System Administrator

Job Description

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state, and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem‑solving skills, and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world. By being deeply invested in our work, showing compassion in our interactions, and embodying the spirit of a team player, each member contributes to a thriving community.

UW is committed to attracting and retaining a diverse staff; your experiences, perspectives, and unique identities will be honored at the University of Washington. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable, and welcoming.

University of Washington is at the forefront of leveraging cutting‑edge technologies to transform education, research and healthcare. UW Information Technology (UW‑IT) is the central IT organization for the University of Washington, collaborating with partners across the University community to advance teaching, learning, innovation and discovery. UW‑IT delivers critical IT services and support to all three campuses, UW medical centers and global research operations.

Innovation and discovery are at the heart of what UW‑IT does and drive the work in advancing the University of Washington's role and mission.

This role requires maintaining high standards for platform configuration, release management, security controls, and operational governance within the Service Now environment. The System Administrator must ensure system stability, data integrity, and structured change management practices while leveraging automation, integrations, and Jira‑based release coordination to deliver predictable and low‑risk platform enhancements. A disciplined approach to documentation, testing, upgrade management, and performance monitoring is essential to sustaining a secure, scalable, and reliable enterprise service management platform.

Success in this position also depends on the ability to operate effectively within a decentralized and complex institutional environment. The System Administrator must collaborate across IT, HR, Finance, academic units, and Information Security teams to align platform capabilities with diverse business needs while enforcing governance and compliance standards. Strong communication skills, stakeholder engagement, proactive issue resolution, and continuous improvement are critical to ensuring that the Service Now platform remains resilient, compliant, and strategically aligned with the university's broader technology and service delivery objectives.

• Administer and maintain the Service Now platform, including user access, roles, groups, ACLs, and instance configurations.
• Configure and support core modules such as ITSM (Incident, Problem, Change), Service Catalog, Knowledge Management, CMDB, and Asset Management.
• Manage instance upgrades, patches, and release management in alignment with ITSM Platform release cycles and UWIT Change Management Process.
• Coordinate platform releases using Jira for backlog management, sprint tracking, release planning, change documentation, and deployment visibility.
• Maintain release calendars, document release notes, and ensure alignment between SDLC application epics/stories and ITSM Platform update sets.

• Provide support the implement of the integrations between ITSM Platform and enterprise systems (e.g., identity systems, ERP, HRIS, monitoring tools) using REST/SOAP APIs, web services, and Integration Hub.
• Support single sign‑on (SSO) and identity integrations (e.g., Entra /Active Directory).
• Collaborate with developers and business analysts to translate requirements into scalable ITSM Platform solutions.
• Work closely with development teams to ensure SDLC application‑tracked enhancements are properly tested, documented, and promoted through development, staging, and production environments.
• Develop reports, dashboards, and performance analytics to support operational and executive decision‑making.
• Provide initial support for workflows, business rules, UI policies, client…