Virtualization and Systems Administrator

Result of Service

The IC will deliver a series of infrastructure, virtualization, and application support outputs over the course of the 6 month assignment. The required deliverables comprise: a complete Proxmox cluster optimization and high-availability (HA) baseline consisting of a health check, resource tuning, and failover configuration for production virtualization nodes; a storage expansion and virtual machine provisioning framework detailing the successful integration and masking of new LUNs alongside resource allocation strategies; and dedicated operational support for hosted applications, including resolution logs and step-by-step troubleshooting runbooks for on-premises, customer-facing platforms to minimize operational downtime. Furthermore, the IC will provide a legacy system assessment and modernization blueprint encompassing the technical solution designs and architecture roadmaps necessary to phase out outdated environments; implement a robust backup, recovery, and cluster monitoring stack that establishes automated VM backup/snapshot lifecycles and performance monitoring dashboards for compute, storage, and network layers; and conclude with a formal operational handover and technical documentation package consisting of full administration manuals, infrastructure topology diagrams, and a structured internal knowledge-transfer workshop for the team.

Work Location

Hybrid: UN-House/Remote

Expected duration

6 months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background: The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) forms part of the United Nations Secretariat and, like the other regional commissions, operates under the supervision of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. ESCWA comprises 21 Arab countries in Western Asia and North Africa. ESCWA provides a framework for the formulation and harmonization of sectoral policies for member countries, a platform for congress and coordination, a home for expertise and knowledge, and an information observatory. ESCWA activities are coordinated with the divisions and main offices of the Headquarters of the United Nations, specialized agencies, and international and regional organizations, including the League of Arab States and its subsidiary bodies, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. This position is located in the Decision-Support and Data Science Division (DSDSD). The Decision-Support and Data Science Division is part of ESCWA's broader modernization and innovation efforts, providing advanced analytics, secure digital platforms, and decision-support services within ESCWA, other UN entities, and Member States. Aligned with the UN 2.0 agenda and grounded in operational resilience, DSDS leverages cutting-edge infrastructure, enterprise virtualization, and scalable technology frameworks to ensure high availability, security, and performance for critical digital assets. Its core functions include virtualization cluster management, storage provisioning, container orchestration, the administration of on-premises hosted applications for external partners, and the modernization of legacy enterprise systems. Through these capabilities, DSDS maintains reliable, enterprise-grade digital decision-support tools that empower evidence-based decision-making and foster organizational efficiency across the region. Under the supervision of the Chief of the Decision-Support and Data Science Division and in close collaboration with the infrastructure and digital development teams, the Individual Contractor (IC) will support the development, virtualization, maintenance, and optimization of core infrastructure systems and architectures to support strategic initiative delivery. Duties and responsibilities: The Virtualization and Systems Administrator will perform the following tasks: System Administration: o Administer and maintain Proxmox virtualization clusters hosting production and development workloads. o Managed VM provisioning, cloning, snapshots, backups, and lifecycle operations. o Configured high availability (HA) and failover mechanisms for critical business applications. o Performed cluster monitoring, capacity planning, and resource optimization across compute and storage nodes. o Managed virtual networking, VLANs, bridges, and inter-VM connectivity. o Monitored cluster health, CPU, memory, storage, and network performance. o Diagnosed and resolved virtualization, storage, and networking issues impacting production services. o Tuned virtual machine resource allocations to improve performance and infrastructure efficiency. o Conducted regular maintenance, upgrades, and security patching of Proxmox nodes. o Administered Kubernetes clusters, including deployment, scaling, monitoring, and troubleshooting of containerized applications to ensure high availability and reliable service delivery. Storage Allocation & Administration: o Conduct storage volume management tasks, introducing, configuring, and masking new LUNs from the storage networks to the virtualization clusters. o Optimize high-throughput storage paths and performance partitioning strategies to eliminate application latencies. On-Premises Application Support & Maintenance: o Provide operational support for specialized on-premises applications hosted internally for external partners and customers. o Debug application layer issues, service disruptions, and database connectivity dropouts to maximize system uptime. o Manage containerized application stacks using Kubernetes, ensuring deployment, resource scaling, and service discovery remain active. Legacy Modernization & Solution Creation: o Participate in technical solution designs targeted at upgrading, migrating, or completely replacing legacy enterprise environments. o Formulate infrastructure migration steps, system topology blueprints, and infrastructure-as-code runbooks to safely phase out outdated legacy platforms.

Qualifications/special skills

A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, System Administration, Statistics, Data Science, or related fields is required. All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. Minimum 6 years of professional experience in designing and deploying data systems, data center virtualization, infrastructure management, with demonstrated consultancy or technical leadership roles is required. Proven experience with cloud environments (Azure, AWS, or GCP), container orchestration (Kubernetes), DevOps automation, Proxmox VE (or equivalent enterprise hypervisors), virtual machine provisioning, cluster high-availability (HA), and network configuration (VLANs, bridges) is required. Demonstrated experience in storage area network (SAN) administration, including the integration, masking, and management of new LUNs, is required. Experience with infrastructure monitoring tools, and troubleshooting on-premises hosted applications is required. Strong familiarity with legacy system migration strategies, infrastructure modernization planning, and disaster recovery execution is desirable. Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills is required.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA. For this position, fluency in English is required and knowledge of Arabic is desirable. Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information

Recruitment for this position is on a local basis. The incumbent is required to have the legal right to live and work in the specified working location

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.