Shift Lead (Linux)

Role Summary

We are looking for a Shift Lead to run our 24/7 Operations team on a rotational basis. You will be the first point of command during your shift, owning monitoring, incident response, escalations, and handovers for Linux-based production systems. You will guide a team of operations engineers, keep services stable, and ensure incidents are resolved within SLA with clear communication to stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Shift Leadership

Lead and coordinate the shift team, assigning work and prioritising tickets, alerts, and incidents.

Run structured shift handovers, ensuring open incidents, risks, and pending changes are clearly documented.

Act as the escalation point for L1/L2 engineers and make timely decisions during live incidents.

Mentor and coach team members; support onboarding, training, and skills development.

Incident and Problem Management

Monitor dashboards and alerts, triage events, and drive incidents through detection, resolution, and closure.

Manage major incidents: coordinate bridge calls, assign roles, provide regular updates to stakeholders, and escalate to engineering or management as needed.

Contribute to post-incident reviews and root cause analysis, and track follow-up actions to completion.

Linux Operations

Perform first- and second-line troubleshooting on Linux servers (RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Amazon Linux), covering CPU, memory, disk, network, and service issues.

Manage users, permissions, services (systemd), cron jobs, log analysis, and package updates.

Support patching, reboots, and routine maintenance using approved change procedures.

Write and maintain Bash scripts and runbooks to automate repetitive operational tasks.

Monitoring and Service Management

Work with monitoring tools (e.g., CloudWatch, Nagios, Zabbix, Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog) to tune alerts and reduce noise.

Follow ITIL practices for incident, change, and problem management using a ticketing tool (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Service Management).

Track SLA/KPI performance and report on shift activity, trends, and improvement opportunities.

Process and Continuous Improvement

Maintain and improve runbooks, SOPs, and knowledge base articles.

Identify automation opportunities and work with engineering teams to reduce manual toil.

Ensure compliance with security, access, and change control policies.

Required Skills and Experience

7+ years in IT operations, NOC, or infrastructure support, including experience in a 24/7 environment.
Prior experience as a shift lead, team lead, or senior operations engineer.
Strong hands-on Linux administration skills: command line, file systems, LVM, networking (DNS, TCP/IP, firewalls), SSH, systemd, and log analysis.
Solid troubleshooting skills with the ability to stay calm and decisive under pressure.
Experience handling major incidents and running bridge calls.
Working knowledge of ITIL processes (incident, problem, change management).
Experience with monitoring and alerting tools and ticketing systems.
Scripting skills in Bash and/or Python.
Excellent verbal and written communication, including clear stakeholder updates and handover documentation.
Willingness to work rotational shifts, nights, weekends, and holidays.