There's a seat open on the infrastructure team at a $15B hedge fund where your opinion will actually matter.
The Director of Infrastructure comes from a quantitative data background. He's sharp, collaborative, and the first to tell you he doesn't know everything about the environment he oversees. That's where you come in. If you know Windows/AD cold, have genuine Linux chops, and can navigate AWS, you're going to walk into a room where your infrastructure expertise is valued, your ideas will be heard, and the work you do will be felt across the entire firm.
Traders depend on uptime. Quants depend on compute. The business depends on you.
This isn't a place where infrastructure quietly exists in the background. It's a place where the right person becomes the go-to authority on how the environment runs, where it needs to go, and how to get there without breaking what already works.
The Environment
A 170-person firm with a hybrid infrastructure spanning 30 years of production-grade legacy systems alongside newer cloud and research workloads. The core is Windows-heavy, but Linux and AWS are now real parts of the job as quantitative research capabilities expand.
- Windows Server, Active Directory, Azure AD, M365, MFA covering approximately 70% of the day-to-day workload
- Enterprise Linux at roughly 30% of the role; this is a production Linux environment and you should be comfortable owning it day one, specific distro experience is less important than genuine hands-on depth
- AWS exposure supporting cloud-based compute for research and analytical workloads; the environment is in early stages and the right person will help bring structure as it matures
- VMware vSphere/ESXi with hands-on virtualization management; prior cluster build experience is a plus
- Solid networking foundation across routing protocols, name resolution, segmentation, and enterprise firewall platforms including next-gen vendors
- Email infrastructure knowledge covering delivery, filtering, threat protection, and data loss prevention
- Endpoint security and familiarity with EDR tooling in a compliance-conscious financial services setting
- Automation mindset with working knowledge of at least one scripting language
- Willingness to do physical work in server environments; occasional trips to the firm's Westchester data center are part of the role
What You'll Own
The immediate priority is getting up to speed on the environment and progressively taking ownership of server management alongside a senior engineer who knows the infrastructure inside and out. This isn't a sink-or-swim situation. It's a knowledge transfer with real stakes. Within your first few months the expectation is that you become the first call on an expanding set of infrastructure requests, not someone who waits to be assigned work.
- Ticket queue triage and routing; no level one support, that's handled separately
- Hardware lifecycle management including procurement, rack-and-stack, and configuration
- Server upgrades and maintenance across Windows, Linux, and VMware platforms
- Scripting and automation improvements across common workflows
- On-call rotation with increasing independence on production issues
- Long-term goal is broad ownership across as many infrastructure areas as your learning pace allows
What Makes Someone Right for This
- 5 to 10 years in a Systems Administrator or Infrastructure Engineer role
- Deep familiarity with Windows Server, Active Directory, M365, and VMware
- Real enterprise Linux experience; you've owned it in production, not just touched it
- Some AWS exposure and the curiosity to do more with it as the environment grows
- Firewall and email security fundamentals; the gear is in place and you'll inherit it with room to improve it
- Working scripting ability; you don't need to be a developer but you should be comfortable automating repetitive work
- Comfort with physical systems including server hardware and structured cabling
- The maturity to learn an environment thoroughly before drawing conclusions about it
- The confidence to bring a fresh perspective once you've earned the context to back it up
This Is Not the Right Fit If You
- Need to be fully remote
- Thrive on constant change and greenfield-only work
- Want to skip hands-on infrastructure work and stay at the architecture level
- Think technical correctness matters more than understanding the environment you're operating in
The people here are smart, direct, and have high standards. They'll respect your expertise from day one. What they'll remember is whether you took the time to understand what they built before you started improving it.