Senior Systems Engineer

Sword is a leading provider of business technology solutions within the Energy, Public and Finance Sectors, driving real transformation change within our clients. We use proven technology, specialist teams and domain expertise to build solid technical foundations across platforms, data and business applications. We have a passion for using technology to solve business problems, working in partnership with our clients to help in achieving their goals.
Sword is looking for an experienced Senior Systems Engineer to join our Managed Services team. You’ll support and improve customer systems across on-premise and datacentre environments. This is an operational engineering role for someone who takes ownership, works methodically and wants to prevent problems rather than spend every day reacting to tickets.
You’ll work across server, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity and supporting platform services. Observability, automation and sound operational practice will be central to how you work. The aim is simple: keep customer services stable, secure and measurable, then find practical ways to make them better.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll provide day-to-day operational support, administration and maintenance for customer systems platforms across on-premise and datacentre environments.
Your responsibilities will include:
Monitoring service health and using alerts, logs, metrics and trend data to identify degradation before it becomes a larger issue
Investigating and resolving incidents across Windows Server, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, virtualisation, storage, backup and related services
Managing incidents, service requests, changes and operational tasks against agreed service commitments and customer priorities
Supporting root-cause analysis and problem management, with a focus on permanent fixes rather than repeated workarounds
Carrying out patching, configuration changes, vulnerability remediation, platform maintenance and operational housekeeping
Supporting upgrades, migrations, hardware refreshes, decommissioning and the transition of new environments into managed service support
Identifying opportunities to automate repetitive work, improve consistency and reduce operational risk
Maintaining accurate technical documentation, standard operating procedures, knowledge articles and support records
Working with service management, customer teams, suppliers and technical specialists to resolve issues across connected services
Communicating clearly during incidents, changes and improvement activity, giving customers evidence and context rather than vague technical updates
Requirements
You’ll have at least five years’ experience supporting systems infrastructure within an enterprise, managed services or outsourced IT environment.
Relevant certifications across systems engineering, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity, security or automation, supported by an ITIL Foundation or equivalent service-management qualification where appropriate.
Strong operational knowledge of Windows Server, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy and core datacentre services
Strong technical knowledge of on-premises and datacentre services, including server platforms, virtualisation, storage, backup, identity and core infrastructure technologies.
Proven experience supporting Windows and/or Linux server environments, covering configuration, troubleshooting, patching, hardening and lifecycle management.
Experience operating enterprise virtualisation, storage, backup and recovery platforms, with a sound understanding of availability, capacity, resilience and recovery requirements.
Strong diagnostic capability across compute, storage, networking, backup, identity and application dependency layers, including complex and high-impact service issues.
Experience working within an ITIL-aligned managed service environment across incident, problem, change, service request and knowledge-management processes.
Ability to use observability, monitoring and service data to assess platform health, identify risk, improve alert quality and reduce recurring operational noise.
Experience creating automation and scripts using appropriate technologies, such as PowerShell, Bash, Python or vendor tooling, to improve consistency and reduce manual effort.
Ability to act as a senior escalation point, produce clear operational documentation, guide customers and engineering teams, manage supplier escalations, and support service onboarding and operational readiness.
Benefits
At Sword, our core values and culture are based on caring about our people, investing in training and career development and building inclusive teams where we are all encouraged to contribute to achieve success.
We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life. In addition to a Competitive Salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:
Personalised Career Development: We create a development plan customised to your goals and aspirations, with a range of learning and development opportunities within a culture that encourages growth.
Flexible working: Flexible work arrangements to support your work-life balance. We can’t promise to always be able to meet every request, however are keen to discuss your individual preferences to make it work where we can.
A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes, an employee assistance programme, discounted cash plan and more…..
At Sword we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer, ensuring that all applicants receive fair and equal consideration for employment, regardless of whether they meet every requirement. If you don’t tick all the boxes but feel you have some of the relevant skills and experience we’re looking for, please do consider applying and highlight your transferable skills and experience. We embrace diversity in all its forms, valuing individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. Your perspective and potential are important to us.
If we can do anything to help make the hiring process more accessible, please let our talent acquisition team know when you apply so we can support any adjustments.

Work arrangement
No