LMS IT Systems Administrator; Program Administrator IV

Introduction

The Maryland State Department of Education is dedicated to supporting a world-class educational system that prepares all students for college and career success in the 21st century. With excellent stewardship from our divisions, we oversee State and federal programs that support the needs of a diverse population – students, teachers, principals, and other educators throughout Maryland.

GRADE

22

LOCATION OF POSITION

Nancy S. Grasmick Building
200 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

(Hybrid eligible; on-call availability required for production deployments and critical incidents; Global Protect VPN required for all MSDE system access)

This contractual position serves as MSDE s in-house technical platform owner and primary administrator for the agency s enterprise Learning Management System (LMS), currently deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) instance. The position is organized under the IT Branch (the IT Branch) and reports to the Director of IT Operations.

This is a new position being established in the IT Branch. It is distinct from an existing LMS administrator role within the Chief Academic Officer s organization, which carries curricular and programmatic responsibilities. This position carries no curricular responsibilities. Its scope is exclusively the technical platform: the infrastructure at the application layer, the identity and access management systems, the integrations, the security and compliance posture, and the vendor relationship.

The two roles are complementary and are designed to work alongside one another.

MSDE s LMS is the technical infrastructure platform on which the Chief Academic Officer s program offices deliver professional learning, educator development, and compliance-related programs to approximately 133,000 school employees and board members across Maryland s 24 local education agencies (LEAs). This position is responsible for maintaining a well-governed, reliable, secure, and technically excellent platform on which those programs can be delivered.

The incumbent works alongside Canvas-knowledgeable non-IT program staff in the Chief Academic Officer s organization as the IT technical primary and platform authority.

• Identity and access management (IAM) for a user population of approximately 133,000 school employees and board members residing across 24 separate LEA-managed identity systems as well as MSDE s own identity infrastructure; integration and API administration; platform administration, configuration, and governance; operational monitoring, reporting infrastructure, and security compliance; day-to-day vendor relationship and contract monitoring; platform readiness and technical onboarding; and Tier 2/3 internal support escalation.
  
  This position does not hold server administration or infrastructure ownership responsibilities -- infrastructure and hosting below the LMS application layer are the responsibility of the LMS vendor (SaaS host), DoIT, and MSDE s Infrastructure Branch. The incumbent may work in server-side environments as required by integration and automation duties, in coordination with those parties. This position is a critical enabler of MSDE s obligations under Education Article Sections 7-2201 through 7-2204, Annotated Code of Maryland (Chapter 634, Acts of 2026 -- the Artificial Intelligence Ready Schools Act), COMAR Title 13A, and other applicable reporting requirements.

• Integration administration and API management – Design, implement, and maintain all technical integrations between the LMS and MSDE enterprise systems including SIS data pipelines, HR identity feeds, educator certification systems, and third-party instructional tools, using LMS REST API, LTI 1.3/Advantage, SIS import/export, and scripted automation (Power Shell, Python).

• Platform administration, configuration and governance
  - Maintain LMS application configuration at the platform level: manage global settings, feature flags, authentication providers, sub-account hierarchy, notification templates, and platform-wide policies. Evaluate LMS feature releases and quarterly updates; assess impact on existing…