Linux Patching Engineer

Job Title: Linux Patching Engineer

Department: Managed services

Position Type: Full Time

Location: Remote

Company Overview:

ALIANDO, is an award-winning Azure Expert Managed Service solutions company focused on selling and deploying Microsoft technologies for U.S. and international companies. For over 20 years, Microsoft and its partners have recommended ALIANDO, for licensing, consulting, and managed services to corporations large and small. The company offers competitive pay and comprehensive employee benefits, including health insurance, fitness allowances, work-from-home allowances, paid maternity and parental leave, and generous PTO.

At ALIANDO, we aim to unleash the potential of people and technology. Our company was built around the idea that there is no success without team success. We foster a culture of inclusion and fairness where diverse interests, experiences, and backgrounds are celebrated. We strive to empower and unleash the potential of everyone to ensure that every employee has a path to success. We're in it together to make life better for each other, our customers, our partners, and our communities.

Key Responsibilities

Patch Planning and Deployment

• Plan, schedule and execute monthly and out-of-band patch cycles for Linux servers across all managed client estates, covering kernel, security and package updates.
• Build ring-based deployment approaches that move updates from pilot groups to production in a controlled sequence, with defined pause and rollback criteria.
• Coordinate maintenance windows and reboot schedules with clients and application owners, and confirm service health before and after each cycle.
• Respond to critical vulnerability advisories with emergency patch cycles, working with the security team to prioritise by risk and exposure.
• Apply live patching and reboot-minimising approaches where the distribution and client policy support them.

Platform and Repository Administration

• Administer Azure Update Manager for Linux, including maintenance configurations, dynamic scopes, assessment schedules and periodic assessment for Azure and Arc-enabled servers.
• Manage package updates across the supported distributions using yum, dnf, apt and zypper, including package pinning, exclusions and dependency resolution.
• Maintain internal repositories and mirrors, and manage subscription and content channels through tooling such as Red Hat Satellite, SUSE Manager, Landscape or a local mirror.
• Keep update agents, Arc connectivity and reporting healthy across the estate, and remediate machines that stop reporting assessment data.
• Manage configuration drift and enforce baseline package state using automation tooling such as Ansible.

Compliance, Troubleshooting and Reporting

• Track patch compliance against agreed targets, investigate failed and pending updates, and remediate systematically rather than server by server.
• Troubleshoot update failures from package manager logs, systemd journals and update agent logs, and resolve recurring causes at source.
• Handle post-patch issues including failed services, kernel module and driver mismatches, and roll back where a change proves unsafe.
• Produce monthly patch compliance reporting for service delivery managers and client stakeholders, with clear commentary on exceptions and planned remediation.
• Conduct root cause analysis on recurring patch failures and drive permanent fixes through the problem management process.

Service Delivery, Automation and Documentation

• Raise, own and close change records for every patch cycle, with tested implementation and rollback plans.
• Handle incidents and service requests within agreed SLA targets, keeping ticket records accurate and current.
• Automate patching workflows, reporting and routine health checks using Bash, Python and Ansible, and contribute reusable playbooks to the team's automation library.
• Maintain runbooks and as-built documentation so that the service desk can act confidently on first contact, and mentor junior engineers on Linux patching practice.
• Participate in the on-call rotation and support out-of-hours maintenance windows, which is where the majority of patching work is delivered.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology or engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Four to seven years in Linux systems administration, with at least three years focused on enterprise patch and vulnerability remediation.
• Strong hands-on experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS or Rocky, together with Ubuntu or SUSE.
• Practical experience with yum, dnf, apt and zypper, including repository configuration, package pinning and dependency troubleshooting.
• Hands-on experience patching Linux through Azure Update Manager, or a comparable centralised patch platform.
• Confident troubleshooting of kernel updates, reboot handling, service recovery and post-patch failures.
• Working scripting ability in Bash or Python, and practical experience with Ansible for bulk remediation.
• Experience working to formal ITIL processes for incident, problem and change management within a ticketing platform such as Jira Service Management or ServiceNow.
• Willingness to work rotational shifts and scheduled maintenance windows, including nights and weekends, as part of a 24x7 support roster.
• Clear written and spoken English, with confidence in client-facing communication.

Preferred Qualifications

• Red Hat certification such as RHCSA or RHCE, or an equivalent Linux Foundation certification.
• Microsoft certification such as AZ-104 or AZ-800, or experience with Azure Arc at scale.
• Experience with Red Hat Satellite, SUSE Manager, Landscape or Spacewalk for content and lifecycle management.
• Familiarity with vulnerability management tooling such as Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Qualys or Tenable, and with mapping findings to patch cycles.
• Experience with live kernel patching technologies such as kpatch, ksplice or livepatch.
• Exposure to Windows patching tooling, since the wider team also runs SCCM, WSUS and Patch My PC.
• Experience supporting multiple customer environments for a managed services or outsourcing provider, and ITIL 4 Foundation certification.

ALIANDO is an equal-opportunity employer committed to Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. Individuals seeking employment at ALIANDO are considered without regard to any protected category, including but not limited to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation.