Systems Specialist II

Position: Application Systems Specialist II
** Agency
* * Dept of Health and Human Services
** Division
* * SEC OFFICE - INFO TECH - NC FAST
** Job Classification Title
** Applications Systems Specialist II (NS)
** Position Number
**** Grade
* * DT11

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is one of the largest, most complex agencies in the state, and has approximately 17,000 employees. It is responsible for ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of all North Carolinians, providing human service needs for special populations including individuals who are deaf, blind, developmentally disabled, and mentally ill, and helping poor North Carolinians achieve economic independence.
** Description of Work
** This position serves as the Cloud Operations Lead responsible for provisioning and administering enterprise-grade AWS infrastructure supporting complex information technology applications across DHHS. Operating in a hybrid data center environment, this role ensures continuous system availability, drives automation and optimization, and ensures compliance with security and privacy standards. The position requires technical leadership in areas such as server management, database support, and infrastructure troubleshooting, and plays a vital role in supporting operational needs and emergency response scenarios.

Key duties span infrastructure deployment, team guidance, and cross-functional collaboration within a mission-critical IT environment.
Key

Duties Include:

-Provisions and maintains enterprise-grade AWS infrastructure to support large-scale IT applications.
-Drives automation and orchestration of cloud infrastructure using IaC and CI/CD tools.
-Troubleshoots AWS infrastructure and resolves operational issues to ensure high availability.
-Plans, reviews, and deploys patches and upgrades in mixed (Windows/Linux) AWS environments.
-Addresses platform and infrastructure-related audit findings in collaboration with internal teams.
-Leads operational cost optimization and cloud performance tuning initiatives.
-Coordinates with internal teams on infrastructure planning and compliance alignment.
-Provides technical guidance to operations staff and sets team priorities.
-Supports incident response and resolution for cloud production issues.
-Ensures alignment with security and privacy requirements in all operational practices.
** Knowledge

Skills and Abilities

/Management Preferences**##
*** Salary Grade Range: $91,600.00 - $***##
* Candidates now meet the minimum qualifications for a position if they possess the minimum education and experience listed in the vacancy announcement.
** The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)/ Management Preferences are not required. Applicants who possess the following skills are preferred:
** Demonstrated experience with provisioning and managing AWS infrastructure for large-scale applications.
* Demonstrated experience with scripting in Python, Bash, or Power Shell for automation.
* Demonstrated experience with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform, Cloud Formation, or Ansible.
* Demonstrated experience managing AWS services, including EC2, S3, VPC/Subnet, Messaging, and RDS.
* Demonstrated experience supporting cloud environments with a focus on operational stability and compliance.##
** REPOST - Previous Applicants Do Not Need To Reapply To Be Considered For This Vacancy**##
*** The Posting Will Close At 11:59 P.M. The Night Before The End Date***##
*** This Position Is Funded In Part Through Federal Funds***##
** About the NC DHHS Information Technology Division:
** In collaboration with our partners, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) protects the health and safety of all North Carolinians and provides essential health and human services. The IT division (ITD) is one of the divisions that reports to the Operational Excellence portfolio. The ITD division comprises six sections:
Implementation and Operations, Strategy and Workforce, Enterprise Technology, Vendor and Finance, Data and Analytics, and Cyber and Privacy. Team ITD offers the following services, but not limited to, implementations, operations, project/portfolio management, infrastructure, consulting, business division liaison, digital transformation, IT strategy, enterprise technology, IT contract and vendor management, and data office services.##
** Compensation and Benefits:
** The State of North Carolina offers excellent comprehensive benefits. Employees can participate in health insurance options, standard and supplemental retirement plans, and the NCFlex program (numerous high-quality, low-cost benefits on a pre-tax basis). Employees also receive paid vacation, sick, and community service leave. In addition, paid parental leave is available to eligible employees. Visit the website for##
** Supplemental Contact Information
** The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is an Equal Opportunity Employer that embraces an Employment First philosophy, which consists of complying with all federal…