Manager, IT Systems Administration

The Manager, IT Systems Administration leads the System Administration team and oversees the organizations on-premises and cloud infrastructure (VMware virtualization, HPE SAN storage, Azure Cloud and associated systems). This role is accountable for system reliability, security, performance, infrastructure lifecycle management, disaster recovery, operational standards, documentation, and compliance. The Manager ensures effective workload management, technical accountability, audit readiness, and continuous improvement while overseeing infrastructure planning, purchasing, budgets, vendor relationships, and contracts. Working across IT and business functions, this position ensures infrastructure services are secure, resilient, cost-effective, and aligned with organizational requirements.This position is an on-site position in Newburyport, MA. Responsibilities Team Leadership & Work Distribution: Assign, prioritize, and balance workload across System Administrator team covering patching, provisioning, monitoring, incident response, and project work.Run daily/weekly standups to track ticket queues, project status, and blockers.Conduct 1:1s, performance reviews, and skills development planning for direct reports.Identify cross-training needs so no single admin is a point of failure (VMware, SAN, backups, AD, patching, etc.).Manage hiring, onboarding, and disciplinary actions as needed. Accountability & Documentation: Establish SOPs and Specifications for recurring tasks: patch cycles, provisioning, decommissioning, backup verification, DR testing.Own the ticketing system workflow (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira) SLA tracking, escalation paths, closure documentation standards.Maintain an audit trail of privileged access changes, system changes, and admin activity logs.Define RACI matrices for major systems (who is Responsible/Accountable/Consulted/Informed). Compliance: Serve as primary IT Ops point of contact for all required compliance framework assessments, NIST 800-171/800-53 controls, and any other required frameworks (ISO 27001, SOC 2, etc.).Ensure hardening baselines (CIS benchmarks), patch SLAs, access control reviews, and logging/monitoring requirements are met and documented.Coordinate with security/compliance teams on audits, gap assessments, and remediation timelines.Ensure configuration management, vulnerability scanning, and change control processes generate audit-ready evidence. Infrastructure Oversight: Accountable for uptime, performance, and lifecycle management of VMware clusters and SAN storage (capacity planning, firmware/patch levels, replication, backup/DR. department KPIs).Review and approve architecture changes, capacity upgrades, and major maintenance windows.Ensure DR/BCP plans exist, are tested on a defined cadence, and are documented.Assess and ensure database optimization, reliability and performance. Purchasing & Contract Management: Own the hardware/software refresh lifecycle: budgeting, forecasting, and capital planning for servers, storage, licensing (VMware/Broadcom licensing changes, HPE support contracts, etc.).Manage vendor relationships: renewals, SLAs, support negotiations, quote comparisons.Review/approve purchase requisitions from the team; maintain asset and license inventories tied to compliance requirements. Qualifications Bachelors degree in computer science or a related technical discipline, or the equivalent combination of education, technical certifications or training, or work experience.7 years experience in managing an information systems technical team in a managerial role.5+ years in systems administration (VMware, SAN storage, Windows/Linux server environments)Experience with CMMC/NIST 800-171 or similar regulated/compliance-driven environmentsExperience with the existing technical environments (listed below).Maintains currency with evolving technologies.Experience with Azure Cloud or Amazon Cloud solutions Current Technical Environment Microsoft Servers and clusters, Linux ServersVMWare vSphere Virtual Data Center & Hyper-V virtualization.SQL ServerCore applications ERP: Currently Epicor Kinetic, MES: Camstar / OpCenter CRM: SalesforceNetwork infrastructure is comprised of Juniper. Aruba, Palo AltoManage Engine network and server monitoringMicrosoft Office 365