Senior Systems Administrator - Scientific IT Infrastructure & Cybersecurity

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's (LBNL) Advanced Light Source (ALS) Division has an opening for a Senior Systems Administrator - Scientific IT Infrastructure & Cybersecurity. This position will supervise the ALS-IT team and provide strategic and technical direction for the systems, servers, networks, and cybersecurity infrastructure supporting more than 40 scientific beamlines, the ALS Control Room, and other mission-critical facility operations.

Serving as the senior technical authority for the ALS beamline and controls computing environment, you will lead complex infrastructure and cybersecurity initiatives, develop and mentor IT professionals, and partner closely with ALS leadership and Berkeley Lab's central IT organization. This role is ideal for a technical leader who combines hands‑on systems and cybersecurity expertise with people leadership, strategic planning, and a commitment to reliable, secure IT services that enable world‑class scientific discovery.

The Advanced Light Source is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national scientific user facility that produces exceptionally bright soft and hard x‑ray, ultraviolet, and infrared light. With a strong scientific reputation, expert staff, and advanced capabilities, the ALS attracts thousands of academic and industrial users each year in condensed matter and quantum materials, energy sciences, biosciences, earth and planetary sciences and more.

The ALS is one of five Berkeley Lab user facilities that serve 15,000 users annually. Co‑located with the Molecular Foundry, NERSC supercomputing center, and Berkeley Lab's materials, chemical sciences, biosciences, and other divisions, it provides an ideal collaborative environment for innovative scientific discoveries.

The ALS is a global leader in soft x‑ray science, and aims to maintain its leadership with ALS‑U, a major project to upgrade the facility to a fourth‑generation light source. This upgrade will position the facility among the brightest soft x‑ray light sources in the world, offering capabilities that no other facility can provide.

• Lead and supervise the ALS Information Technology (ALS-IT) team, providing coaching, performance management, hiring, employee development, and oversight in accordance with Laboratory policies.
• Set strategic and technical direction for the IT infrastructure supporting the Advanced Light Source, including systems, servers, storage, networking, virtualization, identity management, and cybersecurity.
• Develop and execute the ALS-IT technology roadmap, establish priorities, manage resources, contribute to budget planning, and lead infrastructure modernization initiatives.
• Serve as the primary technical advisor and cybersecurity expert for the ALS beamline and controls computing environment, ensuring the reliability, security, and availability of mission‑critical research systems.
• Oversee the design, implementation, and administration, implementation, and administration of enterprise Windows and Linux environments, Active Directory, virtualization platforms, Kubernetes‑based services, identity and access management, and infrastructure automation.
• Oversee system monitoring, incident response, patch management, disaster recovery, and operational support to maintain high availability for scientific operations.
• Direct disaster recovery and business continuity planning, testing, and drills tailored to scientific data storage, control room systems, and other mission‑critical user facility operations.
• Partner with ALS leadership, beamline scientists, and Berkeley Lab IT to develop technology solutions, establish best practices, and support complex scientific computing initiatives.
• Drive network security and infrastructure modernization initiatives, including the implementation of Zero Trust principles for edge devices and systems within the ALS beamline and controls computing environment.
• Establish and maintain Service Level Agreements, support procedures, and ticketing workflows that provide responsive and consistent IT services to ALS staff, scientific personnel, and visiting facility users.
• Support accelerator operations and scientific…