on 24x7 enterprise applications

Equipment and Applications
PCs, word processing, spreadsheet and database software.  

Work Environment and Physical Demands
General office environment.  No special physical demands required.  Some same-day or short duration travel to area field or business offices required. 

TECHNOLOGY

Holds primary technical responsibility for software development and enhancements as well as system reliability of business critical applications and integration processes (60%)

• Acts as the technical lead for projects related to the development of new systems, architecture, applications or technology capabilities in support of business goals.
• Works with stakeholders on interpretation/translation of functional requirements into system requirements. 
• Implements architecture, solution design, and development of core platforms utilizing distributed computing fundamentals, reactive principles and scalable architectures delivering easy to operate, highly available and reliable systems via automated testing and post deployment Creates appropriate technical artifacts to support development and operations support within SDLC guidelines including documentation of installation and administration of products and architecture/application diagrams and logic flows
• Upgrades and maintains application related infrastructure – servers, databases, deployment pipelines from code and the application platform for web and mobile applications along with related internal and vendor partner system integrations and services

• Develops and Integrates diagnostic monitoring, logging and metrics frameworks into the application and platform. Validates application usability and monitors system stability, ensuring that all operational tasks run error-free and application performance is optimal.
• Supports deployment of application resources and releases including services, containers, test suites
• Establishes CI/CD pipelines or integrates with existing pipelines for deployment and builds automation and scripts for day-to-day automation.

• Manages incidents to ensure all incidents are reported, documented, analyzed, diagnosed and a root cause is found.  Provides technical expertise in diagnosing and debugging issues within production systems
• Recommends and coordinates establishment of governance and security models around the application environment and implements approved models.

• Ensures alignment with Corporate standards and strategic technology decisions

Maintains and improves technology proficiency with evolving technologies to achieve desired technical and business outcomes (20%)

• Stays current on technologies, platforms, and relevant certification
• Provides training and mentoring to other IT staff and business users at all levels of the organization
• Finds ways to spread learning across the organization (gives technical talks, presentations, etc.)
• Learns, evaluates, recommends and adapts to new technologies and techniques
• Requires availability for periodic on call responsibilities.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Leads the evaluation, planning and implementation of applications and systems of business and operating departments (20%)

• Works closely with IT and Business Area leadership to define and implement IT-wide application and related infrastructure vision and long-term strategy in support of business objectives
• Leads software projects from department-specific to, enterprise-wide and customer- and vendor-facing implementations
  • Estimates projects including assessing and mitigating risk
  • Manages project budgets as well internal and consulting resources for any size projects or software
• Performs project planning, system analysis, software design and coding, support of system/user testing, documentation, implementation and research activities as necessary for software engineering projects.
• Leads technical proofs of concept and develops evaluation matrices through final recommendation, including hands-on execution where needed.
• Performs ongoing capacity planning for critical infrastructure
• Develops business cases and recommends system solutions and architectures
• Leads RFP efforts from gathered business and system requirements
• Develops customized presentations, demonstrations, prototypes, and architecture diagrams to prove a solution's business value to technical and business stakeholders.
• Conducts security architecture design reviews and threat modeling
• Leads the IT application area effort on security audits and compliance reviews

Ensures all compliance aspects of position are known and followed; understands and complies with all policies, codes and regulations applicable to position and company. 

Performs related duties as assigned.