Ottawa (Downtown), ON, CA
Senior System Administrator, Virtual Machines
Take a central role
The Bank of Canada has a vision to be a leading central bank—dynamic, engaged and trusted—committed to a better Canada. No other employer in the country offers you the unique opportunity to work at the very center of Canada’s economy, in an organization with significant impact on the economic and financial well-being of all Canadians. You will be challenged, energized and motivated to excel in our environment.
Building on the principles that have always guided us – excellence, integrity and respect – we strive to be forward-looking and innovative, to welcome people with diverse perspectives and talents, and to earn trust by living up to our commitments and by clearly explaining the intent of our policies and actions.
With our defined-benefit pension plan, benefits, and high flexibility for work life balance - find out more about why we are annually ranked as one of Canada's top employers: Working Here - Bank of Canada
Find out more about the next steps in our Recruitment process.
What’s new
DevOps is about transforming the functional work experience between development and operations teams by breaking down silos between two traditionally separate roles. We are currently seeking candidates for our multi-disciplinary team within the Core Technology Services (CTS) portfolio.
The focus for this role is providing technology support for our IT Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) technology offerings, both on-premises and in public cloud.
What you will do
As a Senior Systems Administrator, Virtual Machines in the Automation Tools and Compute Services team, you will be supporting the technologies that make up the Bank’s IaaS hosting platforms.
Our mandate is to be responsible custodians of the Bank’s IaaS capabilities, making them easily consumable for the entire IT organization.
We offer opportunities for close collaboration with multidisciplinary colleagues, inside and outside of the team. We reward experimentation, and we drive the change of how we do our IT business.
You will be working and learning alongside infrastructure developers that have already begun breaking down barriers and preconceptions of what it means to “operate” IT infrastructure through code (IaC). Your role is to share and apply your expertise and experience, delivering value through every sprint.
Join us and take your career to the next level. Acquire a new generation of IT skills that are sought after and highly prized. Consider this opportunity as investing in yourself.
What you need to succeed
You have a strong IT infrastructure background, and a history demonstrating strong technical skills. You are a self-starter with the ability to quickly grasp the essence of complex issues. As an effective communicator, you clearly convey key points in a style appropriate to a variety of audiences.
You are bright, self-motivated, and independent, requiring little supervision. You will actively contribute to creating positive team dynamics by engaging in productive and respectful conversations, helping team members who may be struggling and having a positive attitude towards the team's goals.
The successful candidate has experience:
Providing expert technical operations management support for on-premises IaaS virtual infrastructure technologies, specifically, either Microsoft Azure Stack (recently rebranded Azure Local) and/or RedHat Openshift Virtualization:
- Configuring real-time/continuous health monitoring on supported technologies
- Resolving incidents and problems related to supported technologies and integrations within SLA specifications
- Executing configuration management changes as necessary on supported technologies
- Executing standardized request fulfilment within SLA specifications while identify opportunities to promote task automation by recommending design and implementing features, always ensuring proper testing, and maintaining documentation or release notes
- Applying and maintaining adequate cybersecurity controls on supported technologies
- Applying and maintaining adequate resiliency controls, including the creation and validation of IT Disaster Recovery plans
- Planning and performing technology upgrades/updates/patching ensuring compliance with vendor provided compatibility matrices, and to maintain required cybersecurity controls
- Planning and performing technology capacity management, and help maintain operational budgets, by producing licensing and usage forecasts
- Responding to audit requests (i.e.: ad hoc reporting)
- Performing supported technology functional testing and health checks during change, incident and other activities performed by other teams, as required
- In depth knowledge of the public cloud counterparts of the above, namely, Azure IaaS and Azure RedHat OpenShift (ARO)
- Participating in an on-call 24x7 rotation, as required
- Working with Agile / DevOps principles and tools (e.g.: Jira, scrum, etc.) for test-driven development, continuous integration, and other approaches to accelerate the delivery of new features
- Showing a passion for collaboration / sharing / coaching with colleagues
Nice-to-Haves
- VMware vSphere 7.x/8.x (VSAN and NSX-T), VMware SRM, EMC RP4VM
- Any related professional designations
- Ability to communicate effectively in both official languages
- Experience with programming and/or scripting, e.g.: YAML, Python, Powershell, Javascript or working knowledge in at least one object-oriented programming language (e.g.: Java, C, C#, C++)
Your education and experience
Your combined education and work experience demonstrate that you are effective at learning and applying new skills.
What you need to know
- Language requirement: English or French essential
- Priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents
- Security level required: Be eligible to obtain Secret
- Relocation assistance may be provided, if required
- Please save a copy of the job poster. Once the closing date has passed, it will no longer be available.
Hybrid Work Model
The Bank offers work arrangements that provide employees with flexibility, enable high-performing teams, and support an excellent workplace culture. Most employees can telework from home for a substantial part of each month as part of the Bank`s hybrid work model, and they are expected on site at the Bank location a minimum of eight days per month to help build connections between colleagues. You must live in Canada, and within reasonable commuting distance of the office.
What you can expect from us
This is a great opportunity to join a leading organization and be part of a high-performing team. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package designed to meet your needs at every stage of your life and career. For more information on key benefits please visit A great deal to consider.
- Salaries are based on qualifications and experience and typically range from $108,874 to $128,087 (job grade 17)
- The Bank offers an incentive for successfully meeting expectations at 7 to 10% of your base salary. The Bank offers additional performance pay (5%) for those who exceed expectations. Exceptional performers who far exceed expectations may be eligible for higher performance pay.
- Flexible and comprehensive benefits so you can choose the level of health and dental coverage that meets your needs
- Extra vacation days (up to five each year) that you can purchase to add to your vacation entitlement
- Option to join the indexed, defined-benefit pension plan after 24 consecutive months of service
We wish to thank all applicants for their interest and effort in applying for this position. Only candidates selected for interviews will be contacted.