Network Systems Administrator

At NAES, you’ll find engaging and challenging career opportunities in the power generation, renewable energy and industrial construction industry. At every level of the company, we share a common goal: To instill confidence in our clients through our steadfast commitment to safety, integrity and quality of work.

As the largest independent operator of power facilities in the industry, we’ve come to be viewed as an employer of choice. We strive to attract and retain employees by offering competitive compensation, a comprehensive benefits package (including retirement) and promotional opportunities.

Company Overview

Gridforce Energy Management’s mission is to ensure power flows consistently and reliability while enhancing our client’s profitability and reducing their risk exposure. Since 1999, Gridforce has been providing precision energy control and integration management services to micro-grids, load-serving entities and demand response clients throughout North America. Our employees are constantly iterating, solving problems, and working together to improve the business of our diverse client base from cities, municipalities and electric cooperatives, in addition to generation owners and operators.

We offer our employees opportunities for career development and training, providing new and valuable skills and experience. We are located in Houston, Texas -- the second fastest growing city in the nation, with world-class medical, cultural, educational and research institutions and a young, energetic and diverse population. Gridforce is located in the heart of Downtown Houston which provides an energizing and engaging atmosphere where you will love to come to work. Gridforce Energy Manage is a NAES Company.

Opportunity Summary

Gridforce Energy Management is seeking a forward thinking experienced Systems Administrator to join the Engineering Operations Team. The person should enjoy working in a fast-paced environment where adaptability and flexibility is key to their success. This position is full-time and is based in downtown Houston, Texas. We seek a professional with advanced hands-on technical skills in Virtualization (VMware), Networking equipment administration (Cisco) and support.

Primary Responsibilities

• Maintain full life cycle of ESXi hosts and vCenters by patching, upgrading, and replacing.
• Respond to and mitigate security concerns across network, server, and storage devices.
• Perform updates and maintenance on storage arrays.
• Perform IOS upgrades, integration, rebuild and other projects as required.
• Proactively respond to application/service growth and scaling issues.
• Work with both internal groups and external resources to perform complex troubleshooting.
• Engage in and improve the whole lifecycle of network services--from inception to design, through deployment, operation, and optimization.
• Maintain services once they are live by measuring and monitoring availability, latency, and overall system health.
• LAN/WAN, mostly interior protocols, networking for Cisco routers.
• Monitor and update network device inventory.
• Maintain strong adherence to regulation and compliance standards.

Education and Experience

Minimum Qualifications

• BS or BA in a technical field or commensurate experience.
• Strong documentation skills.
• 5+ years of experience maintaining highly available systems in a virtualized environment (Windows Server, Linux server, VMware ESXi, vCenter, Horizon View).
• Previous experience within a compliance driven architecture such as NERC-CIP, PCI-DSS, NIST, DOD, etc.
• Should understand out-of-band/lights-out server communication methods.
• Knowledgeable in data center practices and concepts (e.g., fault tolerance, calculating power usage, etc.).
• Analytical and troubleshooting experience.
• Ability to provide rotational on-call after-hours support for production systems.
• Experience with Tripwire, Netwrix, Syslog analysis or other compliance tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous experience with energy industry is preferred.
• VMWare experience
• Microsoft Server experience
• Linux server experience

Perks

• Supportive and fun work environment!
• Paid holidays
• Medical, dental, vision benefits
• 401 (k)
• Coffee, tea, and snacks

Physical Requirements & Working Conditions

Normal works hours are 8:00a.m. to 5:00p.m. Monday through Friday. Additional time may be required during heavy workloads or to meet deadlines

Physical Requirements: Ability to sit for long periods of time, ability to communicate verbally, and in writing, and ability to handle long periods of screen time.

Fit for Duty

This is a Non-DOT position and all employees will participate in the Fitness for Duty Program. This program includes a drug screening.

Performance

NAES employees have the responsibility to customers and internal co-workers to perform in their role with the highest standards. Employees of NAES are accountable for meeting and exceeding the needs of our customer with unflinching intergity.

NAES Safe

Safety is a core value of NAES; and as a condition of employment, all employees are expected to be mentally alert and work safely at all times. Additionally, employees are required to adhere to all safety warnings and posted safety signs, whenever on company property. Furthermore, employees must follow all NAES safety rules and procedures. Effectiveness in carrying out this responsibility is part of the evaluation of each and every employee’s performance.

It is the practice of NAES to seek employees of the highest quality and to select the individuals on the basis of merit and competence, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, military status or affiliation protected under USERRA, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by applicable local, state and federal law.