Systems Administrator III

About OICR

OICR is Ontario’s cancer research institute. We bring together people from across the province and around the world to improve the lives of everyone affected by cancer. We take on the biggest challenges in cancer research and deliver real-world solutions to find cancer earlier and treat it more effectively. We are committed to helping people living with cancer, as well as future generations, live longer and healthier lives.

Position:
Systems Administrator III

Location:

MaRS Centre, Toronto

Department:
Research Information Technology

Reports To:

Associate Director, Research IT Infrastructure

Hiring Range: $93,000 to $104,500 per annum commensurate with level of experience; total compensation includes a competitive benefits plan, plus a defined benefit pension plan (HOOPP)

Hours:

35 hours/week

Job Type: Hybrid

Status:
Full-Time, Permanent

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) is seeking an experienced Linux Systems Administrator III to help build and support leading-edge technology infrastructure that plays a key role in OICR’s cancer research activities. The successful candidate will join a team of ~30 IT professionals, supporting state of the art on‑premise and cloud‑based technology services to over 300 local research, lab and administrative users, and thousands of collaborators across Ontario and globally.

OICR’s infrastructure consists of Linux and Windows servers, including a large high performance compute cluster (GPU and CPU), large virtualization platforms, over 10 Peta Bytes of high performance storage, and over 1,000 client and lab devices.

• Implements and supports and/or installs infrastructure systems, Linux operating systems, software, and hardware, on‑premise, and on commercial and academic cloud using industry best practice for scalability, availability and security, in accordance with OICR policies and practices.
• Interprets log results and system behaviors.
• Ensures IT infrastructure systems operate as intended.
• Pro‑actively identifies potential problems in infrastructure systems (internal or third party) and suggests solutions.
• Prepares accurate status reports on deliverables.
• Coordinates work teams and provides technical support to project team members.
• Contributes to and is active in infrastructure systems projects with internal and external collaborators.
• May act as liaison between business and vendors and suppliers.
• Writes technical documentation.
• Helps manage day‑to‑day operations.
• Manages priorities and meets project timelines and solution objectives, with supervision.
• Adheres to and promotes new team infrastructure systems engineering guidelines, practices, OICR policies.
• Develop, implement, and maintain tools to improve server and application management.
• Install, configure, update and support core applications such as Atlassian Confluence, Crowd, Jira, Service Desk.
• Identify and apply security patches with a sense of urgency.
• Safeguard sensitive data through the use of appropriate technology (e.g. encryption at rest, and in‑transit).

• Bachelor’s degree, or recognized equivalent in Computer Science or Engineering.
• Experience in an IT‑related position that included maintaining Linux server infrastructure.
• Expert level knowledge of Linux operating systems.
• Solid knowledge of infrastructure services including DNS, Mail, LDAP/AD, data backup and restore, systems log parsing and auditing.
• A proven foundation of knowledge in server systems and networking infrastructure.
• A proven foundation of knowledge in information security concepts and practices, and network hardware/software protocols and principles.
• Experience working with or willingness to learn High Performance Computing (HPC).
• Experience with some or all of: NFS, Openstack, Ceph, Slurm, Ansible, Git, Terraform, containerization, Kubernetes, Docker.
• Intermediate experience with scripting languages.
• Must be able to read, write and speak English fluently.
• Ability to participate in an after‑hours on‑call rotation.
• Has a passion for problem‑solving.

Posted Date:
October 27, 2025
Closing Date:
Until Filled

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