Lead UNIX Engineer

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust a Fortune 500 company is a globally recognized award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the worlds most successful individuals families and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service expertise and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22000 partners we serve the worlds most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Were looking for a UNIX Engineer who brings traditional platform depth along with modern engineering practices. Youll help lead the design deployment and lifecycle of mission-critical UNIX platforms (Solaris AIX RHEL Ubuntu) and services while contributing to DevOps tooling Git-driven workflows hybrid cloud strategies with an automation mindset. This is a key role in a high-trust team that powers secure compliant infrastructure for a global financial institution. Expect deep technical challenges high visibility and opportunities to influence platform direction.

Key Responsibilities

Core UNIX Engineering & Support

• Design secure build and maintain resilient UNIX environments across Solaris (10/11 with Zones LDOMs) AIX 7.x (VIOS NPIV) Ubuntu and RHEL 510 (on physical virtual and hybrid platforms).

• Own OS lifecycle strategy: patching upgrades security baselines and hardware refresh planning.

• Maintain HA solutions (Pacemaker VCS HACMP RH Cluster Suite) and performance-tuned enterprise systems.

DevOps SRE & Automation

• Embrace an SRE mindset: treat infrastructure as code prioritize availability and observability and automate toil.

• Automate provisioning compliance checks and config enforcement using Ansible AAP AWX CFEngine and scripting (bash/ksh/Python).

• Use GitHub for source control peer-reviewed automation pipelines change tracking and documentation versioning.

• Contribute to CI/CD workflows for infrastructure as code deployments and integrate with enterprise tools like ServiceNow Jenkins or GitHub Actions.

Security

• Ensure UNIX systems are hardened and compliant with security frameworks (e.g. CIS Benchmarks NIST FFIEC ISO 27001).

• Manage OS-level security policies including firewall rules kernel parameters selinux policies and secure configurations.

• Integrate host systems with PAM LDAP and CyberArk Conjur for identity and privileged access management.

• Support audit forensic and security event investigations in coordination with InfoSec teams.

• Regularly review and remediate security vulnerabilities identified by Qualys Nessus or other scanning tools.

• Contribute to incident response planning patching SLAs and compliance reporting.

• Design and maintain logging audit trails and syslog/SIEM integrations (Splunk QRadar etc.).

Authentication Authorization and Directory Services

• Integrate UNIX systems with enterprise identity management platforms using LDAP RHDS Kerberos PAM and SSSD.

• Implement and enforce secure access controls sudo policies and RBAC schemes.

• Collaborate with IAM and InfoSec teams on audit readiness access provisioning and PAM integrations.

Monitoring Reliability & Incident Response

• Integrate systems with monitoring tools like Dynatrace vROps and custom health scripts.

• Support alerting auto-remediation and telemetry for performance and availability.

• Participate in on-call rotations DR testing and RCA for high-impact incidents.

Hybrid Cloud & Platform Modernization

• Support UNIX workloads running on VMware (vSphere/vSAN/vXrail) and prepare platforms for future cloud integration.

• Assist with cloud-readiness assessments infrastructure modernization efforts and immutable infrastructure adoption.

• Collaborate with Cloud DevOps and Cybersecurity teams on secure hybrid operating models.

Documentation & Governance

• Maintain robust documentation in Confluence: HLD LLD SOPs DR plans build guides access policies GitHub repositories and architectural decisions.

• Ensure all platforms and automation meet compliance standards (CIS FFIEC SOX ISO 27001).

• Lead or contribute to engineering design reviews change boards and audit remediation efforts.

Required Skills and Experience

Technical Requirements

• 10 years in UNIX engineering across Solaris AIX RHEL and Ubuntu with deep expertise in large enterprise environments.

• Strong understanding of centralized authentication/authorization using LDAP Kerberos PAM SSSD RHDS and Active Directory integration.

• Proficiency in shell scripting (bash ksh sh); strong familiarity with Python and Ansible.

• Hands-on experience with tools like:

  • Red Hat Satellite CFEngine PowerVC LVM/VxVM

  • Pacemaker Veritas Cluster HACMP or equivalent HA stacks

  • GitHub for version control and collaboration

  • Cohesity NetBackup CyberArk

  • VMware vSphere ecosystem (vCenter ESXi vSAN vXrail)

• Skills in config management and config drift

• Perl experience beneficial

• Experience with Dynatrace

DevOps/SRE Practices

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code principles Git-driven config management and CI/CD pipelines leveraging GitHub Actions and Ansible / AWX

• Familiarity with automated validation monitoring logging and alerting frameworks.

• Passion for automating operations tasks reducing technical debt and building sustainable systems.

Soft Skills

• Proactive detail-oriented and comfortable in fast-moving audit-heavy environments

• Diligent with ability to cross check / robust validation of outcomes and results

• Excellent communication documentation and cross-team collaboration and contribution skills

• Ability to mentor junior engineers and lead by example in engineering practices and professionalism.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services or other highly regulated sectors

• Exposure to hybrid cloud operations containerization (e.g. Podman Docker Tanzu) or cloud-native UNIX alternatives.

• Familiarity with enterprise CI/CD tooling (Jenkins GitHub Actions ServiceNow integration).

• Certifications (preferred but not required):

• RHCE IBM AIX Advanced Solaris Certified Ansible Automation

• ITIL Foundation Security or relevant cloud certifications (e.g. AWS SysOps)

Work Conditions & Availability

• Business-hours role with rotating on-call and scheduled change windows (nights/weekends).

• Participation in BCP/DR exercises audit cycles and cross-region platform support is expected.

Why This Role Matters

Youre not just keeping the lights on youre building the runway for modernization. Your work underpins secure financial operations supports compliance and helps evolve traditional UNIX platforms toward modern observable and automatable infrastructure.

Salary Range:

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension) health and welfare benefits (medical dental vision spending accounts and disability) paid time off parental and caregiver leave life & accident insurance and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged senior leaders are accessible and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve!Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

Wed love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the worlds most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us andapply today.#MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process please email our HR Service Center at .

We hope youre excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.