• Job Type: Part Time, remote
• Reporting Relationships: Reports to CEO/Owner
• Business Hours: Mon – Fri 9:00AM – 5:00PM
• After Hours: On call, as needed for emergencies
• Target Hours: 15-30 hours per week
• Compensation: Competitive hourly wage, plus opportunity to earn performance based bonuses

Role Summary

eSilo is a cloud data backup protection company based in Jupiter, FL with over two decades of small business and enterprise experience meeting the unique needs of the legal, healthcare, hospitality, and financial industries. We are a proud woman and minority-owned small business enterprise, and we pride ourselves in giving our customers the confidence and peace of mind to know their business is protected and secure.

We are looking for a highly motivated and capable Ubuntu system administrator (sysadmin) to assist with routine maintenance and upgrades of our internal backup systems, and can lead and execute multiple small infrastructure projects at once. You will be a key member of our backend team, with a scope of responsibility that spans multiple colocation data centers and edge locations (eSilo equipment on premises at customer sites).  

Our environment is primarily Ubuntu with ZFS, however having previous hands-on experience with a variety of operating systems, (including Windows) containerization and virtualization technologies is essential.  

Exceptional candidates may also have experience in storage management, worked with multiple backup systems, and/or have worked at a managed services provider (MSP) in the past.  

This role is best for capable technologists who are self-starters, can work independently, and love to solve complex problems. They thrive in high stress situations where there may be multiple competing priorities they must juggle, and they must be adept at balancing daily fire-fighting with long-term strategic objectives. 

In addition to your ninja tech skills, we are looking for team members who are reliable, personable, detail oriented (and who thoroughly document their work), and are able to multitask and prioritize to meet deadlines.

Come join us and do meaningful, challenging work on a dynamic close-knit team!

Reporting Structure

This position reports directly to the CEO, however, there is also a tight integration with the Lead Infrastructure Engineer, and our customer-facing team (Backup Engineers).

This Opportunity Provides

• A competitive wage
• Ability to work 100% remote, with preference to candidates in Southeast FL or Nashville, TN
• Flexible time off 
• Opportunity to earn performance driven rewards
• Opportunity to be a part of a very close-knit team 
• Valuable experience deploying and managing systems at scale
• Freedom to leverage the best open source technologies
• Experience supporting a mission critical service

Responsibilities

• Perform maintenance tasks for internal servers such as regular OS and platform updates.
• Monitor all internal infrastructure as well as customer on premise backup systems.  
• Install and configure monitoring tools and respond timely to alerts. 
• Proactively identify systems that need attention, including drive replacements, issues, and updates.
• Execute those updates and tasks independently.
• Coordinate onsite work with datacenter hands and feet team.
• Perform routine maintenance across a variety of platforms and configs.
• Clean up alerts to improve signal to noise ratio and implement additional alerts to improve awareness of potential issues.
• Continually review and strengthen system security, user access and device management.
• Manage multiple infrastructure upgrade projects. Strategize, plan, test and execute those projects.
• Automate routine tasks to reduce manual work and human intervention.
• Support proprietary legacy tools until they can be sunset. Help define migration strategies.
• Implement virtualization and/or Linux containerization to improve machine isolation.
• Perform regular vulnerability scans, patching, and configuration updates.
• Maintain and manage onsite and offsite backups of the entire environment.
• Maintain configuration management tools such as Puppet.
• Work collaboratively with other systems engineers and developers
• Make occasional visits to eSilo data centers to perform upgrades, installs, & replacements. 
• Update system documentation as needed based on changes/updates (internal Wiki)
• Support network redesign projects
• Update eSilo Package Repository for unmanaged packages

Key Performance Indicators

• 99%+ uptime of internal server fleet
• Zero infrastructure-driven backup outages (e.g. unplanned downtime)
• Proactive maintenance – all security patches applied within 90 days. No surprise expirys or errors.
• Finish 95% of assigned tasks by date due (+/- 1 week buffer)
• Respond to all internal or external requests within 1 business day.

Future Possibilities and Career Development

• eSilo is a merit-based organization. We value WHAT you do, but also HOW you do it. Because we are a small team, your contribution to a positive team culture is of utmost importance.
• Successful engineers may progress to full-time work (40 hours/week) and/or more senior sysadmin roles in the organization.

Personal Development and Training

• A communication style profile (DISC) will be conducted at the time of hire. Additional profiles or assessments may be completed during your work.
• Company sponsored training may be available for any skills needed in this role.
• Professional Development 1-1 meetings with CEO will be held at least twice a year.
• A formal performance appraisal will be conducted at least annually. This will be used to inform bonus payouts and performance eligibility.

Personal Attributes and Qualifications

• Minimum 3+ years of experience as a systems engineer, sysadmin, or storage engineer
• At least 1 year of experience with ZFS, preferably ZFS on Linux or FreeNAS (on FreeBSD)
• Strong familiarity with Linux and Windows Server, including Hyper-V, and willingness to support both
• You MUST enjoy sysadmin work, not just be “willing” to do it. If you’d rather be coding, gaming, or experimenting with the latest public cloud tools, this is not the role for you.
• You are a “fixer”. Doing systems maintenance and fix-it work makes you happy.
• You have experience managing legacy software and porting it to modern environments.
• You work quickly and expediently, but with quality. You aren’t usually one to over-analyze.
• You’re a resourceful learner and comfortable working in an unstructured environment.
• You like scripting, automation, and the like, and have the skills to back it up
• You are an excellent troubleshooter with strong critical thinking skills.
• You’re easy going. You don’t let things get under your skin.
• You are 100% ok with the idea that a problem can have multiple technical solutions, and that in a business setting the best all-around solution may one that is technically “imperfect”.
• You’ve been praised for your proactive communication and ability to keep non-technical stakeholders feeling informed.
• You like to support others on the team. 
• You are comfortable interacting with customers.
• Bonus if you already possess certification(s) in architecture, security, BC/DR, or cloud. 

Skills Needed

• Software: Ubuntu, pfSense, OpenVPN, MySQL, Puppet, Nagios, Grafana, FreeNAS, ZFS, Rsync, Veeam, Acronis, Clickup  
• Hardware: Supermicro, Dell, Cisco, iXSystems (FreeNAS)
• Other keywords: Package management, firewall administration, on premises storage administration, configuration management