Systems and Tools Administrator

Pearson is an international media company with market-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing. Pearson's education business represents about two-thirds of the company, and Penguin publishing and the Financial Times make up the balance. With more than 30,000 employees based in 60 countries, we are a family of businesses that draws on common assets, processes and shares a common purpose: to help our customers live and learn.Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/D, and a member of E-Verify. SUMMARY We are looking for a mid-level systems and tools administrator to be part of an agile team responsible for the support of our production and non-production highly available enterprise environments. This team is also responsible for the creation and administration of tools used in monitoring and automating the infrastructure, as well as its design, architecture, strategic planning, and hardware and software provisioning.SCOPE AND IMPACT OF JOB Tools AdministrationTools administration includes the support and implementation of 3rd party and open-source tools and their frameworks as they pertain to Technology Operations. Such tools include monitoring and systems management automation. It also can include the development of internal tools used by the team and other organizations. Systems AdministrationSystems administration includes responding to support requests from the help desk, internal support teams, ticketing system, and management. These requests include resolution of production and non-production problems as well as implementing changes to these environments. The individual will install, configure, and resolve problems with hardware and operating systems. Knowledge of Pearson applications will be used in the analysis of the problems. The candidate will also assist in the build-out of new environments based on predetermined specifications.On-call supportThe mid-level Systems Administrator is responsible for on-call support in a 24x7 highly available ASP environment. Support will include problem identification, problem resolution, and all associated procedures that follow a structured service management process. Project Support The mid-level Systems Administrator will assist in researching, implementing, and documenting infrastructure projects in accordance with standards and best practices. These projects will involve interaction with multiple internal teams including project management, application support, and development. The projects will support current environments as well as assist in the planning of new infrastructure.PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES ' Production and non-production problem resolution in a primarily Linux computing environment' Perform hardware and software installations, configuration, and upgrades and maintain them in accordance with established IT policies and procedures' Monitoring and tuning systems to achieve optimum performance levels' Assist in the creation and implementation of standards and best practices' Being an infrastructure liaison for development projects to assist in ensuring internal software applications integrate successfully into Pearson infrastructure' Assist in the creation of new environments based upon predetermined specifications' Assist in the on-going design and planning of the infrastructure.' On call support (24x7 support) REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE Experience ' 3 + years experience in Linux system administration in support of enterprise level production and non-production environments.' Shell scripting/Perl experience, especially in the automation of administrative processes.' Experience with system hardware installation (memory, CPUs, HBAs, etc.)' Experience with performance tuning' Working knowledge of various networking protocols and services (TCP/IP, FTP, NFS, HTTP, etc) and the ability to troubleshoot networking problems.' Experience with troubleshooting and support of Java applications in n-tier application environments (J2EE)' Experience with Apache, Tomcat or other servlet containers a plus' Solaris administration a plus' Technical knowledge of current hardware, protocols, and standards and the discipline to apply them based on project requirements rather than personal preference.' Strong analytical and problem solving skills' Ability to work with minimal supervision and to solve problems independently' Ability to focus on detail and thoroughly complete projects and tasks' Effective interpersonal communication skills' Strong customer focus' 24x7 production operations experience