Staff Systems Administrator (5996)

Shield AI is seeking a highly autonomous Staff Systems Administrator to serve as the accountable technical owner for enterprise IT infrastructure and end-user computing within a dedicated, security-sensitive entity environment. This senior individual contributor will design, implement, operate, secure, and continuously improve on-premises systems, cloud platforms, identity services, networks, and endpoints while preserving required legal, operational, information-security, and access boundaries.

The role combines deep infrastructure ownership with hands-on service delivery. The successful candidate will translate security and compliance requirements into durable technical controls, maintain audit-ready evidence, drive equipment and endpoint hardening, and deliver resilient support to engineering and business teams with minimal oversight.

Infrastructure Ownership (On-Prem & Cloud)

12+ years of experience in systems administration, infrastructure engineering, enterprise IT operations, or a closely related discipline.

Demonstrated success independently owning production IT infrastructure and end-user environments in a complex, regulated, segmented, or security-sensitive organization.

Strong hands-on expertise with Windows, macOS, and Linux; server administration and virtualization; Azure and/or AWS; and Active Directory and Entra ID or equivalent identity platforms.

Practical experience implementing system and endpoint hardening, configuration baselines, patch management, vulnerability remediation, encryption, endpoint detection and response, and least-privilege controls.

Experience supporting security or compliance programs and producing evidence for audits, assessments, or customer and regulatory requirements.

Strong networking knowledge, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, routing, VPNs, network segmentation, firewall policy, and secure remote access.

Experience with endpoint management platforms such as Intune, Jamf, or equivalent, including compliance policy and device lifecycle management.

Experience implementing and testing monitoring, backup, disaster recovery, and business-continuity capabilities.

Excellent documentation, prioritization, risk communication, and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to drive outcomes under limited supervision.

Ability to support time-sensitive operational needs and participate in planned after-hours maintenance or incident response when required.

Experience supporting a firewalled, ring-fenced, subsidiary, joint-venture, sovereign, or otherwise separately governed entity environment.

Experience supporting engineering, R&D, aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or other mission-critical technical teams.

Working knowledge of recognized security and compliance frameworks such as CIS Controls and Benchmarks, NIST, ISO 27001, SOC 2, Cyber Essentials, or equivalent local and contractual standards.

Experience with security tooling such as SIEM, vulnerability-management platforms, privileged-access management, data-loss prevention, certificate management, or network-access control.

Experience supporting isolated, air-gapped, export-controlled, or data-residency-restricted systems.

Scripting and automation experience using PowerShell, Bash, Python, APIs, infrastructure as code, or configuration-management tooling.

Familiarity with GitHub, Azure DevOps, CI/CD environments, and secure engineering workflows.

Relevant certifications such as Microsoft, AWS, VMware, Cisco, CompTIA Security+, CISSP, CISM, GIAC, ITIL, or equivalent.