Senior System Administrator

Social Discovery Group (SDG) is a group of social discovery companies. SDG solves the problems of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection - transforming virtual intimacy into the new normal. SDG’s products redefine the way people interact and connect with one another.

Our portfolio includes social entertainment platforms designed to connect people online across different cultures and regions of the world.

We bring together a team of like-minded people and IT professionals who specialize in creating and developing globally impactful social discovery products. Our international team of digital nomads works remotely from all over the world.

We’re proud to be a two-time “Great Place to Work” winner (USA & Japan, 2024–2025) and a Top-5 Company for Work-From-Anywhere Jobs (FlexJobs, 2025).

THE ROLE:
We are seeking an experienced Senior System Administrator with strong expertise in Microsoft infrastructure - Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Certificate Authority, and Group Policy - and in VDI and RDS access platforms. This is a hands-on role in a team that supports five data centers, several virtualization platforms, storage systems, the corporate Microsoft infrastructure, the VDI farm, backup systems, and cloud services. You will work closely with the NOC, InfoSec, DevOps, and L2 Support teams.

YOUR MAIN TASKS WILL BE:

• Day-to-day administration of the corporate Microsoft infrastructure - Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Certificate Authority (PKI), and Group Policy.
• Administering the access platforms and the services running on them: Atlassian (Jira, Confluence), the 1C/ERP application and SQL servers, monitoring, backup, Google Workspace, and Slack.
• Supporting the VDI and terminal server farms, administering domain services and certificates, and keeping systems patched and documented.
• Resolving incidents and service requests within the agreed service levels (SLAs).
• Taking part in current infrastructure projects: migration of the Active Directory domain to a new domain; replacement of the Citrix VDI farm with an alternative (cloud or on-prem) solution; replacement of the application publishing and load-balancing stack (nginx, HAProxy, keepalived/VRRP); upgrade of end-of-life Windows servers; and decommissioning of legacy systems.
• Preparing implementation steps, building test environments, and running pilots for these projects.
• Keeping infrastructure documentation and inventory up to date (NetBox, Confluence).
• Participating in the on-call rotation to keep systems available and running.

WE EXPECT FROM YOU:

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, or a related field.
• Minimum 5 years administering Microsoft and VDI infrastructure.
• Hands-on participation in at least one completed Active Directory domain or forest migration, including migrating objects between domains and forests with minimal downtime.
• Experience administering VDI or terminal access platforms in production.
• Active Directory: multi-domain AD DS - domains, forests, trusts, replication, FSMO, DFS, GPO, delegation, Kerberos/NTLM, auditing, and deploying new DCs.
• Domain/forest migration: ADMT / PES, SID History, dependency inventory, phased migration with minimal downtime.
• DNS: zones, forwarders, zone transfers, split horizon.
• PKI: AD CS - templates, auto-enrolment, revocation, renewal, TLS lifecycle.
• VDI: Citrix or an alternative - deployment, golden images, troubleshooting, Windows 11.
• Windows RDS: farm build and operation - Connection Broker, RD Gateway, Session Hosts, published apps, CAL, FSLogix, MFA (Duo).
• Windows Server: upgrades from end-of-life to 2022/2025, WSUS and patching, file services, backup/restore (Veeam), addressing audit findings.
• Linux: Ubuntu, AlmaLinux, CentOS/RHEL - systemd services and packages, users and access, logs, and troubleshooting.
• Load balancing: nginx, HAProxy - reverse proxy, publishing, TLS termination, health checks; NLB; keepalived / VRRP.
• Virtualization: Hyper-V and VMware ESXi - VMs, host and datastore basics, snapshots.
• Google Workspace / GCP: Workspace tenants — domains, groups, SSO/OAuth, domain-wide delegation, admin and billing, GWS backup; GCP projects.
• Automation: PowerShell for routine administration; Bash or Python and IaC (Terraform, Ansible) are an advantage.
• Strong soft skills: clear communication and collaboration across diverse teams, effective problem-solving, adaptability, critical thinking about legacy dependencies before changing them, attention to detail (planning production changes with a rollback in mind), and customer focus.
• Fluent Russian and English language proficiency at B1 (Intermediate) or above for effective written and spoken communication.

Nice to have:

• VMware Horizon, Azure Virtual Desktop, or Amazon WorkSpaces in addition to Citrix.
• AWS, Azure, or GCP experience.
• Hyper-V/VMware/Proxmox
• SAN/iSCSI block storage administration
• vSAN or alternative HCI solution
• ITIL Foundation or another service management certification.
  

WHAT DO WE OFFER:

• REMOTE OPPORTUNITY to work full-time;
• Vacation 28 calendar days per year;
• 7 wellness days per year (time off) that can be used to deal with household issues, to lie down and recover without taking sick leave;
• Bonuses up to $5000 for recommending successful applicants for positions in the company;
• 50% payment for professional training, international conferences, and meetings;
• Corporate discount for English lessons;
• ​Health benefits. According to the paychecks, if you are not eligible for corporate medical insurance, the company will compensate you with up to $ 1,000 gross per year per employee. This can be spent on self-purchase of health insurance or on doctor’s fees for yourself and close relatives (spouse, children);
• ​Workplace organization. The company provides all employees with an equipped workplace and all the necessary equipment (table, armchair, wifi, etc.) in our offices or co-working locations. In the other locations, the company provides reimbursement of workplace costs up to $ 1000 gross once every 3 years, according to the paychecks. This money can be spent on the rent of the co-working room, on equipping the working place at home (desk, chair, Internet, etc.) during those 3 years;
• Internal gamified gratitude system: receive bonuses from colleagues and exchange them for our merchandise, team building activities, massage certificates, etc.

Sounds good? Join us now!
The initial pay level or pay range for this role will be shared with candidates during the recruitment process and before the commencement of employment.

Originally posted on Himalayas