System Administrator at Zapata Technology – Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland
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About This Position
Referral Eligible
Salary $85K-$115K
Summary:
Zapata Technology is seeking an experienced System Administrator for an onsite position in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, to support the deployment, configuration, and sustainment of the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). The System Administrator will work directly with users and mission partners to translate operational needs into stable, secure system configurations, manage environments, and ensure system availability and performance. This role requires strong troubleshooting and operational support skills to resolve complex technical issues and maintain mission-critical systems in dynamic environments.
Job Functions:
- vSphere / ESXi Administration: Deep experience managing clusters, hosts, resource pools, DRS/HA, and VM lifecycle operations in enterprise environments.
- vCenter Operations: Skilled in configuring, monitoring, and optimizing vCenter, including performance tuning, capacity planning, and role-based access control
- VMware Networking & Storage: Strong understanding of vSwitches, distributed switches, VLANs, iSCSI/NFS/FC storage, and datastore performance considerations.
- Cluster Design & Scaling: Ability to architect resilient, scalable clusters and optimize workloads for performance and availability.
- Performance Troubleshooting: Skilled at diagnosing CPU ready issues, memory ballooning, storage latency, and network bottlenecks using VMware tools and logs.
- Automation & Templates: Experience creating "gold" images, VM templates, and leveraging automation to standardize deployments.
- Hybrid Cloud Integration Concepts: Understanding of cloud landing zones, hybrid identity, network connectivity (VPN/ExpressRoute/Direct Connect), and workload migration patterns.
- Cloud Offerings: Knowledge of VMware Cloud options, AWS, Azure, or similar platforms to support cloud-based vSphere integration
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Familiarity with Terraform, Ansible, or similar tools as environments move toward cloud native practices.
- Understanding how virtualization supports container platforms, DevOps pipelines, and modern application architectures.
- Strong grasp of routing, switching, firewalls, load balancers, DNS, DHCP, and how they interact with virtualized environments.
- Windows & Linux Administration: Skilled in patching, performance tuning, and troubleshooting across both OS families.
- Skilled at translating technical concepts for leadership, collaborating with security, networking, and application teams.
- Supporting junior admins, leading technical initiatives, and driving best practices across the team.
Job Qualifications:
Qualifications and Skills include:
- 5+ years of experience within the last 8 years administering VMware ESXi, vCenter, and vSphere in enterprise environments.
- Strong knowledge of virtual networking, storage technologies, and performance troubleshooting.
- Experience with backup/DR platforms and enterprise monitoring tools.
- Solid understanding of Windows and Linux server administration.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS) and hybrid cloud concepts
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with VMware Cloud offerings, AWS, Azure,or similar offerings.
- Hands on experience with workload migration tools (HCX, vMotion across environments, cloud migration services).
- Exposure to IaC tools such as Terraform or Ansible.
- Knowledge of container platforms, DevOps practices, or modern application architectures.
Education/Experience include:
- Bachelor’s degree Computer Science, Electronics Engineering or other Engineering or Technical discipline is required.
- 5 years of experience may be substituted for degree.
Working Conditions:
Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
Position Type/Expected Hours of Work:
Full time position
Travel:
Less than 5%
Clearance Type:
Requires an active TS/SCI.
Equal Opportunity Employer Disabled/Veteran
Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or protected veteran status.
Zapata Technology, Inc. provides reasonable accommodation to applicants who are veterans or who have disabilities and are unable to fully use our company application system. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, please notify Christina Hall, EEO Coordinator at ChristinaHall@ZapataTechnology.com