Azure System Administrator

Position Summary

The System Administrator is a hands-on, technical role that owns the day-to-day administration, security, performance, and reliability of our Microsoft Azure environment, with a heavy emphasis on Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and FSLogix profile management.   They must have an excellent understanding of IT infrastructure (both cloud and on-premise) and a demonstrated willingness to learn and apply new technology.   They must possess superior technical aptitude, written and oral communications skills and the ability to deal effectively with people in a wide variety of situations.   They must also be forward thinking with a high degree of customer focus and they must possess strong analytical skills with demonstrated problem-solving ability.   They must also have a proven ability to handle multiple priorities with limited supervision and possess a high level of discipline while remaining flexible.

We are transitioning away from a Managed Service Provider (MSP) model.   This role is critical to that transition and will be responsible for our Azure environment once operations are brought in-house — leading knowledge transfer from the MSP, documenting and standing up internal processes and runbooks, and then operating and continuously improving the environment as its primary administrator.

Responsibilities for System Administrator

- Serve as the primary administrator and technical owner of our Microsoft Azure environment, including subscriptions, resource groups, RBAC/IAM, tagging and governance, cost management, and capacity planning
- Lead the transition of Azure operations from our Managed Service Provider to internal management, including knowledge transfer, tenant and administrative access handoff, documentation, runbooks, and establishing internal operational processes
- Design, deploy, and administer Azure Virtual Desktop, including host pools, session hosts, application groups, workspaces, FSLogix profile containers, golden image lifecycle, and autoscale/scaling plans
- Administer, tune and troubleshoot FSLogix
- Administer Azure infrastructure services: virtual machines, storage accounts, networking (VNets, NSGs, VPN, DNS), backup and disaster recovery, and monitoring/alerting via Azure Monitor and Log Analytics
- Windows Active Directory/Entra ID (Azure Active Directory) administration, including directory synchronization, MFA, group policy, and Intune/endpoint policy
- Manage patching, updates, and image maintenance across servers, endpoints, and AVD session hosts
- Collaborate with ISC Security team to implement security best practices in the ISC Azure Cloud environment
- Automate recurring administrative tasks and deployments using PowerShell and Azure-native tooling
- Maintain accurate documentation, diagrams, and configuration baselines for the Azure environment
- Establish/enhance IT Operations policies and standards

Qualifications for System Administrator

- 5+ years of experience in IT Infrastructure/Operations or systems administration
- 3+ years of hands-on Microsoft Azure administration in a production environment
- Extensive hands-on Azure Virtual Desktop experience, including host pool and session host design and troubleshooting, image management (Azure Compute Gallery), application delivery, user session management, and scaling
- Demonstrated FSLogix expertise, including profile and Office container configuration, container storage design and permissions, redirections/exclusions, and diagnosing profile load, corruption, and performance problems
- Experience insourcing an environment from a Managed Service Provider, or comparable experience taking operational ownership of a previously outsourced environment, is a strong plus
- Expertise in the following specialized areas: Microsoft Administration (server and desktop), Active Directory and Entra ID administration, O365 administration
- PowerShell scripting and automation experience; familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Bicep/ARM/Terraform) a plus
- Advanced Troubleshooting skills in a multi-user environment
- Understanding and hands-on experience with networking, TCP/IP protocols, firewall and switch configurations
- Ability to remotely manage and provide IT support for multiple locations and remote users
- Experience with cyber/information security
- Experience in setting up and configuring helpdesk ticketing systems
- Experience communicating verbally and in writing with peers, management, and vendors

- Proven ability to work successfully with limited supervision
- Zendesk/Salesforce experience a plus