Junior Systems Administrator

Jumping Rivers is hiring!

About

Jumping Rivers is an analytics company whose passion is data and machine learning. We help our clients move from data storage to data insights.

The company has three key strands: training, data engineering and machine learning consultancy.

We are based in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the Catalyst Building - home to the National Innovation Centre for Data. But half the company is remote. We trust our team to manage their own time. If you want to go for a run in the afternoon and work later, that's fine with us!

If you are based near Newcastle, then you can come into our office.

Benefits

  • Private medical insurance, including dental and optical cover
  • 25 days holiday + statutory holidays
  • Two additional holidays after three years
  • Flexibily holidays; statutory holiday days can be treated as standard holidays.
  • Additional employer pension contribution
  • * Up to £1,000 on the cycle to work scheme
  • Opportunities to attend and present at conferences

We embrace flexibility and remote working. If you want to take Friday afternoon off and work the next day. That's fine. We even allow you to be flexible with Bank holidays. If you want to work on Bank holiday and use that day some other time; that's also fine!

Job Description

We are seeking a motivated Junior Systems Administrator to join our growing Systems Administration Team. In this role, you will be responsible for providing front-line technical support to our clients, assisting with Linux based systems, systems and infrastructure. You will troubleshoot issues, perform routine maintenance, and support deployment and configuration tasks for relevant internal and external projects under the guidance of the Principal Systems Engineer where skills match the requirements.

The position is ideal for someone with a solid foundation in Linux system administration and a passion for solving technical problems in a customer-facing environment.

Location: UK Wide but preferably based in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Frontline Support (50%)

  • Serve as the first line of support for client-reported issues related to the Linux based systems, hosting environments, and related infrastructure.

  • Monitor system performance, uptime, and resource utilisation, diagnosing systems and issues

  • Assist in configuring, and maintaining Linux based servers (Ubuntu, RedHat)

  • Perform basic system administration tasks including user management, package installation, backup verification and log analysis.

  • Escalate complex technical issues to Senior System Administrators / System Engineers as needed

  • Maintain accurate documentation of issues, resolutions, and system changes.

  • Support network troubleshooting (DNS, SSH, Firewalls etc.) and basic security hardening.

  • Acceptance testing

  • Assisting internal colleagues with IT queries

Maintenance (40%)

  • System updates internally and for clients

  • Internal systems maintenance including employee hardware

Project delivery (10%)

  • Working on assigned tasks per project priorities

  • Actively participate in code review

  • Ensuring worked issues/tasks are always up to date on status & estimates

  • Engaging with stakeholders to escalate issues and discuss solutions

  • Identifying and escalating creeping scope to project leadership & project control

  • Identifying and escalating the increasing complexity of an issue to project leadership & project control

Preferred Experience

Required:

  • Minimum of 1 year experience in a hand-on technical support role

  • Basic familiarity with deploying resources into Cloud platforms (Azure or AWS) or virtualisation (Proxmox, VMWare, KVM)

  • Basic experience with infrastructure as code, e.g., Terraform / CloudFormation / Ansible / Puppet / Docker

  • Managing Linux operating systems 

  • Experience with ticketing systems and customer support workflows.

  • Good communication skills internally and with clients

  • Ability to work autonomously and as part of a team

Desirable:

  • Usage of git for collaboration on code

  • Terraform / Ansible specifically

  • Ubuntu / RedHat specifically

  • Using and managing Kubernetes

  • GitLab and GitLab CI job configuration

  • NFS file share configuration

  • Authentication experience

  • Front-line support

  • Network and firewall configuration

  • Posit Products, R and Python testing and package management

Recruitment Process

1st stage video call

2nd stage video call

Additional Information

  • Contract Type: Full-Time
  • Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne
  • Possible full remote