Senior IT Systems Engineer

Avania

6d•$125,000

About The Position

The Senior Systems Engineer plays a key role in designing, maintaining, and optimizing Avania’s global IT infrastructure. Operating in a small but highly regulated clinical research environment, this role ensures systems are secure, compliant, resilient, and scalable across multiple countries. The Senior Systems Engineer serves as an escalation point for complex technical issues and contributes to both daily operations and long‑term technology strategy. This is an internal customer-facing role within a small IT Team and requires excellent communication and customer service skills. Being a senior role within the team, the position requires effective management and prioritization of own tasks, excellent responsiveness to issues and problems, as well as the ability to create an environment built on trust, open communication, creative thinking and cohesive team effort.

Responsibilities

Ensure and contribute to a day-to-day IT routine that anticipates problems and needs.
Support Avania employees and independent contractors with day to-day challenges.
Perform user and system administration functions in Microsoft 365 and other SaaS systems.
Perform user onboarding, including account setup, licensing, and orientation.
Procure and deploy hardware to Avania staff.
Maintain Windows servers, printers, and networking equipment.
Effectively communicates IT concepts to a non-technical audience.
Manage and work with external suppliers in projects and operation.
Manage the IT side of audits, validations and SOPs.
Make use of and develop the features already available from existing products and services to enhance the flexibility and efficiency of the group.
Be mindful of stability, security, resilience and disaster recovery needs.
Effectively communicate concepts and ideas to different audience types and gain management buy-in
Motivate and inspire fellow team members.
Set a good example (role model) to other team members, being proactive in identifying, supporting, coaching and mentoring team members
Design, implement, and maintain global IT infrastructure, including servers, virtual environments, storage, networks, and cloud platforms.
Manage Windows Server environments, Active Directory, Azure AD, Group Policies, and identity/access management.
Oversee Microsoft 365 administration (Entra ID, InTune, Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams).
Ensure high availability, performance, and security of critical systems across geographies.
Working with other disciplines and 3rd parties to ensure products are installed, configured, integrated and supported to ensure that the solution is appropriate, impartial and meets the needs of the group.
Being available to support systems and services outside of normal business hours.
Implement and maintain security controls aligned with Good Clinical Practice (GCP), GDPR, HIPAA (if applicable), and internal IT policies.
Monitor and respond to security alerts, vulnerabilities, system events, and compliance deviations.
Support internal and external audits, including documentation and remediation plans.
Serve as senior escalation point for complex support incidents.
Troubleshoot and resolve issues related to infrastructure, networking, authentication, and system integrations.
Manage backup/restore procedures, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning.
Lead and contribute to global infrastructure projects (network upgrades, security tools, system implementations).
Evaluate new technologies and recommend solutions that improve stability, security, and efficiency.
Maintain high‑quality technical documentation, SOPs, and diagrams.
Manage relationships with global IT vendors, MSPs, and cloud service providers.
Collaborate with cross‑functional teams (Clinical Operations, Quality, Finance, HR) to understand system needs and deliver fit‑for‑purpose solutions.
Coordinate with regional IT contacts or support partners in different countries.