Managed Services – Wintel Engineer

Job Overview

This is a key requirement from an L3 engineer. A solid foundation in Computer Science principles in terms of filesystems, processes, network stack, protocols, etc., is necessary for a candidate to perform as per expectations at a senior position. The candidate is expected to know about all these servers or technologies beforehand along with a quick learning ability.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage Microsoft Servers like Hyper-V, Active Directory, DHCP, DNS, SQL, etc.
• Troubleshoot problems with deployed servers or perform new deployments from scratch. Both troubleshooting and bootstrapping require proper understanding of inter-dependencies between various services.
• Ability to understand client requirements, suggest possible issues with the current setup, present new architectures, and migrate from the existing setup to a new setup with minimum downtime and no loss of data.
• Teamwork and leadership skills are required to work with teams of L1/L2 engineers to prepare them for L3 support activities in the future.
• The task may require travel to different cities for days to a week’s duration to set up infrastructure, participate in meetings and discussions, etc. Later, the ability to support entire infrastructure remotely over VPN, SSH with just shell commands without relying on GUI or direct access is necessary.
• Since root access and passwords or keys of various clients would be with the L3 engineer, they are expected to keep confidential data securely and not disclose any private information to outsiders.
• Maintain documented (e.g., Disaster Recovery) procedures for OS Infrastructure. Collaborate and contribute with team members, software vendors, and other technical staff to develop, design, implement, and continuously improve systems.
• Ability to automate tasks with programming (Shell scripting) or configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet) is preferred.
• Leverage internal technical expertise, including peers, mentors, knowledge base, community forums, and other internal tools, to provide the most effective solutions to customer issues.
• Incident Management: Resolve single and cross-technology incidents independently. Lead the team members to resolve complex or cross-technology incidents.
• Escalation Management: Identify, manage, and lead technical escalations. Participate in formal escalation when required to support escalation, especially during a crisis.
• Problem Management: Proactively and reactively look for solutions to prevent problems from occurring in the team/technology area. Perform trend and root cause analysis.
• Change Management/Implementation: Independently prepare, review, implement, rollback, and test plans for change records. Perform risk and impact analysis for changes. May lead or participate in a Change Advisory Board.
• Patch and Security Management: Apply patch and security changes per policy. Proactively monitor the environment for patch compliance. Analyze patches for compatibility with each customer or internal infrastructure environment.
• Configuration Management: Ensure Configuration Management Database (CMDB) entries are complete and accurate.
• Quality: May provide feedback/influence change in internal and/or vendor-provided products/service offerings.

Technical Skills

• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Windows 2008/2012/2016 Administration: Install, Configure, and Manage.
• Expert knowledge of Virtualization: VMWare, Microsoft System Center, and Hyper-V Administration.
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft troubleshooting skills and tools, including OS Hardening and Vulnerability assessment.
• Knowledge of TCP/IP, DHCP, DNS, and Troubleshooting.
• Proficiency in PowerShell scripting.
• Knowledge of Active Directory group policies.
• Working knowledge of Linux systems and Cloud platforms - Azure and AWS.
• Understanding of Backup technologies.
• Experience with Anti-virus, Compliance/Patch management, and Storage.
• Understanding of Storage technologies.
• Experience supporting enterprise-class Data Centers.
• Hands-on experience with physical server installation.
• Familiarity with development, tools, languages, processes, methods, and troubleshooting of Microsoft Azure-based solutions.
• Familiarity with MS SQL and MySQL (would be an added advantage).
• Knowledge of ITIL processes (Problem, Incident, Change Management).
• Exceptional communication skills.
• Core experience in Windows Performance troubleshooting and optimization.
• Excellent knowledge of Windows components (BIOS, Registry, CPU, Memory, DNS, DHCP, etc.).
• Proficiency in troubleshooting Windows Production Server Performance issues (e.g., Server Crash, No Boot, Memory Leaks, Sluggish Server, Unresponsive Servers).
• Good knowledge of User Mode & Kernel Mode in Windows environments.
• Proficiency in Windows Registry keys and their troubleshooting aspects.
• Ability to troubleshoot no-boot issues in production environments.
• Excellent skills in analyzing and configuring Memory Dumps.
• Good knowledge of Windows Operating System Architecture.
• Strong troubleshooting skills for Windows issues using CMD.
• Good knowledge of SysInternal tools for troubleshooting.
• Expertise in VMware (ESXi, vCenter, vSAN).
• Knowledge of VMware availability technologies such as Site Recovery Manager and vMSC.
• Proficiency in MS Windows Server and Hyper-V.
• Experience with Linux distributions like RHEL, SLES, and CentOS.
• Strong troubleshooting knowledge for Windows Performance issues on Azure and AWS platforms.
• Proficiency in identifying hidden processes causing memory leaks using various tools.
• Perform troubleshooting on Windows Performance issues.
• Troubleshoot complex issues occurring on-premises or virtual servers/machines (Azure/VMware).
• Perform multi-tasking and handle high-volume, complex cases.
• Research complex cases using internal documents and knowledge base to apply fixes for customers.
• Proven experience in designing and implementing solutions on Microsoft Azure.
• Strong knowledge of Azure services, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings.
• Familiarity with Azure security and compliance features.
• Proficiency in scripting languages such as PowerShell and Python for automation.
• Experience with source control systems and CI/CD pipelines.
• Azure certifications (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate or Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert) are a plus.

Qualifications

• BE/ B.Tech/ M.Tech/ MSc/ MCA qualification or equivalent.
• Certification on the latest track of Microsoft.
• ITIL Certified.
• 7-9 years of experience as a System Administrator in Microsoft Wintel Domain.
• Strong scripting skills and experience with automation tools.