Senior Infrastructure Engineer

University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Job Profile Title

Systems Administrator Senior

Job Description Summary

The Senior Infrastructure Engineer is responsible for engineering, operating, and advancing enterprise infrastructure services across backup and data protection, enterprise storage, and virtual server hosting. The primary focus of the position is backup and data protection, serving as a senior engineer for the University’s enterprise backup service and providing technical depth and coverage for the current service lead. The role designs, implements, administers, troubleshoots, and optimizes resilient backup and recovery platforms, with Cohesity experience preferred and experience with Veeam, Rubrik, or other leading enterprise backup technologies highly desirable. The position also contributes to enterprise storage services, including NetApp and comparable storage technologies, and to virtual server hosting, including VMware and Nutanix environments. The engineer is expected to work independently on complex infrastructure problems, improve automation and operational standards, support disaster recovery and cyber-recovery objectives, and collaborate across infrastructure, networking, cloud, cybersecurity, and application teams to deliver secure, reliable, and recoverable University services.

Job Description

Job Responsibilities:

• Engineer, operate, maintain, and advance enterprise backup, data protection, storage, and virtual server infrastructure services.
• Serve as a senior engineer for the University’s enterprise backup and data protection service, providing technical depth and coverage for the service lead.
• Design, implement, administer, troubleshoot, optimize, and lifecycle-manage enterprise backup and recovery platforms, with primary emphasis on Cohesity and comparable technologies such as Veeam and Rubrik.
• Develop and maintain backup policies, retention strategies, recovery procedures, and data protection standards aligned with University requirements.
• Support and improve disaster recovery, cyber-recovery, data resiliency, and recoverability capabilities, including regular validation and testing of recovery processes.
• Monitor and optimize backup infrastructure for performance, capacity, reliability, availability, and successful recoverability.
• Lead troubleshooting and root-cause analysis of complex backup and infrastructure issues, including problems spanning storage, virtualization, networking, operating systems, and applications.
• Engineer and support enterprise storage services, including NetApp and comparable storage technologies.
• Perform storage provisioning, capacity planning, performance analysis, upgrades, lifecycle management, and troubleshooting.
• Provide engineering support for virtual server hosting environments, including VMware and Nutanix platforms.
• Develop and improve automation, monitoring, documentation, operational procedures, and engineering standards to increase service reliability and operational efficiency.
• Participate in infrastructure architecture, technology evaluations, platform migrations, upgrades, hardware refreshes, and strategic modernization initiatives.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, networking, cloud, cybersecurity, application, and other technical teams to deliver secure, reliable, resilient, and recoverable services.
• Work independently on complex technical initiatives and escalated infrastructure problems, providing senior-level technical analysis and recommendations.
• Provide technical mentorship and knowledge transfer to other engineers and administrators, helping strengthen team coverage and operational continuity.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, and a 3 to 5 years of progressively responsible experience supporting enterprise infrastructure environments, or an equivalent combination of education, training, and relevant professional experience is required. 10 years of experience is preferred.
• Extensive experience engineering and supporting enterprise backup and data protection technologies, preferably Cohesity, with experience in Veeam, Rubrik, or comparable enterprise backup platforms highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience with enterprise storage technologies, preferably NetApp, including storage provisioning, performance, capacity management, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management.
• Experience supporting enterprise virtualization platforms, including VMware and/or Nutanix AHV.
• Strong knowledge of backup architecture, recovery strategies, retention policies, disaster recovery, cyber recovery, and data resiliency principles.
• Demonstrated ability to design, implement, troubleshoot, and optimize complex enterprise infrastructure systems rather than solely perform routine administration.
• Experience troubleshooting complex issues across backup, storage, virtualization, networking, operating systems, and application infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of enterprise infrastructure security, availability, monitoring, capacity planning, and operational best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, lead complex technical initiatives, and provide senior-level technical guidance and mentorship.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical concepts effectively with technical teams, vendors, leadership, and service stakeholders.
• Experience working in large, complex enterprise environments; higher education, healthcare, research, or similarly decentralized environments is desirable.

Job Location - City, State

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

About Information Systems & Computing:

Information Systems & Computing (ISC) is the University of Pennsylvania’s central IT organization, providing the core network, data, voice, video, and enterprise application infrastructure and services upon which Penn’s numerous Schools and Centers build their unique tools and capabilities.

 

ISC’s 300-plus employees work closely with the University’s IT organizations in order to create, deliver and support products and services that help Schools and Centers operate efficiently and effectively. We strive to be easy to work with, and to serve as a trusted advisor to Penn’s IT community, faculty, staff and students in support of an environment of discovery and progress.

 

ISC’s focus on customer service and the high-quality, cost-effective, reliable implementation of modern IT solutions advances the mission of the University, as well as that of each individual School and Center. At Penn, technological freedom and departmental autonomy represent dearly held core values. ISC supports those ideas by providing foundational services and cogent counsel, empowering individuals and departments to employ their distinct strengths in support of their goals.

 

Learn more about us by visiting: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/about or www.linkedin.com/company/penn-information-systems-computing/.

Department / School

Information Systems and Computing

Pay Range

$84,961.00 - $125,000.00 Annual Rate

Salary offers are made based on the candidate’s qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, and in alignment with salary ranges based on external market data for the job’s level. Internal organization and peer data at Penn are also considered.

Equal Opportunity Statement 

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

Special Requirements 
Background checks may be required after a conditional job offer is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University Benefits

• Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family’s health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.

• Tuition: Take advantage of Penn's exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.

• Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you save for your future. Penn’s Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis. Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.

• Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family—whatever your personal needs may be.

• Long-Term Care Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you apply when you’re newly hired, you won’t have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.

• Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That’s why we offer a wide variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.

• Professional and Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and professionally.

• University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University’s libraries and athletic facilities, or visit our arboretum and art galleries. There’s always something going on at Penn, whether it’s a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn community, you’re right in the middle of the excitement—and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for free.

• Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you'll find great deals for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors, cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.

• Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.

• Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home improvements.

• Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.

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To learn more, please visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay