System administrator: the work you only notice when it stops
Good system administration is invisible. Nothing happens, and that is the result. It makes the craft undervalued until the first time it goes wrong.
This page describes a role group, not an open position. A role on this site means we speak to people for it continuously and keep our pool up to strength — not that a seat is free today. What is actually open sits on our recruitment portal.
What you do
The work as it looks here, not as it sounds in a job profile.
- Keeping workplaces, servers and Microsoft 365 running: updates, backups, rights management and rolling out changes.
- Picking up second-line reports the service desk passes on, and reporting back what the cause was.
- Testing restores rather than assuming they work. A backup that has never been restored is an assumption.
- Writing down how an estate fits together, so a colleague can take it over while you are on holiday.
What you bring
Not a shopping list. This is what actually counts.
- Experience with Windows Server and Microsoft 365, and preferably with a virtualisation layer and a backup product.
- The instinct to look first and change second. In an estate you do not know, that is the difference.
- Being able to explain what you did to someone who is not an administrator. That is half the job.
- Calm during an outage. Not speed, calm — speed without an overview makes an outage longer.
Where you land
ITproposal was founded in 2019 and works from Amsterdam, Antwerp and Karaman. Some of our people work in our own teams, others are placed with a client. Either way the same holds: you are reachable, you write down what you did, and you explain in plain language what is going on.
On critical services support runs 24/7, on a rota rather than on a private mobile. Working outside office hours happens according to that rota, not because there is nobody else.
What you can expect from us sits on the vacancies page: four steps, no endless rounds, and an answer even when the answer is no.
The work this role sits on is described under Managed IT.
Four steps, no endless rounds
Send your details
Mail your CV and a short note to [email protected]. Name this role group and the region you want to work in.
Introduction
We get in touch for a first conversation, by phone or video. We go through your background, what you are after and the kind of work you are looking for.
Technical conversation
If it matches, you speak to a colleague from the same field. That conversation is about practice: which environments do you know and how do you approach a failure.
Feedback
You hear from us what the next step is. If there is no fitting role right now, we keep your profile and get in touch as soon as that changes.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most often before someone gets in touch.
Is there an open vacancy for this role right now?
There may be, but this page does not say so. What is open at the moment sits on our recruitment portal, because that is where it is kept current. This page describes the role group itself: what the work is and what we look for. If nothing is open and the role does fit you, get in touch anyway — we keep your profile and come back to you as soon as something appears.
Will I do this for one estate or several?
Usually several, and that is the difference from administration on the end-customer side. You see more estates in a year than an in-house administrator sees in five, and you learn faster what does and does not hold up. The flip side is that you have to switch context and write down what you do, because the next person logging in is not you. If you would rather build on the same estate for years, we say so honestly in the first conversation.
Will I work at ITproposal or at a client?
Both happen. Some of our people work in our own teams, others are placed with a client, sometimes for a few months and sometimes for years. Which you prefer is something we discuss in the first conversation, because it is a real difference: on placement you see more environments, in an in-house team you build on the same thing for longer.
I cannot do everything listed. Is it worth applying?
Yes. The list above describes the role at its broadest and nobody ticks all of it. What we look at is what you have done, how you approach a problem and whether you can explain what you did. What you do not know yet can be learned; how you deal with people when something is broken is much less so.
The other role groups
If this one does not fit, perhaps one of these does.
Recognise yourself in this?
You do not have to wait for a vacancy to appear. Send your CV and a few lines about what you are looking for.
Practical IT knowledge in your inbox
New guides on management, security and the workplace, written by the people doing the work. No sales talk, and you can unsubscribe in one click.