System Engineer

Senior/Lead Systems Engineer – Contract

📍 Manchester (2-3 days/week onsite) | £500/day, Outside IR35 | 5-month contract

We're looking for a hands-on Senior/Lead Engineer to take ownership of the corporate compute and platform estate for a business undergoing significant technical change: servers, virtualisation, storage, domain infrastructure and cloud workloads all sit under this role.

This is a genuine full-stack systems position for someone who's comfortable owning infrastructure end-to-end and working independently in a fast-moving, low-maturity environment.

What you'll need:

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• Expert-level systems engineering across Windows Server, virtualisation, storage, AD/domain architecture and the M365 stack
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• Hands-on cloud experience with GCP, Azure or AWS, plus infrastructure-as-code (Terraform or Bicep)
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• Solid networking fundamentals (CCNA-level): VLANs, static routing, core principles
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• A true full-stack grounding spanning identity, cloud and endpoint, with the appetite to learn fast
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• Strong scripting/automation skills in PowerShell and Python
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• Proven discipline around backup, DR and patch management
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• Confidence operating independently where process is still maturing
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Nice to have:

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• Background in games, VFX, animation or another technical creative studio environment
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• Exposure to Perforce or large-scale build-pipeline infrastructure
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• High-availability and resilience design experience
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• Comfortable using AI tooling to support infrastructure-as-code work
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• If you're a systems generalist who enjoys building structure into a high-change environment and wants the autonomy of an outside-IR35 contract, get in touch.
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