Systems Administrator

Job Description

Job Description

Salary :

About Youth Guidance :

Youth Guidance creates and implements school-based programs that enable children to overcome obstacles, focus on their education, and ultimately, to succeed in school and in life.

We believe that no matter what challenges a young person faces, they are more likely to succeed when they have caring adults in their lives.

Our highly trained staff guides kids to overcome the life and academic challenges facing the youth. We meet kids where they are physically and emotionally to help them focus on their education, make positive choices, and remain on the right path toward life success.

Founded in 1924 and celebrating 100 years of impact this year, Youth Guidance is a leading provider of outcomes-driven programs serving more than 18,000 youth around the country.

For more information, visit www.youth-guidance.org.

Position Summary :

The Systems Administrator plays a crucial role in ensuring the continuity, integrity, and reliability of core business systems.

This position is responsible for managing escalations for major issues, resolving complex technical incidents, and coordinating cross-functional efforts to restore services with minimal disruption.

With a strong focus on business continuity and disaster recovery (BC / DR), the Systems Administrator proactively assesses risks, develops mitigation strategies, controls costs, and implements improvements to bolster system resilience.

This role is pivotal in overseeing system interoperability, supporting seamless integrations across platforms, and advancing continual process improvement through structured, data-driven project management.

By exercising sound decision-making and adhering to ITSM best practices, the Systems Administrator directly contributes to a stable, secure, and efficient technology environment that aligns with organizational goals.

This role reports to the Director of Information Technology. PLEASE NOTE THIS A HYBRID REMOTE POISTION IN CHICAGO, IL.

Essential Duties / Responsibilities :

• Primarily responsible for the selection, planning, implementation, backup / redundancy, security maintenance and enterprise deployment of applications and systems (including servers) for the agency.
• Develops and reviews policies and procedures governing compliance, maintenance, security, disaster recovery & business continuity, and risk avoidance.
• Manages small-scale, medium and enterprise level technology projects from planning to implementation and closure.
• Designs workstation builds that prioritize standardization of hardware and software compatibility across all departments and programs.
• Rigorously test and proactively furnish patches, hotfixes, and broadcast notices to a de-centralized organization and equips the L1 Support Team best practices and utilities to provide remote troubleshooting.
• Provide L2 support on Windows / Linuz servers hosted on AWS infrastructure.
• Acts as a leader working closely with Evaluation and Quality Improvement (analytics) team and database administrators to label and secure data, provision access under HIPAA / FERPA framework, and to design servers and repositories that adapt to the team’s evolving needs.
• Troubleshoot the system and solve problems across all platforms and applications domains.
• Be responsible for the planning, implementation, and growth of the AWS cloud infrastructure.
• Work alongside architecture and engineering teams to design and implement any scalable software services.
• Assists in design of Identity and Access Management schema to administer access and application sets supporting the employee lifecycle from onboarding to termination.
• Participates in Risk Analysis and Root Cause Analysis processes as a technology subject matter expert.
• Provide backup and expertise to members of Engineering Team as required.
• Supports accreditation and compliance initiatives, as well as, budgeting process.
• Assists with expansion planning and ongoing support for new programming sites.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

Education / Experience

• A. or B.S. in a technical field or a relevant combination of education and experience.
• ITILv3 / 4 Foundation Certification.
• Experience using Microsoft Office applications, operating systems (Windows / Windows Server), and networking.
• Salesforce administrative and support experience a plus
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) administrative and support experience (and certifications) a plus.
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in the Microsoft Office 365 environment (Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office365, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Security & Compliance tools, et cetera).
• 2 or more years’ experience with cloud-based identity management environments and SSO.
• Project management experience or certifications utilizing Waterfall or Agile methodologies.
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience with installing hardware / software in a Microsoft Windows environment.
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience with Layer 2 and Layer 3 Networking and working within industry best practices.
• Hands-on technical experience working with VPN technologies (IPSec, SSL VPN, etc.).

Skills / Abilities

• Client orientation, excellent written, verbal & presentation communication skills, and ownership & quality of work.
• Leadership and demonstrated ability to effectively train audiences of varying abilities and skillsets.
• Demonstrated ability to document and explain network topologies.
• Ability and motivation to diagnose and troubleshoot IT issues.
• General understanding of VoIP equipment.
• Knowledgeable in application transport and network infrastructure protocols and possess an understanding of how to support these applications / protocols when accessed through VPN and firewall appliances.
• Understanding of remote access methods and systems, firewalls, encryption, authentication and authorization technology.
• Minimum of 3 years’ of IT project management.

Core Competencies

• Communication : Uses effective written and oral communication with internal staff, teams, and community served; demonstrates empathy and listening
• Client orientation : Recognizes needs of diverse stakeholders and approaches relationships with a service orientation, to ultimately maximize the impact
• Equity mindset : Understands and is committed to goals of equity, consistently brings an equity mindset to the organization’s work and workplace
• Growth mindset : Views growth as important for personal and professional development; seeks out opportunities to expand skills, even if the change is required, demonstrates curiosity and eagerness to learn
• Ownership and quality of work : Effectively manages own work, and work of the team to ensure delivery of high-quality work
• Supervisory skills : Effectively manages and develops others
• Mission drive : Demonstrates commitment to the missing of the organization as a whole and alignment with organization values

Leadership Core Competencies (Supervisor & above roles)

• Continuous improvement-minded : Takes initiative to identify and execute strategies and processes to continuously improve one’s leadership to strengthen organization’s overall impact.
• Develops and motivates others : Motivates others and supports their development through strong coaching and mentoring.

Effectively stewards self and others through both small and large scale change .

• External representation and relationship building : Represents the organization among external stakeholders, and builds strong, trusting relationships with stakeholders
• Leads with vision : Has an inspiring vision for the future of the organization, beyond the status quo, and communicates it effectively;

leads with courage and willingness to take risks in service of impact

• Manages with data : Understands data; analyzes data and identifies insights and implications
• Strategic thinking and resource management : Considers the future of the organization proactively and responsively; weighs diverse inputs to inform strategies;

identifies innovative opportunities when relevant; makes and communicates decisions that effectively balance tradeoffs between financial sustainability and impact

Team building : Builds strong relationships with teams and colleagues; fosters effective teams and collaborative interactions

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to stand for sustained periods of time, frequently talk, hear, use hands and fingers to feel, handle and operate objects or controls, and occasionally stand, bend, stoop, kneel and crouch.
• The employee is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity such as : preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, and viewing a computer terminal.
• The employee may occasionally lift and / or move up to 40 pounds.
• Must be able to stand for an extended time.
• Able to spend extended time on a computer in a workstation.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• This job operates in a professional office environment.
• Occasional local and national travel

DEIB Statement

At Youth Guidance, we understand that diversity, equity, inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B) are fundamental to realizing our vision of bright and successful futures for all young people.

We celebrate the diversity of youth and staff and recognize them as empowered leaders, problem-solvers, and experts of their own experiences.

At the same time, we acknowledge that many systems and institutions meant to support youth and staff are inequitable and unjust.

As such, we are committed to advancing DEIB through our words and our actions, both internally and externally, by :

• Strengthening cultural competence as well as policies, practices, and organizational structures that foster belonging and leverage the unique backgrounds and talents of staff;
• Offering youth-centered programs that are accessible and responsive to people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, abilities, sexual identity, gender identity and expression, language, and cultural and religious beliefs and practices;
• Influencing systems that youth, their families, staff, and communities are impacted by, such as schools, organizational networks, governmental bodies, researchers, and the funding community, to apply approaches that embrace DEIB in addressing the needs and supporting the aspirations of young people and those around them.
3 days ago