Systems Administrator / Network Administrator

The Florida Senate Information Technology Office (Senate IT) is seeking an experienced and motivated Systems Administrator to join our dynamic and fast-paced team. We are a forward-thinking IT organization leading with innovation and committed to supporting the needs of our legislative stakeholders. This is an excellent opportunity for IT professionals who are passionate about infrastructure, virtualization, cloud technologies, and DevOps practices.

We are primarily a Microsoft environment, so experience with Microsoft Servers and Services is highly valued. Experience with virtualization platforms such as VMware, Hyper-V, or cloud-based virtualization solutions (e.g., Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud) is strongly preferred. DevOps skills for managing and automating infrastructure are also highly desirable., * Strong experience installing, supporting, maintaining, and monitoring server and storage systems, both on-premises and in the cloud.

• Proficient in ensuring server, network, and storage systems remain up-to-date with patches/security updates and meet organizational standards.
• Ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues across servers, connectivity, networking, virtualization, IIS web applications, APIs, security, and directory services, using logs, health checks, and evidence-based fault isolation.
• Experience troubleshooting IIS applications, including application pools, bindings, certificates, configuration, HTTP status codes, logs, and backend dependencies.
• Experience troubleshooting APIs and service integrations, including endpoint health, authentication, authorization, timeouts, TLS, DNS, connectivity, dependency failures, and response analysis.
• Proficiency with PowerShell or similar automation tools for repeatable diagnostics, environment validation, reporting, and operational runbooks in complex enterprise environments.
• Hands-on experience with virtualization technologies (e.g., VMware, Hyper-V) and associated hardware components.
• Familiarity with configuration management tools and practices for automating and securing infrastructure.
• Experience supporting software deployments, including commercial and internally developed applications.
• Ability to analyze requirements and modify or develop specifications based on user or system needs.
• Knowledge of redundancy and failover strategies, including hardware load balancing and Windows Server clustering.
• Capable of evaluating hardware/software issues and recommending effective solutions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong planning, analytical, and organizational skills with the ability to develop and document processes and procedures.
• Willingness to work after hours and weekends when necessary.

Preferred Experience:

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) & Virtualization:

• Hands-on experience with VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, or other HCI platforms (e.g., Azure Stack HCI, Nutanix, etc..)
• Knowledge of storage clustering, SAN/NAS/ISCSI management, and high-availability virtualization design
• Familiarity with cloud-based virtualization technologies (Azure, AWS, or GCP)

Virtualization, Disaster Recovery & Backup: Experience with HPE VM Essentials or similar KVM-based virtualization platforms; coordination with a DR provider using VMware Cloud Director (VCD) and Zerto; and Veeam backup, restore, replication, and recovery validation.

Core Microsoft Infrastructure:

• Configuring and supporting SQL Server Always On Availability Groups
• Windows Server Failover Clustering and general HA/DR concepts, for other related services and its preferred configuration
• Understanding of Exchange, Active Directory (on-prem and Azure AD), Group Policy, and DNS/DHCP

Automation & Scripting:

• Proficient with PowerShell for systems management, reporting, and task automation
• Familiar with infrastructure as code or DevOps workflows (e.g., version control, CI/CD, config management)

Enterprise Tools & Networking:

• Experience with F5 BIG-IP (LTM/traffic management), IIS in an enterprise environment
• Comfortable managing vendor relationships and coordinating external support

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in computer science, management information systems, business administration, or engineering and three (5) years of progressively responsible information systems experience.

Note: Relevant IT work experience may substitute for the required college education on a year-for-year basis.

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: Competitive starting salary commensurate with qualifications and experience., * 401(k)

• Dental insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Employee discount
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Retirement plan
• Tuition reimbursement