Systems Engineer II

Ontela is seeking a Systems Engineer who will own responsibility for our corporate and production infrastructures.  This is a critical position to the growth and stability of our infrastructure.  We’re small, so you’ll be on point for an enormous variety of things and have opportunities to grow and hone your skills in many ways.  You will have an opportunity to make sure things are done right from the start in many different areas.  You will work closely with just about everyone at Ontela.

ABOUT ONTELA

Ontela is building software to wirelessly connect camera phones to digital imaging software and services.  We’re fast-paced, product-focused, and team-based.  Our offices are in historic Pioneer Square, in the spectacular Smith Tower, and surrounded by fantastic coffee shops, gelaterias, and restaurants.   We offer competitive compensation (salary, equity, and great benefits), and we’re small enough that your role will be critical in the success in our company.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

This is a crucial position with responsibilities covering key aspects of our business.   While we are looking for a true expert in a particular technology (Windows systems engineering), we want you to be a generalist who’s worked with many technologies before, and who’s willing to learn new ones.

Responsibilities

• Build out and maintain hardware, network, and systems infrastructure for Production, Development, Test, and Corporate  IT systems

• Assist in vendor and production selection for key infrastructure elements, including data center facilities, network, servers, desktops, component

• Conduct Ontela server application upgrades of the Ontela service in Production and Test environments

• Monitor the health of the Ontela service

• Monitor the success of recurring jobs, such as backup, virus scans, etc., for all environments

• Provide feedback to the software development teams and product managers about usability of the Ontela server application from an administrator’s perspective

• Handle support tickets as assigned, both for internal and customer-facing issues, with a high degree of customer-friendly service

• Continually improve key parts of our service infrastructure to improve your efficiency and service quality, e.g., by adding monitors and alerts

• Assist in defining key processes to ensure that we are meeting industry best practices in terms of change management, security, problem management, etc.

• Provide responsive pager support for our Production and Test environments

• Perform duties as assigned by manager

Desired Skills and Experience

Product Experience

• Windows 2003/2008 Server and IIS administration (5+ years)

• Experience in at least one scripting technology such as WSH, VBScript, JScript or Python (2+ years)

• SQL Server 2005 administration (deployment, administration, scripting, backup and recovery) (2+ years)

• Exchange Server 2007 administration (1+ years)

• VMware or other virtualization technology (deployment, administration, backup and recovery) (1+ years)

• SAN, NAS, or other mass storage systems experience is a plus

Environment Experience

• Experience deploying and/or supporting a 24x7x365 off-site production data center (5+ years)

• Experience working in a corporate IT environment supporting 40+ customers (1+ years)

• Knowledge of industry best practices and methodologies such as ITIL and MOF

• Solid understanding of SDLC and development methodologies

• Experience working in a software development company (1+ years)

• Outstanding communication skills, including both written and verbal

Key Success Factors for the Job

• Passion for the customer  - undying drive to deliver easy to use, high quality service.  Impeccable attitude toward customer service.

• Team commitment – do what it takes to help the company succeed, and do it in a way that is healthy and respectful.  (No jerks need apply!)

• Self-management – take the initiative, assume responsibility, demonstrate a tremendous work ethic, work with others to arrive at ways to get things done, ability to juggle multiple projects and priorities.

• Continuous improvement mindset –improve the way our service operates in the most cost-effective way possible.  Frugality is a key part of this mindset; so is doing small things every day to make things better.

• Goal-orientation – get complete satisfaction from setting and meeting objectives of the team and the business… while maintaining high standards about what constitutes success.

• Flexibility –step outside predefined roles for the success of the business; willingness to learn new techniques and technologies to solve problems; high tolerance for ambiguity; remain sane in a continually evolving environment.

• Intelligence – grasp difficult concepts easily, cope with new problems, and apply reasoning and inference effectively.  Excellent problem-solving, using methodical / analytical approaches to resolve issues.

• Creativity – find novel ways to solve problems; honor and encourage others to do the same

Educational Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree preferred

• MCSE certification (Windows 2003 track or later)

• CCNA certification completed or in progress is a plus

Other Notes

• As with all systems engineering jobs, there are off-hours work requirements.

Ontela is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

If this sounds like what you’re looking for, we want to hear from you!  Please send a cover email and resume to jobs@ontela.com.