Linux System Administrator

Reporting to the IT Linux Team Lead, the Senior Linux System Administrator acts as the senior technical member of the Linux System Administration team. They provide an escalation point for more junior team members and for the IT Service Desk, and act as the primary technical reference point for automation, scripting, and infrastructure standards.

In addition to performing routine maintenance, 3rd line technical support, and project work, the postholder will play a key role in the Linux estate's ongoing modernisation: leading OS lifecycle projects, driving Ansible adoption across managed servers, reducing technical debt in scripting and automation, and providing informal day-to-day technical mentorship to junior members of the team., Reporting to the Linux Team Lead, the Senior Linux System Administrator will be responsible for providing 3rdline IT support to the JD business - including detection, recording, analysis, and resolution of incidents received via phone, email, and intranet, both from 1st and 2nd line teams and directly from the wider business.

They will lead technical improvement initiatives within the Linux estate, including OS migration from legacy distributions to AlmaLinux 9, expanding configuration management coverage through Ansible, and systematically reducing inherited technical debt across scripts, packages, and infrastructure. They will provide informal technical mentorship to junior members of the team and act as a technical authority on scripting standards and automation practices.

They will guide the Linux System Administration team on, and themselves perform, server installation, script and automation development, RPM packaging, testing, and patching, under the direction of the Linux Team Lead.

5. Responsibilities

Support and escalation

• Own customer issues and drive through to resolution
• Act as an escalation point for technical queries from the rest of the team and provide training as required
• Respond to support enquiries from the business and help resolve hardware and/or software problems
• Maintain a high degree of customer service for all queries and adhere to all service management principles
• Liaise and work with other JD technical teams as required
• Liaise with third-party technical support teams when necessary
• Deputise for the IT Linux Team Lead at meetings when the need arises

Modernisation and improvement

• Lead OS lifecycle projects: plan, test, and execute major version upgrades across the estate (CentOS / RHEL * AlmaLinux 9)
• Identify, prioritise, and drive technical debt eradication within scripts, packaging, and configuration
• Expand and maintain Ansible playbooks across the estate, establishing standards for configuration management
• Peer review automation scripts, Ansible roles, and RPM packaging work from junior team members
• Provide informal technical mentorship and day-to-day guidance to junior Linux administrators
• Proactively identify areas for improvement and drive through to implementation
• Lead development in continual service improvement, project work, and support tooling

Infrastructure and security

• Manage Linux VM provisioning, configuration, and lifecycle in vSphere/VMware
• Administer and extend Zabbix monitoring; contribute to Grafana dashboards and alerting
• Lead and assist with implementation of internal security processes
• Lead and assist with internal patch management processes
• Monitor Change Requests presented to the IT CAB and highlight any Linux-related concerns
• Maintain awareness of container tooling (Docker/Podman) for test and tooling environments

Process and governance

• Establish and maintain effective relationships with business users and group IT teams
• Document working procedures and store within the knowledge management database
• Assist ITIL managers in the development and maintenance of IT support processes
• Provide input into root cause analysis documents (RCA)
• Input into weekly team reports; complete weekly management reports when the Linux Team Lead is unavailable

• 5+ years working in a service support environment with exposure to ITIL processes
• Production server administration experience with RHEL 8/9 and AlmaLinux 9, including experience leading major OS version migrations
• Python scripting - primary language for new automation development
• Perl - reading and maintaining legacy scripts in a production environment
• Ansible - authoring and maintaining playbooks and roles in a production environment
• Subversion (SVN) - day-to-day version control, branching, and patch management
• RPM packaging - build, version, and deploy custom packages
• vSphere/VMware - VM provisioning, lifecycle management, and troubleshooting
• Zabbix - monitoring configuration, alerting, and maintenance in a production environment
• Bash scripting and associated tools such as sed, awk, sort, uniq
• Experience of working in an ITIL environment, understanding how end-to-end processes work across the organisation
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to effectively identify issues, log, and communicate to other personnel
• Ability to work well under pressure, ensuring a structured approach is maintained at all times

Preferable

• Git - working knowledge; experience contributing to SVN-to-Git migrations a plus
• Docker or Podman - image build, container runtime troubleshooting
• Grafana - dashboard creation and alerting configuration
• Privileged access management tooling - CyberArk or equivalent (training provided internally)
• Experience mentoring or providing informal technical leadership to junior team members
• Experience in a retail environment
• Experience of application support teams (1st, 2nd, and 3rd line)
• Ability to demonstrate both business and IT benefits where appropriate, * Incident diagnosis and problem solving within an IT environment
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and negotiation skills, both verbal and written
• Ability to plan, coordinate, and prioritise different activities
• Ability to liaise with and relate to a broad spectrum of individuals
• Strong customer service ethos with a can-do mentality
• Good understanding of networking
• Comfortable playing a key role within a team environment
• Flexible approach to the provision of support services to a dynamic, growing business
• Ansible configuration management - can write, review, and maintain production playbooks and roles
• Systematic approach to technical debt: can identify, prioritise, and safely reduce it without breaking existing behaviour
• Peer review and constructive feedback - can critique scripts and automation to a defined standard
• Monitoring and observability mindset - treats visibility as a first-class concern
• Strong desire to learn new skills and keep pace with a modernising estate

Preferable

• Familiarity with container tooling (Docker/Podman)
• Experience with AI-assisted tooling in an operational or automation context
• Understanding of business drivers and ability to frame technical work in terms of tangible and intangible benefits

JD Sports Fashion Plc is the leading UK specialised retailer of fashionable branded and own-brand sports and casual wear. The group operates over 3,000 stores globally across multiple fascias and continues to grow. We invest in our people and provide the knowledge and training needed to fulfil challenging and rewarding careers. Our workforce is built on motivated self-starters and we encourage our people to constantly seek ways to improve our business. This means challenging the way we operate, sell, and manage infrastructure - being creative and forward thinking in suggesting and delivering alternative solutions. Problems are solved and opportunities seized by people from all levels of the organisation, working together.