Lead Unix Engineering

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 world’s 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 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Role Summary

We’re looking for a Senior UNIX Engineer who brings traditional platform depth along with modern engineering practices. You’ll 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 5–10 (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:

o    Red Hat Satellite, CFEngine, PowerVC, LVM/VxVM

o    Pacemaker, Veritas Cluster, HACMP, or equivalent HA stacks

o    GitHub for version control and collaboration

o    Cohesity, NetBackup, CyberArk

o    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

You're not just keeping the lights on — you're 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.

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.

We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply 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 MyHRHelp@ntrs.com.

We hope you’re 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.

About Our Pune Office

The Northern Trust Pune office, established in 2016, is now home to over 3,000 employees. The office handles various functions, including Operations for Asset Servicing and Wealth Management, as well as delivering critical technology solutions that support business operations across the globe.

Our Pune team takes our commitment to service to heart. In 2024, they volunteered more than 10,000+ hours into the communities where they live and work. Learn more.