Technical Lead, System Administrator

Position Title:

Technical Lead, System Administrator

Salary & Benefits:

$100,000-$125,000, health benefits and 3 weeks vacation
Position Status:
New

Location:

Ottawa, ON
Work Model:
Onsite
Additional Notes:
Our client is seeking an accomplished System Administrator - Technical Lead with strong hands-on expertise and a passion for building high-performing, resilient systems. In this role, you will join a dynamic and agile technology team that is actively modernizing core platforms and accelerating a transition toward cloud-native infrastructure. You’ll work at the heart of a tight-knit group of engineers and developers, supporting both live production environments and new cloud initiatives.

From hosting and email to DNS and domain management, your leadership and technical depth will help power the online experiences of thousands of users—ensuring services are fast, secure, and future-ready.

Responsibilities:
Leadership & Delivery

• Provide agile and technical leadership to a small, high-performing team, including Scrum facilitation and people management.
• Support senior leadership with long-term technology planning and strategic decision-making.
• Develop, refine, and monitor service and team KPIs that drive operational excellence.

Customer & Production Support

• Deliver second-level support for customer websites, applications, hosting environments, and email services.
• Participate in occasional after-hours support, typically 1–2 incidents per week.

Hosting & Platform Management

• Maintain and enhance hosting platforms, including Plesk, Managed Word Press, Virtuozzo VPS servers, and related services.
• Support DNS and domain management workflows within production environments.

Cloud & Infrastructure

• Maintain and optimize existing cloud environments, including AWS and other compute services.
• Design and implement scalable, secure cloud-based architectures.
• Assist with client migrations, improving performance, reliability, and operational efficiency.

Reliability, Performance & Cost Optimization

• Monitor system health, troubleshoot issues, and ensure timely resolution.
• Track infrastructure and service costs and implement initiatives that enhance both quality and cost-efficiency.

Systems, Databases & Scripting

• Administer Unix/Linux and Windows-based systems.
• Manage database systems such as MSSQL and MySQL.
• Develop scripts and tooling using open-source technologies to automate and streamline operations.

Modernization & Automation

• Work with infrastructure-as-code tools to modernize deployments and workflows.
• Research, implement, and advocate for modern cloud technologies, with emphasis on AWS.
• Re-architect legacy systems and replace them with modern, scalable solutions.
• Contribute to the improvement of IT operations processes.
• Automate manual processes to increase consistency and reduce operational overhead.

The ideal candidate is an experienced technical leader with extensive experience in cloud environments, infrastructure management, and system administration. You bring a strong blend of hands-on expertise and leadership capability, with a track record of guiding teams, improving systems, and delivering high-impact solutions. You thrive in complex environments, leveraging deep knowledge of Linux, Windows, networking, and security to build clean, scalable, and resilient infrastructure.

You’re analytical in your decision-making, collaborative in your approach, and passionate about automation, modern cloud technologies, and supporting the systems you help create. With a solid educational foundation in engineering or computer science, you are as comfortable solving critical technical issues as you are mentoring others and driving agile projects forward. Must be willing to work on site, in Ottawa, but guide a team members who are abroad.

What Makes You Stand Out

• Demonstrated ability to modernize legacy systems and design cloud-native architectures that scale efficiently.
• Expertise across multiple scripting languages, with a strong emphasis on automation and infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Proven leadership in fast-paced environments, including mentoring engineers and elevating team performance.
• A continuous improvement mindset—always seeking smarter, faster, more reliable ways to deploy, monitor, and operate systems.

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- At Recruiting in Motion Ottawa, AI-powered tools may be used to support various administrative aspects of our recruitment process. We do not use AI for screening or decision-making. All applications are reviewed, and all hiring decisions are made by qualified recruitment professionals and hiring managers to ensure fairness, transparency, and consistency.