Division Name: Finance and Planning
Department: Infrastructure Op & Networking

Job Summary

The System Administrator works with a team to develop, implement, maintain, optimize, and provide technical expertise and guidance for services around IT Automation, Load Balancing, and Application Delivery.

The incumbent, with an automation first mindset, will develop automated processes leveraging Infrastructure/Config as Code principles around new and existing services, that result in greater scalability, adaptability, time to resolution and increased efficiencies.

With a heavy focus on the institution's load balancing and Application Delivery Controllers a successful candidate will leverage and enhance their networking skillset as they work with IT staff across campus to configure network flows for critical IT services. These network flows involve managing configuration for virtual IP addresses, content switching rules, health checks, and backend servers to meet a variety of application availability and resiliency use cases across the university's datacenter infrastructure, both on and off-site.

Additionally, this role will serve as the primary systems administrator for our File Transfer Service, Proxy Services, and other enterprise IT Infrastructure.

This Systems Administrator role will contribute to capacity planning, patching, performance tuning, configuration, security hardening, documentation, and troubleshooting for the services they are responsible for. An individual in this role will leverage traditional monitoring and time series metric aggregation approaches to enhance observability and instrumentation around the health and usage of services the team is responsible for.

This role will assist in continuous improvement and innovation to enhance customer experience and modernization across our information technology infrastructure.

Additional Information

Technology Solutions provides information technology products and services for the administrative and business functions of Illinois State University. Through our Technology Support Center and our highly trained staff, Technology Solutions looks to improve the campus experience for all students, faculty, staff, and the rest of the campus community.

Technology Infrastructure and Research Computing (TIRC) manages the physical server, virtualization, and storage infrastructure for the University along with offering communication and collaboration support in areas such as email, shared storage, and SharePoint. Additionally, TIRC provides networking infrastructure and delivers audio and video communication capabilities to campus.

Position Highlights:

• There is the potential for a remote work or a hybrid arrangement in this position, within the state of Illinois. Illinois residency is required. Eligibility is based upon employee performance, appropriate remote working environment, and business needs.

University Benefit Highlights:

• Insurance benefits, including health, dental, vision, and life


• Retirement and supplemental retirement planning options


• Tuition waiver benefits available to staff as well as their eligible dependents


• Paid holiday/administrative closures during Thanksgiving and Winter Breaks


• Paid benefit time

For more University Benefit information: https://hr.illinoisstate.edu/benefits/ 

Information regarding eligibility for participation in the State Universities Retirement System and the State of Illinois Group Insurance program can be reviewed here https://hr.illinoisstate.edu/benefits/insurance/

Salary Rate / Pay Rate

$70,000 - $85,000 annual

Required Qualifications

Five years of experience which included all of the following:

• Five years of progressively more responsible work experience in an Information Technology related profession
  - 30 semester hours of college course work which included Information Technology, IT Management, or closely related field substitutes for 12 months
  - 60 semester hours of college course work which included Information Technology, IT Management, or closely related field substitutes for 18 months
  - 90 semester hours of college course work which included Information Technology, IT Management, or closely related field substitutes for 24 months
  - Bachelor's or higher degree equals in Information Technology, IT Management, or closely related field substitutes for 36 months


• Four years of work experience with both Windows and Linux systems, including a minimum of 2 years of hands-on Linux server administration.


• Two years of work experience with automation tools such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or Salt.


• Two years of work experience with Git-based version control tools such as GitLab, GitHub, or Bitbucket.

Preferred Qualifications

1. Valid state of Illinois driver's license.


2. Ability to:
   a. accurately define incidents, problems, and events in the trouble ticketing system.
   b. develop, update, and/or maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs).
   c. operate common network tools (e.g., ping, traceroute, nslookup, wireshark).
   d. collaborate effectively with others.
   e. function effectively in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
   f. autonomously navigate complex technical documentation and leverage modern research tools (including AI and LLMs) to independently synthesize and validate solutions for infrastructure and automation challenges without external guidance.


3. Knowledge of:
   a. cybersecurity and privacy principles.
   b. measures or indicators of system performance and availability.
   c. server and client operating systems.
   d. systems administration concepts.
   e. virtualization technologies and virtual machine development and maintenance.
   f. operating system command-line tools.
   g. network protocols such as TCP/IP, Dynamic Host Configuration, Domain Name System (DNS), and directory services.
   h. configuration management
   i. directory services. (e.g., Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, etc.).


4. Skill in:
   a. diagnosing connectivity problems.
   b. using virtual machines. (e.g., Microsoft Hyper-V, VMWare vSphere, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Amazon c EC2 and Azure Virtual Machines, etc.).
   c. Ability to create and develop code around automating IT infrastructure and configuration using Automation solutions.
   d. interfacing with customers
   e. correcting physical and technical problems that impact system/server performance.
   f. identifying and anticipating system/server performance, availability, capacity, or configuration problems.
   g. recovering failed systems/servers. (e.g., recovery software, failover clusters, replication, etc.).
   h. Cloud Computing experience (Amazon AWS, Azure, etc.)
   i. Experience with load balancing & application delivery controllers (e.g. Citrix NetScaler, A10 Thunder, Haproxy)
   j. Experience with Kubernetes container deployment and orchestration

Work Hours

Core Hours: Generally normal business hours (8:00am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday); weekend or after-hours work may be required to support change management or disaster recovery.

Functional Expectations

Must be able to complete the following with or without a reasonable accommodation:

1. Remain at a workstation for extended periods.


2. Distinguish colors on a monitor.


3. Effectively communicate on a daily basis.


4. Lift servers up to 45 pounds.

Proposed Starting Date

June 2026

Required Applicant Documents

Resume
Reference List

Please Note: These documents are required to be submitted online in order to complete the application process. Please have these documents ready prior to clicking on "Apply"

Optional Applicant Documents

Transcripts - See Special Instructions to Applicants for additional options
Certification of Retirement Annuity

Please Note: These documents may be submitted online in order to complete the application process. Please have these documents ready prior to clicking on "Apply"

Special Instructions for Applicants

Applicants for this position must be authorized to work in the U.S. without ISU sponsorship. Sponsorship for work authorization will not be considered for this position.

Please fully complete the entire application including, but not limited to, the education and work history portions. Be specific on your work history, including employment dates (if part-time you must list the number of work hours) and duties for all positions held. Applicable part-time work experience will be considered toward qualifying for this position; however, it will be converted to a full-time equivalency to determine combined length of experience. Please do not put "see resume" in the duties and responsibilities section of the work history. This will be considered an incomplete application and incomplete applications will not be considered.

If you are using college or university coursework to qualify for this position, then college or university transcripts (may be unofficial) must be submitted prior to the application deadline to receive full consideration. Transcripts can either be uploaded with your application or submitted via the options listed below.

To be eligible for Veteran's Preference points on the exam, appropriate military service documentation such as a DD-214 must be submitted prior to the application deadline.

Transcripts and/or military service documentation may be emailed, faxed, or mailed to Human Resources by the application deadline:

Email: [email protected] 
Fax: 309.438.0011, Attn: Kira Shelton
Address: Illinois State University
Human Resources
Campus Box 1300
Normal, IL 61790-1300

The Civil Service examination for this classification is based on your application materials and responses to the supplemental questions. No participation other than submission of applicant materials is required from applicants that qualify to take the exam. If you meet the minimum required qualifications for this position, you will receive a score calculated based on your education and experience, and your name will be placed on the active employment register by exam score. After the application deadline, the names within the top three scores will be referred to the department for interview. The active register for this classification will be voided when the position is filled.

Illinois State University is authorized to do business within the State of Illinois. All work under this appointment is required to be performed from within the State of Illinois. If hired, out-of-state candidates must establish Illinois residency within 180 calendar days from the start date for this position. Illinois residency requires proof of a valid Illinois driver’s license or a valid State of Illinois ID card. Failure to produce the required documentation within 180 calendar days will result in immediate termination of employment.

Contact Information for Applicants

Kira Shelton
Human Resources
[email protected] 
(309) 438-2120

Important Information for Applicants

This position is subject to a criminal background investigation and if applicable, an employment history review, based on University Policy 3.1.30 and any offer of employment is contingent upon you passing a satisfactory criminal background investigation and/or an employment history review. You may not begin work until the criminal background investigation results have been received and cleared by Human Resources.

Illinois State University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

If you are an individual with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or other state or federal law you may request an accommodation by contacting the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access at (309) 438-3383. The Office of Equal Opportunity and Access will hold any confidential information you provide in confidence.

If you are having difficulty accessing the system, please call Human Resources at (309) 438-8311.