Senior System Administrator – RHEL/Linux, Clustering & Automation

Job Title: Senior System Administrator – RHEL/Linux
Location: Chicago, IL — Hybrid
Alternate Locations: Joliet/LC3, Chicago area; Owings Mills/Baltimore, MD; select Pennsylvania Exelon satellite locations
Work Schedule: Hybrid — Expected Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday onsite
Duration: 6-Month Contract — High Potential for Extension
Pay Rate: Up to $70/hr W2 + Benefits
Start Date: ASAP / Targeting August 2026
On-Call: 24/7 rotational support required

Important: Candidates must be local to an Exelon hub location. Chicago-area candidates will receive priority.

Job Overview

Exelon is seeking experienced Senior System Administrators with deep expertise in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Unix/Linux system administration, clustering, storage, automation, and enterprise infrastructure.

The ideal candidate will have 6–8+ years of enterprise system administration experience and strong hands-on knowledge of RHEL and Oracle Linux environments. This role will support highly available enterprise infrastructure, server platforms, storage environments, OS patching, automation, clustering, and infrastructure migration initiatives.

The successful candidate will work closely with application and infrastructure teams, lead technical discussions, troubleshoot complex issues, and independently drive assigned initiatives through completion.

Experience working in a large Fortune 500 enterprise environment, particularly financial services or other high-volume enterprise environments, is highly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on administration and support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, including RHEL 6, 7, 8, and 9 environments.

• Administer and maintain Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) environments.

• Support enterprise Unix/Linux infrastructure across physical and virtualized environments.

• Design, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot highly available server environments.

• Administer and support Red Hat PCS clustering and other enterprise clustering technologies.

• Support storage environments using ZFS, LVM, Veritas, SAN, NAS, and RAID technologies.

• Perform operating system installation, configuration, upgrades, patching, and lifecycle management.

• Plan, coordinate, and execute security patching activities for Linux server platforms.

• Develop and maintain automation for server builds, patching, configuration, and routine system administration activities.

• Create original scripts and programs using Bourne Shell, Perl, Python, or Java.

• Develop and maintain Ansible playbooks for RHEL/OEL build and patch automation.

• Monitor Linux, VMware, and server platform health and performance.

• Configure and maintain server processes, system configurations, backups, and operational documentation.

• Support VMware vSphere environments hosting highly available enterprise servers.

• Maintain accurate server and configuration information within configuration management databases.

• Support production release management, change management, and infrastructure deployment activities.

• Troubleshoot complex system, operating system, storage, clustering, and infrastructure issues.

• Participate in technical discussions with application teams and infrastructure stakeholders.

• Coordinate technical activities associated with infrastructure and storage migrations.

• Work with approximately 200 application teams to coordinate migration activities and resolve technical issues.

• Communicate migration options, technical requirements, dependencies, and timelines to application teams.

• Coordinate and execute data migrations according to established schedules.

• Support planned infrastructure changes across production and development environments.

• Participate in after-hours maintenance, release deployments, and emergency troubleshooting.

• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation supporting critical production systems.

• Assist with physical server activities, including racking and stacking equipment in enterprise data centers when required.

• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive processes and improve operational efficiency.

• Maintain technical documentation, runbooks, standards, and procedures.

• Collaborate with IT and business partners to maintain service levels and high availability.

• Provide technical guidance and communicate complex technical information to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Required Technical Qualifications

• 6–8+ years of experience in enterprise system administration, infrastructure engineering, or related IT infrastructure roles.

• Expert-level experience with Unix/Linux system administration.

• Strong hands-on experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

• Strong experience with Oracle Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux.

• Hands-on experience with Red Hat PCS clustering.

• Experience with enterprise OS clustering technologies.

• Strong experience with Linux storage administration, including:

  • LVM

  • ZFS

  • Veritas

  • SAN/NAS

  • RAID

• Strong scripting/automation experience using at least one of:

  • Bourne Shell

  • Python

  • Perl

  • Java

• Hands-on experience with Ansible, particularly for RHEL/OEL build, configuration, and patch automation.

• Experience with Linux server patching, vulnerability remediation, configuration management, and lifecycle management.

• Strong troubleshooting skills across operating systems, storage, clustering, virtualization, and infrastructure components.

• Experience with VMware vSphere or other enterprise virtualization technologies.

• Ability to independently drive technical initiatives from planning through completion.

Preferred Technical Experience

• Solaris administration.

• Veritas InfoScale.

• Oracle Clusterware.

• Oracle Exadata.

• VMware vSphere.

• Microsoft Azure.

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

• Zerto.

• Advanced PowerShell/Python/Shell automation.

• Enterprise backup technologies.

• SAN/NAS storage environments.

• Disaster recovery and high-availability technologies.

• Experience supporting physical and virtual enterprise servers.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux certifications.

• VMware certifications.

• Azure Administrator certification.

• Oracle Cloud Administrator certification.

Education

• Bachelor''s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field preferred.

• Equivalent practical experience may be considered.

Enterprise Experience

Experience working in a large-scale Fortune 200/500 enterprise environment is strongly preferred.

Candidates with backgrounds in large financial services organizations, banking, utilities, or other high-volume enterprise environments are highly desirable.

Key Soft Skills

• Strong technical communication skills.

• Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.

• Ability to lead technical discussions and drive troubleshooting through resolution.

• Self-starter who requires minimal oversight.

• Strong ownership and accountability.

• Ability to make sound decisions when dealing with complex or ambiguous technical issues.

• Strong collaboration skills across infrastructure, application, security, and business teams.

• Ability to work effectively in a highly available, enterprise production environment.

Additional Requirements

• Must be willing to participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation.

• Must be available for planned after-hours maintenance and emergency production support.

• Must be able to work a hybrid schedule, expected to be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday onsite.

• Must be local to a designated Exelon hub; Chicago-area candidates are strongly preferred.

• Ability to travel domestically when required.

• Ability to lift up to 25 lbs. with assistance and appropriate equipment for data center activities.