Senior Systems Engineer

Sword is a leading provider of business technology solutions within the Energy, Public and Finance Sectors, driving real transformation change within our clients. We use proven technology, specialist teams and domain expertise to build solid technical foundations across platforms, data and business applications. We have a passion for using technology to solve business problems, working in partnership with our clients to help in achieving their goals.

Sword is looking for an experienced Senior Systems Engineer to join our Managed Services team. You’ll support and improve customer systems across on-premise and datacentre environments. This is an operational engineering role for someone who takes ownership, works methodically and wants to prevent problems rather than spend every day reacting to tickets.

You’ll work across server, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity and supporting platform services. Observability, automation and sound operational practice will be central to how you work. The aim is simple: keep customer services stable, secure and measurable, then find practical ways to make them better.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll provide day-to-day operational support, administration and maintenance for customer systems platforms across on-premise and datacentre environments.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Monitoring service health and using alerts, logs, metrics and trend data to identify degradation before it becomes a larger issue
• Investigating and resolving incidents across Windows Server, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, virtualisation, storage, backup and related services
• Managing incidents, service requests, changes and operational tasks against agreed service commitments and customer priorities
• Supporting root-cause analysis and problem management, with a focus on permanent fixes rather than repeated workarounds
• Carrying out patching, configuration changes, vulnerability remediation, platform maintenance and operational housekeeping
• Supporting upgrades, migrations, hardware refreshes, decommissioning and the transition of new environments into managed service support
• Identifying opportunities to automate repetitive work, improve consistency and reduce operational risk
• Maintaining accurate technical documentation, standard operating procedures, knowledge articles and support records
• Working with service management, customer teams, suppliers and technical specialists to resolve issues across connected services
• Communicating clearly during incidents, changes and improvement activity, giving customers evidence and context rather than vague technical updates

Requirements

You’ll have at least five years’ experience supporting systems infrastructure within an enterprise, managed services or outsourced IT environment.

Relevant certifications across systems engineering, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity, security or automation, supported by an ITIL Foundation or equivalent service-management qualification where appropriate.

• Strong operational knowledge of Windows Server, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy and core datacentre services
• Strong technical knowledge of on-premises and datacentre services, including server platforms, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity and core infrastructure technologies.
• Proven experience supporting Windows and/or Linux server environments, covering configuration, troubleshooting, patching, hardening and lifecycle management.
• Experience operating enterprise virtualisation, storage, backup and recovery platforms, with a sound understanding of availability, capacity, resilience and recovery requirements.
• Strong diagnostic capability across compute, storage, networking, backup, identity and application dependency layers, including complex and high-impact service issues.
• Experience working within an ITIL-aligned managed service environment across incident, problem, change, service request and knowledge-management processes.
• Ability to use observability, monitoring and service data to assess platform health, identify risk, improve alert quality and reduce recurring operational noise.
• Experience creating automation and scripts using appropriate technologies, such as PowerShell, Bash, Python or vendor tooling, to improve consistency and reduce manual effort.
• Ability to act as a senior escalation point, produce clear operational documentation, guide customers and engineering teams, manage supplier escalations, and support service onboarding and operational readiness.

Benefits

We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life. In addition to a Competitive Salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:

A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes, an employee assistance programme, discounted cash plan and more…..