Information Technology

Information Technology (IT) at the Trusts reflects a proactive approach toward the use of new technologies to increase the organization’s capacity for exceptionally high-quality strategic philanthropy. Executive staff at the Trusts recognizes the importance of technology, and support technology initiatives to advance the institution’s goals and achieve and maintain a leadership position in the philanthropic community. As a result, the IT unit is in a mode of continuous improvement, applying leading-edge technologies.

The IT unit is comprised of highly competent, forward-thinking professionals who are responsible for the technology needs of all of Pew’s staff and for Pew’s subsidiaries in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It is the responsibility of the unit to evaluate and acquire software and hardware, implement new systems and data repositories, support the LAN, WAN and WLAN, desktop computer hardware, and software applications, administer the network and support related Web sites.

The Senior Specialist – IT Systems Engineering will be responsible for working in a team environment with the design, growth and maintenance of Pew’s Information Technology infrastructure to include server, storage, network and associated support equipment. In addition, this Engineer will be tasked to work in conjunction with their peers for ensuring the stability, integrity, and efficient operation of all in-house information systems. This is both a strategic and hands on technical role, working with other senior members of the Enterprise, Application & Development teams. The candidate must have a strong background in enterprise storage appliances; Microsoft Windows Server based software; VMware ESX and/or VSphere; backup and replication technologies and an understanding of Cisco based services & Data Center infrastructure. Duties to include:

• Implement, support, and maintain 24x7 infrastructure services serving as one of the highest levels of escalation for systems and security issues.
• Make ongoing recommendations of computing policies and standards.
• Assist in the engineering of capacity planning and configuration assessments for our server hardware, storage area networking, systems, and supporting infrastructure.
• Work on multiple large scale projects in a fast paced environment with other members of the Information Technology team.
• Quickly turn business problems into technical solutions.
• Manage configurations and the deployment of systems in compliance with established business practices.
• Design, implement, and manage a set of highly available core services as prescribed by the Business Continuity team.
• Recommend technical solutions that will enhance performance, increase redundancy, and add flexibility to the existing infrastructure.
• Troubleshoot and report on systems performance issues.
• Maintain system and network availability and monitoring of services.
• Participate in rotating 'on-call' schedule with engineering team.
• Maintain the appropriate relationships with 3rd party vendors and evaluate vendor hardware, software, and communications products and to provide recommendations for purchases with our corporate objectives in mind.

Required Skills

• Possess a clear understanding of capacity planning in various scenarios. (load balancing, performance testing/troubleshooting, highly available system design, etc.).
• Possess a solid grasp of items related to datacenter management (power, cooling, fault tolerance, cascade failure scenarios, rack layout, etc.).
• Extensive knowledge of systems monitoring and management tools such as Solar Winds, WhatsUp, SCOM, or similar products.
• In-depth experience with virtual environments (VMWare vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, VDI, etc.).
• Experience with multiple SAN vendors (Dell Equallogic, EMC, NetApp, IBM), including both Fiber & iSCSI implementations.
• Skilled at documenting designs and policies associated with system infrastructure.
• Understanding of network infrastructure (routers, switches, etc.) including WAN operations, firewall, and wireless technologies.
• Strong network and system trouble-shooting skills.
• Strong communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and able to work as a productive member of a team
• Ability to coordinate multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Demonstrated capability to achieve results under pressure.
• Manages time effectively and according to priorities.
• Ability to manage direct reports and/or mentor junior members of engineering team as appropriate.

Required Experience

 · BA/BS degree in a technical discipline.

• · Minimum of five years relevant IT systems engineering experience.
• · Designing and maintaining a 100+ server 700+ user multi-site/international network.
• · Supporting and architecting a Windows 2003 / 2008 infrastructure including, Active Directory, DNS, WINS, DHCP, File / Print, IIS, RADIUS, WSUS and terminal services (Citrix).
• · Maintaining and designing an Exchange, SQL WSS/MOSS, SharePoint environment and other big iron Microsoft services.
• · Managing a storage infrastructure, either fiber channel or iSCSI.
• · Architecting and maintaining a VMware infrastructure, including ESX(i), vCenter, Update Manager, converter, etc.
• · Desktop management through image and software deployment.
• · Designing highly available services, through replication, clustering, load balancing and other techniques.
• · Ensuring all desktops and servers anti-virus is centrally maintained and reportable.
• · Maintaining group policies and login scripts.
• · Utilizing scripts and third party tools to create various reports.
• · Managing a XenApp environment including the access gateway appliance.
• · Implementing unfamiliar/new technologies from third parties.
• · Spam filtering either through a SaaS solution or other means.
• · Backup and recovery of systems via third party or native tools. This includes archiving to media such as tape, disk and cloud.
• · Troubleshooting network issues from a server / desktop perspective.

• SAN design and management.
• Multi-site infrastructure management.
• Exchange 2007 and/or 2010, including implementation and support of a highly available messaging infrastructure as well as in excess of 800 users.
• Relevant industry certifications are a plus.