So, in my last post, I let everyone know that I had given my work 2 months’ notice that I was leaving. So if you didn’t see that post, then, surprise! I’m leaving my job (though not the blog) after I find a successor.

Well, this post is the inevitable outcome of the previous post…

My company has a job opening for a senior system administrator. I’ve got ~2300 subscribers here, the vast majority of which are sysadmins, and a readership greater than that through distribution and syndication. I’m hoping that you, or maybe one of your friends, might be a good fit for this job, because I really want to leave my company in a good place, with someone who will take care of the infrastructure and the people behind it.

Here’s the job description:

We are seeking a SAGE Level IV Senior System Administrator with 5–8+ years of experience who is fluent in Linux, with several years’ experience leading a system administration team. The System Administrator, who will report to the COO, will immediately be responsible for:

Management of the IT infrastructure and the architecture, execution, and maintenance of the servers, networks, enterprise storage, and WAN links;

Management and maintenance of the production and backup server environments;

Management and mentoring of junior staff;

Support and creation of shell scripts, cron jobs, and other miscellaneous UNIX services;

Working with senior management to establish policies toward servers, desktops/laptops, and mobile devices;

Attention to detail, creativity, and ability to work as part of a team are fundamental attributes of everyone in the company. This position will be filled by the best candidate in either our Berkeley Heights, NJ or New York City offices. Travel between the offices will be required, as well as a willingness to work from either NJ or NYC. The successful candidate will:

Have 5 to 8+ years as a system administrator, including at least two as a senior system administrator (SAGE Level IV);

Have 5+ years using Linux in an enterprise settings, and 2+ years supporting Windows desktops;

Have experience supporting installations of DBMS such as PostgreSQL and/or Oracle (being a DBA is a plus, but not required);

Have an in-depth knowledge of backup practices and network troubleshooting;

Understand subnetting, SMTP, DNS, TCP/IP (familiarity with IPv6 is preferred), and IPsec-based VPN tunnels;

Have a very high to expert level knowledge of Linux;

Have the ability to travel to our colocation facilities in Carlstadt, NJ and Philadelphia, PA;

Be familiar with storage systems from the LUN level to the inode, have experience configuring LVM, and be comfortable working with SANs;

Have thorough familiarity with ESXi 4.x and legacy VMware Server;

Basically, I want to hire someone who is better than I am. My company is fun to work for, very successful, consistently growing, and currently has plans to expand. If you’re the right candidate, and you get this job, you’ll work with a bunch of really smart people who are determined to succeed. I consider it an honor to have been the sysadmin here for 6 years, and I will miss working here.

If you meet the above description of a senior system administrator, please drop me an email at standalone.sysadmin@gmail.com with your resume, because I’d love to talk to you about this.

The way I’m planning to go through candidates is pretty simple. I’ll read all of the resumes (or at least skim them), pull the ones I’m interested in, evaluate them pretty thoroughly, email to schedule a technical phone interview (which will last 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the candidate), then pull the cream of that particular crop in for physical interviews with myself (a technical-specific interview which will involve extensive use of the whiteboard), and other members of the company to evaluate the candidate’s ability to work with the team.

I got some practice when I was hiring for my junior admin a while back, so hopefully this will be smoother and quicker. We’ll see. I’m definitely open to advice, if any of you have experience hiring your successor. Please let me know in the comments!