Sr. Systems Engineer-IBM i, AIX, Storage, and Backup

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Systems Engineer to support IBM i, AIX, storage, backup, and high availability environments. This role is responsible for maintaining, monitoring, and supporting IBM Power Systems and related infrastructure while serving as a technical liaison between IT Infrastructure, Service Delivery, and Sales teams. The ideal candidate will provide expert guidance on implementation strategy, solution supportability, operational readiness, and long-term infrastructure reliability., * Maintain, monitor, and support IBM Power Systems, IBM i, AIX, storage, backup, and related data center infrastructure.

• Serve as a technical liaison between IT Infrastructure, Service Delivery, and Sales teams to evaluate upcoming implementations and confirm ongoing solution supportability.
• Monitor infrastructure security, identify risks or gaps, and provide recommendations to improve security posture and operational resilience.
• Install, configure, and manage IBM Power Systems high availability solutions, including PowerHA, MIMIX, host-based replication products, and SAN replication technologies.
• Provide after-hours support for infrastructure emergencies, scheduled maintenance, upgrades, and critical incident response.
• Develop and maintain accurate technical documentation, including project plans, operating procedures, runbooks, network diagrams, and scopes of work.
• Perform other related duties as assigned by management.

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, or a related field; equivalent experience may be considered.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience supporting IBM Power Systems environments.
• Strong experience with IBM i and VIOS installation, administration, configuration, maintenance, and upgrades.
• Experience installing, configuring, and managing high availability solutions such as MIMIX, PowerHA, SAN replication, and related technologies.
• Ability to work independently with limited supervision while also collaborating effectively within a team environment.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Detail-oriented, organized, and proactive, with strong follow-through and time-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize competing demands in a fast-paced technical environment.
• Strong work ethic and commitment to teamwork, accountability, and high-quality service delivery.

Required Skills & Competencies:

1. Core Operating Systems Expertise

IBM i (formerly AS/400, iSeries)

• System Administration: Advanced administration of IBM i operating system versions, including PTF management, system sizing, performance monitoring, and hardware upgrade planning.
• Work Management: Deep knowledge of subsystems, job queues, user profiles, class objects, and system values optimization.
• Security & Compliance: Experience hardening operating system security, managing object authority, implementing audit controls, and supporting compliance requirements such as SOX and PCI-DSS.
• Database Integration: Working knowledge of Db2 for i, SQL-based performance analysis, journaling, and commitment control.

IBM AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive)

• OS Administration: Full-lifecycle administration of AIX environments, including NIM-based installation, patching, Technology Level upgrades, configuration, and operating system hardening.
• Storage & Volume Management: Advanced proficiency with LVM, including management of physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes, and JFS2 file systems.
• Performance Monitoring & Tuning: Expert use of diagnostic tools such as NMON, topas, vmstat, iostat, and sar to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.

2. Hardware and Virtualization (IBM Power Systems)

• IBM Power Hardware: Comprehensive experience with enterprise IBM Power Systems and related hardware components.

• HMC: Senior-level proficiency managing Hardware Management Console environments, including creation, configuration, and dynamic allocation of LPAR resources for CPU, memory, and I/O.

• PowerVM: In-depth understanding of IBM Power virtualization technologies, including VIOS, NPIV, vSCSI, and Live Partition Mobility.

• VIOS (Virtual I/O Server): Configuration, tuning, and maintenance of dual/redundant VIOS environments.
• NPIV (N-Port ID Virtualization) & vSCSI: Fiber Channel mapping to LPARs.
• LPM (Live Partition Mobility): Seamless migration of active partitions between physical hosts.

• High Availability: Experience managing enterprise clustering and high availability environments, including PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX and IBM i.

3. Storage and SAN Infrastructure

• Enterprise Storage Arrays: Experience with architecture, zoning, provisioning, and replication for enterprise storage platforms, including IBM FlashSystem, SAN Volume Controller, Dell EMC, and NetApp technologies.
• SAN Switches & Fabric: Ability to design and manage Fibre Channel networks, administer Brocade or Cisco MDS fabrics
• Storage Optimization: Experience managing storage pools, thin provisioning, deduplication, replication, and flash copy technologies.

4. Enterprise Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR)

• IBM Native Utilities: Advanced experience with native backup and recovery utilities, including mksysb and savevg for AIX and full system saves for IBM i.
• IBM BRMS: Experience architecting and managing BRMS policy configuration, media management, automation, and daily operational processes.
• Hardware Data Protection: Administration of physical and virtual tape libraries, enterprise tape systems, and SAN-level replication technologies such as Global Mirror and Metro Mirror.
• Disaster Recovery Testing: Design, maintain, and execute disaster recovery and bare-metal restore plans that support defined recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives.

5. Automation and Soft Skills

• Automation/Scripting: Proficiency writing operational scripts to streamline routine tasks using KornShell, Bash, Perl, or Python. Experience with configuration management tools such as Ansible for IBM Power environments is preferred.
• ITIL Framework: Working knowledge of ITIL service management practices, particularly incident, problem, and change management using tools such as ServiceNow or Jira.
• Mentorship & Collaboration: Ability to serve as a senior technical escalation resource, create clear documentation and runbooks, and mentor junior administrators.

CloudFirst is a leading managed cloud, cybersecurity, and infrastructure services provider focused on helping midsize enterprises modernize operations, improve resiliency, and accelerate business growth. The company delivers secure, scalable, and compliant IT solutions that allow organizations to focus on innovation while CloudFirst manages mission-critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and operational performance. With deep expertise across cloud infrastructure, managed services, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and compliance, CloudFirst partners with clients across industries including manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, legal, transportation, hospitality, utilities, construction, and government. CloudFirst's mission is to protect and optimize customer operations, data, and business continuity. The company is committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences through responsive engineering support, operational excellence, and strategic technology partnerships., Will-Do Attitude: We approach challenges with ownership, urgency, and a commitment to delivering value for our clients. Collaboration: We work as one team, supporting each other with responsiveness, accountability, and shared purpose.