Senior Systems Administrator

Position: Senior Systems Administrator

*Please read this description in full before applying. Applications that don’t follow the instructions at the end may not be considered.*

About Us

Based in Montreal, Quebec, Simply Voting Inc. is a leading provider of secure, hosted online elections. Our clients include organizations such as Elections PEI, the Liberal Party of Canada, and the University of Toronto. We are a financially stable, growing B2B SaaS company known for technical rigour, security, and outstanding customer service.

About the Role

This position is an opportunity to take ownership of a stable, mission-critical server environment that has a direct impact on democratic processes across various sectors of our society.

You will be the lead caretaker of our infrastructure, with support from the founder and development team. This is a stability-first environment, focused on maintaining and incrementally improving a proven architecture rather than large-scale re-platforming.

Our platform runs on a hardened Linux + Apache + PHP-FPM + MariaDB stack. Your primary responsibility is to ensure high standards of performance, security, and availability. You will also contribute to incremental improvements and automation of the infrastructure over time.

Infrastructure is managed as code using Terraform for provisioning and Ansible for configuration, with peer review required for all changes.

Work is guided by established priorities, tasks, and processes, particularly as you ramp up. As you develop familiarity with the system, you will be expected to contribute to planning, propose improvements, and take increasing ownership of infrastructure decisions.

You will be responsible for on-call coverage, with backup support from the founder. Incidents are infrequent (typically less than one per month).

Key Benefits

· 85% work from home

· Excellent work/life balance

· Life, health, and dental plan

· Annual company-wide bonus

· RRSP matching

· Four weeks of vacation

· Additional two-week paid company closure over Christmas and New Year’s

· Competitive salary based on experience

Core Qualifications

· At least 5 years of experience managing Linux-based production servers (Rocky / RHEL / CentOS or similar)

· Strong experience with Apache (configuration, tuning, troubleshooting)

· Strong experience with MySQL / MariaDB (replication, backups, performance, recovery)

· Strong experience with infrastructure automation using Ansible

· Proven ability to diagnose and resolve incidents independently in a live production environment

· Strong knowledge of shell scripting

· Experience with Git / GitHub

· Experience with server monitoring tools

· Understanding of security issues and server hardening

Nice to Have Qualifications

· Experience with Terraform

· Experience with hardware virtualization

· Experience managing firewalls (preferably Fortigate UTM)

· Experience with load testing

· Experience with Galera cluster

· Basic knowledge of PHP (programming not required)

· Knowledge of SAML

· A degree in a related field is preferable, however equivalent skills and experience will be considered.

· RHCSA / RHCE or CISSP certifications are assets, but not required.

Responsibilities

· Develop a general understanding of online voting and our business processes

· Develop an in-depth understanding of the voting system infrastructure

· Administer production, development, and staging environments

· Monitor infrastructure for faults, performance issues, and security concerns

· Diagnose and resolve production incidents, including root cause analysis and prevention

· Incrementally improve and document infrastructure to enhance reliability, security, and performance

· Participate in peer reviews for infrastructure-as-code changes

· Collaborate with developers to support app dependencies and improve app deployments

· Conduct periodic security audits

· Perform peer reviews for infrastructure-as-code changes

Working Style & Expectations

· You are comfortable operating independently and taking ownership within a structured environment, with increasing autonomy over time.

· You prioritize stability, reliability, and low-risk improvements over large-scale re-architecture

· You are calm and methodical when responding to production incidents

· You value clear documentation and reproducible infrastructure

· You make careful, well-scoped changes and avoid unnecessary complexity

Application Process

If this role excites you and aligns with your career goals, we invite you to apply by submitting your CV to [email protected]. Additionally, please upload a brief (maximum three-minute) video to https://share.simplyvoting.com/r#1NdCv8TyMK6Q1SB2kF_lwg. Please begin your video by stating your full name, then answer the following questions:

· Why are you interested in this position?

· What is your ideal work environment?

· What is your general philosophy towards systems administration?

· Tell us about a production issue or incident that taught you an important lesson.

Ready to take ownership of a stable, mission-critical system and make a meaningful impact? We look forward to meeting you!