Senior Systems Engineer, Linux

About Aubrant 

Aubrant Digital is a leader in multi-shore custom application development. We are passionate about solving our clients’ business problems through consultative teamwork, innovative software, and proven processes. We’ve served more than 50 clients and delivered hundreds of high quality, custom enterprise applications.  Our clients value us as integral team members who get the job done on time and on spec, and we are proud of our high client retention rate and under 2% staff turnover. With offices in New Jersey, Boston, Costa Rica, and Eastern Europe, we execute the full software lifecycle, from architecture and design through development, QA and application maintenance & support.  Our company culture emphasizes client service, trust-based relationships, and innovation. 

About the role

• Aubrant Digital is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer, Linux, to own the Linux platform in a large US-based client data center supporting a 2,000+ virtual server environment (Windows and Linux). The RHEL and CentOS estate is already largely automated through Chef. You will administer RHEL 8, 9, and 10 and CentOS servers; troubleshoot kernel and system issues and tune performance; harden servers and remediate vulnerabilities; maintain and extend Chef cookbooks, using Ansible where it fits; support the monthly OS patch cycle; and coach the Infrastructure Administrators on Linux work. You will join Aubrant's cloud and infrastructure engineering group (we call it a studio), which gives you a technical leader to escalate to, peers on other engagements to call on, and a shared catalog of scripts and hardened builds to start from.

Must-Have Requirements

• 7+ years of administering Linux in enterprise data centers.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 8 or 9) in production; CentOS experience.

• Chef in production: writing and maintaining cookbooks.

• Kernel and system-level troubleshooting and performance tuning.

• Linux security hardening and vulnerability remediation.

• Bash and Python scripting, with changes kept in a Git repository (the client uses GitHub).

• Networking fundamentals (server IP addressing, subnets, firewall rules) and the ability to explain a needed network change to the network team.

• Ability to triage and resolve tickets and alerts independently through incident, change, and problem management, escalating only when needed.

• Willingness and availability to participate in the client's seven-day on-call rotation and to shift working hours for planned overnight maintenance windows.

• Professional written and spoken English; daily collaboration with a US-based client team. 

Should-Have Requirements

• Ansible for configuration management.

• RHEL 10.

• Tanium for OS patching.

• Linux on VMware vSphere.

• Azure IaaS.

• Familiarity with Datadog, Prometheus, or ServiceNow.

• Experience coaching administrators or junior engineers on Linux work.

Could-Have / Nice-to-Have Requirements 

• Terraform (not widely used by the client yet, but the team is moving toward infrastructure as code).

• Relevant vendor certifications (not required; hands-on experience is valued over certificates).

Ideal Candidate Traits:

• Curious, proactive, and collaborative.

• Strong communication and teamwork skills.

• Committed to delivering solutions together, not in competition.

• Works comfortably the client's incident, change, and problem management, keeps looking for the next thing to automate, and promotes a one-team culture.