Senior Systems Engineer #587

Full Job Description

The Senate Sergeant at Arms is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer. The complete vacancy announcement and application can be found on the United States Senate Career Page at https://sen.gov/1VNZQ.

This vacancy announcement closes at 7pm EST on the closing date. Late applications will not be accepted.

Required Work Experience Five to eight years of relevant work experience (GED), three to six (Associates), one to three year (Bachelor’s), one to two (Master’s).

Required Special Skills/ Knowledge As part of our hiring process, we may conduct a skills assessment to better understand an applicant’s proficiency in key areas relevant to the role.

Manages current storage capacity and ensures storage is available to support all computing environments; plans for future storage growth; monitors and confirms that system files and application products are successfully backed-up; performs necessary installations, patches, and upgrades.

Works escalated issues from lower-tier team members. Mentors/relays information on solutions to train others.

Analyzes new hardware and software releases for their impact on the Senate environment; tests new releases on Senate supported platforms; develops product configuration standards for use in the Senate environment.

Creates, develops, modifies, instructs, and provides technical assistance on business continuity plans and processes.

Desired Qualifications Expert level experience in any database type administration role. 3+ Years of experience with managing and administrating databases.

2+ Years of experience in Linux operating system.

Ability to set up real-time alerting for failed jobs, builds and databases, ensuring quick resolution of incidents in production or pre-production environments.

Ability to install, configure, and maintain at least one of MSSQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB in production, development, and staging environments.

Knowledge of optimizing database performance by configuring indexes, managing query efficiency, and tuning the database for workload-specific performance.

This includes memory management, cache optimization, and monitoring tools like Ops Manager to proactively address performance bottlenecks.

Ability to configure and implement proactive monitoring, alerting and performance tools, e.g. PGMonitor, Ops Manager or similar.

Ability to design and maintain a Disaster Recovery architecture utilizing replication over a WAN for MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Working knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) Syntax, including the ability to manage the data within a PostgreSQL or MySQL database.

Knowledge of setting up backup and recovery strategies for seamless customer support. Experience with databases in cloud environments, ensuring backups and scaling are automated is a plus.

Scripting and development skills (Ansible, Bash, Python, and PowerShell). Desired Certifications PostgreSQL Database Administration Certified Professional. MongoDB Associate Database Administrator.

Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS). Working Conditions The U.S. Senate network cannot be taken offline for maintenance during the workday, or while the Senate is in session.

As such, maintenance windows may only occur at night, on weekends, and occasionally on holidays.

Employees who perform systems upgrades, maintenance, wiring, backups, support our alternate data centers will have schedules that include working nights, weekends, and holidays.

This position directly supports essential services of the U.S. Senate.

As such, this position requires the employee be available and prepared to work during government shutdowns, in inclement weather, on holidays, weekends, and during late nights to ensure essential services to the Senate continue without interruption.

In the context of government furloughs, this position is considered excepted. Since this position requires onsite presence in support of the U.S.

Senate when in session, this position requires the employee to be available and prepared to work during government shutdowns, in inclement weather, on holidays, and during late night, overnight, and weekend sessions.

In the context of government furloughs, this position is considered excepted. Security Clearance This position requires that the applicant obtain and maintain a Secret U.S.

Government security clearance. Applicants must be U.S. citizens in order for the SAA to submit your application for a security clearance. Major Duties:

Contributes to the section's work effort in responding to incidents from other sections, including the help desk.

Supports tasks which may include helping to develop standard operating procedures, assignments, and coordination of work efforts to address issues.

Assists users with computer needs such as installing and configuring software/hardware on their PC; troubleshoots problems with user systems. Provisions new accounts for users.

Supports the section's work effort to develop processes and procedures to streamline the resolution of issues.

Provides technical support for Senate information technology or telecommunications services, systems, hardware, software, and storage solutions to the users; supports Senate offices, contract support vendors, and other technical staff in troubleshooting and managing the various Senate environments.

Maintains and monitors LAN/WAN and SAN operations and solves LAN/WAN and SAN applications problems; installs integrates, customizes, enhances, troubleshoots, and tests LAN and SAN hardware and software.

Assists in installing, upgrading, customizing, tuning, and maintaining databases for optimal performance and availability; assists in developing, testing, and implementing database store procedures, functions, triggers, views, and packages.

Conducts acceptance and integration testing; assists vendor systems implementation by troubleshooting related system issues affecting Senate users.

Analyzes, designs, develops, implements, and maintains applications to meet the needs of Senate users; assists with product evaluations and implementation.

Attends internal training provided by subject matter experts to understand operational tasks, documents support needs, and share the information within the assigned section. Other duties as assigned.