Infrastructure Engineer

We are seeking an infrastructure engineer with broad experience across various technologies to work in a complex and growing environment with a talented Infrastructure team.

The Infrastructure Engineer is responsible for the support and organization of the Tier 3 Service Desk queue, as well as backup subject matter support in a number of technology areas depending on experience, including telephony, physical and cloud networking, Linux/Windows engineering, AWS and Azure administration.

Reporting to the Sr. Director Infrastructure, this role helps ensure that various Excelsior platforms are secure, reliable, scalable, and aligned with institutional business objectives. The position provides engineering expertise, helps define and implement governance standards, supports automation initiatives, and partners with departments to modernize business processes.

This role is focused on platform engineering, solution architecture, operational excellence, and user enablement within a complex enterprise environment. This position is based out of the university’s home office in Albany, NY with the option of considering remote candidates. Remote employees will have mandatory occasional travel for meetings, conferences, and professional development opportunities. Remote employees are expected to be available during work hours 8:30am – 5:00pm Eastern time. The University will supply necessary equipment to perform the essential functions of this job (e.g., laptop, docking station). Employees are responsible for having a workspace where they can participate in virtual meetings without multiple interruptions and noise.

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Operate and improve cloud and hybrid infrastructure, including compute, storage, networking, telephony, identity, databases, backups, and monitoring. Apply sound administration practices across relevant Windows and Linux systems, virtualization platforms, and cloud services.
• Provision and maintain infrastructure through repeatable automation and infrastructure as code. Develop or maintain scripts, integrations, and event-driven workflows that reduce manual effort, improve consistency, and support safe change.
• Own complex Tier 3 incidents and escalations from triage through resolution.
• Analyze service desk and infrastructure trends to identify recurring incidents, emerging risks, capacity constraints, and noisy alerts.
•  Maintain practical runbooks, knowledge articles, diagrams, configuration records, and change documentation. Improve incident, problem, and change workflows in alignment with ITIL/ITSM practices.
• Protect infrastructure through least-privilege access, secure configuration, patching, vulnerability remediation, backup and recovery practices, and audit-ready change records. Participate in risk reviews and continuity planning.
• Partner with service desk, application, infrastructure/security, and business teams to translate operational pain points into service improvements. Explain technical issues in clear language and share knowledge that raises the effectiveness of other support tiers.

Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field. Equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered., or equivalent work experience. 
• 3+ years of progressive experience in IT infrastructure, systems administration, cloud operations, or a closely related support engineering role; equivalent practical experience may substitute for a degree.
• Experience with a broad range of technologies with operational responsibility in an educational or enterprise environment. Experience should include (but not limited to) the following.
  • Hands-on experience administering cloud or hybrid infrastructure and troubleshooting production services across compute, network, identity, storage, telephony, and monitoring layers.
  • Experience handling complex escalations in a structured service desk or ITSM environment, including incident documentation, root-cause analysis, and follow-through on recurring problems.
  •  Practical scripting or automation experience using a language such as Python, PowerShell, Bash, or Go; ability to read APIs and work with version control.
  • Experience with Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools, single sign-on, and other related technologies.
  • Working knowledge of networking fundamentals, DNS, TCP/IP, access control, system logs, and security practices such as least privilege and change control.
  • Strong written communication, sound incident judgment, and the ability to coordinate work across technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience with AWS or another major cloud platform; Terraform or comparable infrastructure-as-code tools; containers or Kubernetes; and CI/CD automation.
• Experience with observability platforms, log search, alerting, dashboards, and service desk analytics; familiarity with reducing MTTR and alert noise.
• Experience with Helix or comparable ITSM and ticketing platforms, including workflow or reporting improvements.
• Exposure to virtualization, endpoint and asset management, backup/disaster recovery, network security, or regulated environments.

The hiring salary range for this position is $85,000.00 - $90,000.00. The hiring salary range above represents the University's good faith estimate at the time of posting.