Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-duty AIX System Administrator role built for someone who knows IBM Power Systems inside and out. You will be dealing with mission-critical infrastructure, firmware upgrades, and deep-dive performance tuning rather than just resetting passwords. If you enjoy managing bare-metal enterprise hardware, clustering, and heavy automation, this is a solid gig.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You will spend your days managing AIX environments, handling NIM installations, configuring LVM and LPAR profiles, and wrangling PowerVM. Expect to automate repetitive software lifecycle management tasks and weed out operational toil using tools like Ansible and Python. You will also coordinate closely with networking and storage teams, occasionally dealing with shifting schedules like Tuesday-to-Saturday rotations as part of operational support.
The Core Tech Stack
You need absolute fluency in AIX, VIOS, and HMC administration, alongside a strong grip on NIM, Power Systems firmware, and storage networking. Because they rely heavily on automation, your Ansible playbooks and UNIX scripting skills need to be sharp enough to handle orchestration at scale. Don't expect to wing the networking side either—knowing your way around SEAs, VLANs, TCP/IP, and NFS client/server setups is non-negotiable.
Interview Expectations
Expect the interviewers to throw a scenario at you regarding an unbootable AIX LPAR or a corrupted rootvg after an incomplete mksysb restore, testing your disaster recovery methodology under pressure. They will also likely drill down into how you approach identifying and eliminating toil using Ansible and Python, so be ready to walk them through a specific automation script you built to solve a legacy bottleneck.
Application Advice
When updating your resume, make sure your experience with AIX LVM, NIM, and PowerVM administration stands out front and center. Explicitly highlight your work with automation tools like Ansible and Python, as the team values candidates who don't just maintain systems manually but scale them through code. Weave in keywords like Power Systems firmware upgrades, VIOS network administration, and Agile methodologies naturally into your work history to easily clear the automated ATS filters.