Systems Administration Manager in Vernon Hills, Illinois at Blitt and Gaines, P.C.

About Blitt and Gaines, P.C.

Blitt and Gaines, P.C. is a leading debt collection law firm with over 30 years of experience representing most of the nation’s largest financial institutions. With nine offices across Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, our attorneys and support teams deliver high-quality, compliant, and ethical legal services.

At the heart of our firm are people—our clients, our employees, and the partnerships we build. Guided by our philosophy—Collect Compliantly. Litigate Ethically. Lead Effectively. Exceed Expectations. Expect Excellence—we uphold integrity, respect, and fairness in every interaction.

Job Summary:

As the Systems Administration Manager, you will be responsible for the administration, performance, security, and reliability of Blitt and Gaines, P.C.’s systems administration environment. This role combines hands-on systems administration expertise with team leadership, overseeing a team of three Systems Administrators responsible for the firm’s servers, identity platforms, cloud infrastructure, virtualization, VDI, collaboration technologies, and related systems.

You will provide technical leadership for the firm’s hybrid infrastructure environment, including Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Azure, VMware, VDI, SharePoint, and physical server infrastructure. The role will focus on the ongoing administration, maintenance, optimization, and support of these platforms while partnering with the Infrastructure Engineering team for underlying infrastructure architecture, network architecture, and major infrastructure buildouts.

In addition to technical responsibilities, you will lead systems administration projects, establish and maintain standard operating procedures, oversee incident triage and escalation, and ensure the Systems Administration team operates with consistent processes and clear ownership. This is an experienced leadership role requiring a strong balance of hands-on technical knowledge, project management, operational discipline, and team leadership.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, mentor, and provide technical direction to a team of three Systems Administrators.
• Administer and maintain the firm’s Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID environments, including users, groups, authentication, permissions, policies, synchronization, and identity lifecycle management.
• Design, build, configure, and maintain Microsoft Azure infrastructure, including virtual machines, networking, storage, security, monitoring, and related Azure services.
• Develop and maintain a secure and reliable hybrid Active Directory and Entra ID environment, including synchronization and integration between on-premises and cloud identity services.
• Lead the administration and operational management of Azure infrastructure while partnering with the Infrastructure Engineering team on underlying connectivity, network architecture, and major infrastructure buildouts.
• Manage Azure resources throughout their lifecycle, including provisioning, configuration,
• monitoring, security, performance optimization, and decommissioning.
• Administer and maintain the firm’s VMware virtual infrastructure, including virtual machines, resource allocation, templates, snapshots, operating system integration, and lifecycle management.
• Partner with the Infrastructure Engineering team on VMware infrastructure initiatives while maintaining ownership of the systems and workloads operating within the virtualization environment.
• Support and administer the firm’s VDI environment, working with Infrastructure Engineering on underlying platform architecture and capacity requirements.
• Administer and maintain physical server infrastructure, including Dell PowerEdge servers and associated hardware components.
• Monitor system performance, availability, capacity, and health and proactively address potential issues before they impact users or business operations.
• Lead and manage systems administration projects from planning and design through implementation, documentation, and operational handoff.
• Develop project plans, timelines, technical requirements, implementation strategies, and resource requirements for systems-related initiatives.
• Coordinate systems administration projects with Infrastructure Engineering, Development, Data Operations, Information Security, Service Desk, vendors, and business stakeholders.
• Establish, create, and maintain standard operating procedures for systems administration processes, infrastructure management, troubleshooting, and recovery.
• Ensure SOPs and technical documentation remain current and accurately reflect the firm’s systems and operational processes.
• Establish and maintain appropriate incident triage, escalation, and routing procedures for systems-related issues.
• Serve as an escalation point for complex systems administration incidents and coordinate resolution across appropriate technical teams.
• Work with the Infrastructure Engineering team when incidents involve underlying virtualization, networking, storage, or other infrastructure components outside of the Systems Administration team's ownership.
• Analyze recurring incidents and operational issues and implement permanent corrective actions to reduce future occurrences.
• Troubleshoot network connectivity issues involving servers, workstations, Azure resources, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, and other systems infrastructure.
• Administer and support Microsoft SharePoint environments, including site administration, permissions, configuration, and troubleshooting.
• Maintain appropriate security controls across systems infrastructure, including access management, patching, hardening, monitoring, and configuration standards.
• Collaborate with Information Security to identify and remediate vulnerabilities within systems infrastructure.
• Participate in disaster recovery and business continuity planning, testing, and recovery activities.
• Work with Infrastructure Engineering to ensure systems administration requirements are incorporated into infrastructure architecture and implementation decisions.
• Work with vendors and service providers to troubleshoot issues, evaluate solutions, and support systems-related projects.
• Establish and enforce best practices for systems administration, change management, documentation, monitoring, and operational support.
• Identify opportunities to automate systems administration tasks and improve the efficiency, consistency, and reliability of the Systems Administration team.
• Provide technical recommendations to IT leadership regarding systems architecture, cloud adoption, system lifecycle, security, capacity, and future-state technology planning.

Minimum Requirements:

• 7+ years of professional experience in systems administration, systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical field.
• 2+ years of experience leading, supervising, or mentoring technical team members.
• Strong hands-on experience administering Microsoft Active Directory environments.
• Strong experience with Microsoft Entra ID and hybrid Active Directory/Entra environments.
• Strong hands-on experience designing, building, and maintaining Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
• Experience administering Azure virtual machines, networking, storage, identity integrations, monitoring, and security configurations.
• Strong experience administering VMware virtualization environments.
• Experience supporting and administering VDI environments.
• Experience administering physical server infrastructure, preferably Dell PowerEdge hardware.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across Windows Server, Active Directory, Azure, virtualization, networking, and related infrastructure.
• Experience managing technical projects from planning through implementation and operational handoff.
• Experience developing and maintaining technical documentation and standard operating procedures.
• Strong understanding of incident management, triage, escalation, and problem resolution processes.
• Strong understanding of enterprise networking concepts, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, routing, and network troubleshooting.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Effective communication skills with the ability to collaborate across technical teams, business stakeholders, and vendors.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Microsoft Azure certification such as Azure Administrator Associate or Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
• Microsoft certifications related to Active Directory, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, or Windows Server.
• VMware certification or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• Experience managing VDI environments in an enterprise setting.
• Experience with Azure networking, including VNets, subnets, NSGs, VPNs, and hybrid connectivity.
• Experience with Azure monitoring, backup, disaster recovery, and security technologies.
• Experience with Microsoft 365 administration and integration with Azure/Entra ID.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring and alerting platforms.
• Experience with disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
• Experience working in a multi-site or distributed enterprise environment.
• Experience coordinating technical projects across multiple IT teams.
• Experience working within a clearly defined infrastructure engineering and systems administration model.
• ITIL, PMP, or other relevant project or service management certification.

Nice to Haves:

• Familiarity with Collection Master software
• Experience in the litigation or collections industry
• Experience with PowerShell or other scripting and automation technologies.
• Experience administering Microsoft SharePoint Online and/or on-premises SharePoint environments.

Benefits:

Blitt and Gaines, P.C. offers PTO, Paid Holidays, Medical Benefits, Competitive Salary and 401k and profit-sharing plans! Medical Benefits include - Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance and Short-Term Disability.