Date Posted: 07/31/2026
Req ID: 49683
Faculty/Division: Library
Department: Scholars Portal
Campus: St. George (Downtown Toronto)
Position Number: 00045093
Existing Vacancy: Yes
Description:
About us:
The University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) system is the largest academic library in Canada and is ranked in the top five among peer institutions in North America. The system comprises 40 libraries located across three university campuses: St. George, Mississauga, and Scarborough. This diverse and extensive network of college libraries, special collections, and specialized information centres plays a pivotal role in supporting the teaching, scholarly, and research needs of nearly 100,000 students enrolled in a wide array of graduate, professional, and undergraduate programs.
The library system provides access to millions of resources in various formats, including electronic, print, audio-visual, data and geospatial materials. UTL also boasts impressive holdings of archival material and substantial digital collections, securely preserved in the libraries' data centre. The staff at UTL are integral to the academic and scholarly enterprise, working closely with faculty and students to support their teaching, learning, and research requirements. They are subject matter experts; they are skilled in research data management, collections, statistics, GIS, metadata, digital preservation, scholarly communications, copyright, teaching, knowledge synthesis, open access and much more. Our work is grounded in our commitment to support equity, diversity, and inclusion.
UTL continuously evolves to meet the changing academic priorities and pressures at the University and within the broader landscape of higher education.
Your opportunity:
Scholars Portal, a department of the University of Toronto Libraries, develops and operates shared digital infrastructure and technology services that support university libraries in Ontario and across Canada. Through a portfolio of trusted, community-governed services, Scholars Portal enables research, preservation, and scholarly communication while advancing collaborative, sustainable approaches to research infrastructure. The Scholars Portal team of librarians, developers, and systems staff supports services spanning research and member services, data and geospatial services, digital collections, and digital preservation.
Under the direction of the Associate Director, Systems and Technical Operations, the Senior Systems Administrator-Scholaris will support the infrastructure and operational environment that underpins Scholaris, Canada's national shared institutional repository service. This role is responsible for the administration, monitoring, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the systems and platforms that support Scholaris, with a focus on service reliability, security, performance, scalability, and operational sustainability.
The incumbent will work closely with systems team members, developers, librarians, and external partners on server provisioning, configuration management, deployment support, patching, monitoring, backup and recovery, and disaster preparedness. They will contribute to the automation of routine operational tasks, support CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code practices, and participate in the planning and implementation of platform upgrades and service enhancements.
As part of a collaborative team, the Senior Systems Administrator will help maintain and improve a robust, highly available repository service that supports institutions across Canada. The incumbent will troubleshoot complex infrastructure and application issues, contribute to incident response and root cause analysis, and work with colleagues to ensure Scholaris continues to evolve as a secure, reliable, and sustainable national research infrastructure.
Your Responsibilities will Include:
Designing and implementing new operating systems and subsystems server software
Planning and implementing expansion and enhancement of IT networks independently
Analyzing, troubleshooting and testing highly complex systems
Developing and updating architectural framework for highly complex and confidential university-wide IT systems
Essential Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or an equivalent combination of education and experience
Minimum five (5) years of relevant experience in systems administration, infrastructure operations, or platform support
Extensive experience administering and supporting Linux-based production environments
Experience deploying, maintaining, and troubleshooting highly available, resilient, and secure systems
Experience supporting distributed systems and services in a production environment
Strong knowledge of operating systems administration, networking, storage, and core infrastructure concepts
Experience with configuration management, automation, and infrastructure management tools (e.g., Ansible, Chef, or equivalent)
Experience administering web servers, reverse proxies, and load balancing technologies (e.g., Apache, Nginx, HAProxy, or equivalent)
Experience with containerization and related platform technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, or equivalent), preferably in on-premises environments
Experience supporting virtualization and infrastructure platforms using open-source technologies (e.g., KVM, OpenStack, or equivalent)
Experience supporting databases and backend services in a production environment, including writing and maintaining SQL scripts; familiarity with technologies such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, or Elasticsearch is an asset
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical colleagues
Demonstrated ability to work independently and collaboratively in a team environment, and to contribute to documentation, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement
To be successful in this role you will be:
Accountable
Efficient
Goal oriented
Organized
Responsible
Self-directed
Team player
Notes:
This is a two (2) year term contract.
Closing Date: 08/12/2026, 11:59PM ET
Employee Group: USW
Appointment Type: Budget - Term
Schedule:Pay Scale Group & Hiring Zone:
USW Pay Band 16 - $103,367. with an annual step progression to a maximum of $132,188. Pay scale and job class assignment is subject to determination pursuant to the Job Evaluation/Pay Equity Maintenance Protocol.
Job Category: Information Technology (IT)
Recruiter: [email protected]
Lived Experience Statement
Candidates who are members of Indigenous, Black, racialized and 2SLGBTQ+ communities, persons with disabilities, and other equity deserving groups are encouraged to apply, and their lived experience shall be taken into consideration as applicable to the posted position.
Job descriptions are available upon request for internal applicants.
Diversity Statement
The University of Toronto embraces Diversity and is building a culture of belonging that increases our capacity to effectively address and serve the interests of our global community. We strongly encourage applications from Indigenous Peoples, Black and racialized persons, women, persons with disabilities, and people of diverse sexual and gender identities. We value applicants who have demonstrated a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and recognize that diverse perspectives, experiences, and expertise are essential to strengthening our academic mission.
As part of your application, you will be asked to complete a brief Diversity Survey. This survey is voluntary. Any information directly related to you is confidential and cannot be accessed by search committees or human resources staff. Results will be aggregated for institutional planning purposes. For more information, please see http://uoft.me/UP.
Accessibility Statement
The University strives to be an equitable and inclusive community, and proactively seeks to increase diversity among its community members. Our values regarding equity and diversity are linked with our unwavering commitment to excellence in the pursuit of our academic mission.
The University is committed to the principles of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). As such, we strive to make our recruitment, assessment and selection processes as accessible as possible and provide accommodations as required for applicants with disabilities.
If you require any accommodations at any point during the application and hiring process, please contact
[email protected].
Job Segment: System Administrator, Data Center, Data Management, Audio Visual, Computer Science, Technology, Creative, Data
