Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Systems Engineer

💰 $85,000 - $140,000

Information TechnologySystems EngineeringCloudSecurity

🎯 Role Definition

The Information Systems Engineer is responsible for designing, implementing, operating, and continuously improving enterprise information systems and infrastructure. This role combines systems architecture, cloud and on-premises operations, security controls, automation, and stakeholder collaboration to ensure reliable, scalable, and compliant IT services. The ideal candidate has strong experience in server and network administration, cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), automation and scripting (PowerShell, Python), identity and access management, monitoring and incident response, and proven ability to lead cross-functional technical projects.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Systems Administrator with experience in Windows/Linux server estates
  • Network Engineer experienced in routing, switching and security fundamentals
  • DevOps Engineer focused on CI/CD, automation and cloud infrastructure

Advancement To:

  • Senior Information Systems Engineer / Principal Systems Engineer
  • Solutions Architect or Systems Architect for enterprise platforms
  • Cloud Engineering Lead or Infrastructure Engineering Manager
  • Technical Program Manager for infrastructure and platform initiatives

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Engineer / Cloud Platform Engineer
  • Security Engineer / Identity & Access Management Engineer
  • Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) or DevOps Engineer
  • Database Administrator (DBA) or Storage Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, architect, and implement secure and highly available server and storage solutions (on-premises and cloud) including virtualization (VMware/Hyper‑V), container platforms (Docker, Kubernetes), and hybrid-cloud configurations to meet business SLAs.
  • Lead and execute enterprise cloud migrations and platform builds on AWS, Azure, or GCP, including infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform, ARM/Bicep, or CloudFormation to ensure repeatable, auditable deployments.
  • Manage and maintain Active Directory/LDAP environments, Azure AD, group policy, and identity lifecycle processes to enforce least-privilege access and enterprise single sign-on (SSO) integrations.
  • Implement and operate robust backup, restore, and disaster recovery strategies (Veeam, NetBackup, Azure Backup, AWS Backup) including recovery testing, RPO/RTO validation, and documentation for business continuity.
  • Configure, monitor and tune enterprise network services (DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, routing, firewalls) in collaboration with networking teams to ensure secure, low-latency connectivity for systems and applications.
  • Design and maintain monitoring, observability, and logging stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, ELK) to provide proactive alerting, trending, capacity planning and incident response capabilities.
  • Drive patch management, firmware updates, and configuration management for servers, network devices and endpoints by establishing patch schedules, testing plans, and rollback procedures.
  • Build automation and orchestration workflows using PowerShell, Python, Ansible, or other automation frameworks to reduce manual operations, enforce configuration consistency, and accelerate deployments.
  • Perform system capacity planning and forecasting for compute, storage and network resources; recommend right-sizing and cost-optimization measures for cloud and on-prem environments.
  • Administer database infrastructure support (SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL) at the systems level: provisioning, backup strategies, performance tuning and high-availability configurations in coordination with DBAs.
  • Implement and enforce security controls and hardening standards (CIS Benchmarks, NIST, ISO 27001) across servers, virtual machines, containers and cloud accounts to reduce risk and meet regulatory compliance.
  • Lead troubleshooting and root cause analysis for complex incidents across the stack; coordinate cross-functional war rooms, post-incident reviews, and implementation of corrective actions.
  • Integrate enterprise applications with identity providers (SAML, OAuth, OpenID Connect) and manage service accounts, certificate lifecycle, and secure credential storage (vaults, KMS).
  • Manage vendor relationships and procurement for hardware, software and managed services including contract reviews, licensing, renewals and escalations to ensure SLAs are met.
  • Implement network segmentation, firewall rules, and host-based security policies in collaboration with security teams to protect sensitive systems and data flows.
  • Develop and maintain technical runbooks, standard operating procedures, architecture diagrams and configuration baselines to ensure operational consistency and knowledge transfer.
  • Participate in cross-functional project delivery: provide technical design, estimates, implementation plans, and testing for infrastructure and platform projects using Agile or Waterfall methodologies.
  • Execute CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and platform components, integrating automated testing, security scans, and policy gates to improve release quality and speed.
  • Coordinate and perform vulnerability scanning, remediation tracking, and security patch workflows with security and application teams to maintain a secure environment.
  • Provide L3 support for escalated system issues, mentoring L1/L2 engineers, accepting on-call rotations and ensuring timely resolution of critical production outages.
  • Evaluate, pilot and recommend new technologies (observability, cloud-native services, automation tools) and drive continuous improvement initiatives to modernize the infrastructure stack.
  • Ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks and company policies (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX) by implementing adequate controls, audit logging and periodic evidence collection.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in asset management and CMDB updates to maintain an accurate inventory of systems, licenses, and warranties.
  • Provide technical input to security assessments, audits and internal control reviews; prepare artifacts and evidence for auditors.
  • Conduct knowledge-sharing sessions, training and onboarding for new hires and cross-functional teams on platform capabilities and best practices.
  • Create and maintain SLAs, runbooks and playbooks for incident escalation and recovery scenarios.
  • Support procurement and lifecycle management for servers, storage, networking and cloud subscriptions.
  • Perform environment refreshes, decommissioning, and data migrations while maintaining data integrity and security.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Windows Server administration (2012/2016/2019/2022), including Active Directory, Group Policy, and failover clustering.
  • Linux systems administration (RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu) including shell scripting, package management and systemd.
  • Cloud platform experience: AWS (EC2, VPC, IAM, RDS, S3), Microsoft Azure (VMs, VNets, Azure AD), or GCP equivalents.
  • Virtualization and containerization: VMware vSphere, Hyper‑V, Docker, Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE) and container orchestration fundamentals.
  • Infrastructure-as-Code and automation: Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, PowerShell DSC, and scripting (PowerShell, Python, Bash).
  • Networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, routing, VPNs and firewall rule management.
  • Identity and access management (Azure AD, AD Federation Services, SAML/OAuth/OpenID Connect) and privileged access controls.
  • Monitoring and logging tools: Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, ELK/Elastic Stack, Datadog, or Nagios.
  • Backup and disaster recovery technologies: Veeam, NetBackup, Azure/AWS backup solutions and DR orchestration.
  • Database system support familiarity: Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL — including backup, replication and performance troubleshooting.
  • Security tooling and practices: vulnerability scanners, endpoint protection, hardening, patch management and secure configuration frameworks (CIS).
  • DevOps/CI-CD toolchains: Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Terraform Cloud, and familiarity with release automation.
  • Container networking and service mesh basics (Istio, Linkerd) and cloud-native logging/tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry).
  • Configuration management and centralized configuration stores: HashiCorp Vault, AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault.
  • Familiarity with ITSM and incident management tools: ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, PagerDuty.

Soft Skills

  • Clear verbal and written communication tailored to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Strong problem-solving, analytical thinking and structured troubleshooting approach.
  • Stakeholder management and the ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
  • Collaboration and teamwork across engineering, security, network, and application teams.
  • Time management, prioritization and the ability to handle multiple parallel projects.
  • Mentoring and coaching skills for junior engineers and cross-functional knowledge transfer.
  • Proactive continuous learning mentality and ability to evaluate new technologies objectively.
  • Customer-focus and service orientation with an emphasis on reliability and uptime.
  • Attention to detail for configuration, documentation and audit readiness.
  • Resilience under pressure during incident response and production escalations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, Computer Engineering or a related technical discipline; or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in a related field or advanced technical certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator, Cisco CCNA, Red Hat RHCE).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Information Technology
  • Computer Engineering
  • Cybersecurity

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of progressive experience in systems administration, infrastructure engineering or related roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years supporting enterprise-scale systems with demonstrable experience in cloud migrations, automation, security controls and project delivery.
  • Hands-on experience in hybrid cloud environments, lifecycle management of infrastructure, and direct participation in incident management and postmortems.
  • Preferred certifications: CISSP, CISM, AWS/Azure/GCP professional associate/architect certifications, ITIL Foundation.
Explore More Careers