Systems Administrator Resume Example (2026 Guide)
Systems Administrator resume example
A complete sample in the Modern template FitMyRole exports. The person and employers are fictional; the structure, skills and bullet style are what to copy.
Martin Pruitt
[email protected] • (555) 019-6603 • Nashville, TN • linkedin.com/in/martinpruitt
Professional Summary
Senior Systems Administrator with 13 years of experience running Windows and Linux infrastructure for healthcare, insurance and manufacturing organizations. Manages 380 servers across two data centers and Azure, a VMware vSphere environment of 24 hosts, and Active Directory for 6,500 users, with 99.97% availability on tier 1 systems. Led the move to Veeam immutable backups and tested disaster recovery that restored critical systems in under four hours during a 2024 ransomware attempt. Automates routine work in PowerShell and Ansible, patches on a fixed monthly cycle, and writes runbooks the on-call team can follow at 3 a.m.
Technical Skills
- Operating Systems: Windows Server 2016, 2019 and 2022, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9, Ubuntu Server, Windows 10 and 11
- Directory & Identity: Active Directory, Group Policy (GPO), DNS, DHCP, Microsoft Entra ID, Entra Connect, ADFS, certificate services (AD CS)
- Virtualization & Cloud: VMware vSphere and vCenter, ESXi, vSAN, Hyper-V, Microsoft Azure (VMs, Azure Backup, Azure Arc), Citrix Virtual Apps
- Backup & Disaster Recovery: Veeam Backup & Replication, immutable backups, Azure Site Recovery, DR runbooks and testing, RPO and RTO planning
- Automation & Configuration: PowerShell, Bash, Ansible, Microsoft SCCM (MECM), Intune, WSUS, patch management
- Monitoring & Security: SolarWinds SAM, Zabbix, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CIS benchmarks, vulnerability remediation with Tenable, privileged access management
- Messaging & Storage: Exchange Online and hybrid Exchange, Microsoft 365 administration, Pure Storage, Dell PowerEdge, NetApp, file server and DFS management
Education & Certification
- Coursework in Network Administration, Operating Systems, Database Systems and Information Security.
Work Experience
- Maintain 99.97% availability on tier 1 clinical and business systems across 380 Windows and Linux servers in two data centers and Azure, supporting 6,500 users.
- Restored all critical systems in under four hours during a 2024 ransomware attempt after leading the move to Veeam immutable backups and quarterly DR tests the year before.
- Raised monthly patch compliance from 81% to 98% by rebuilding the SCCM and WSUS cycle into fixed maintenance rings with automated PowerShell pre and post checks.
- Consolidated 31 aging ESXi hosts into a 24-host vSphere and vSAN cluster, freeing 14 rack units and cutting data center power use by 18%.
- Migrated 5,800 mailboxes from on-premises Exchange 2016 to Exchange Online over a 10-week rollout with no unplanned email downtime.
- Cleaned up Active Directory by disabling 1,100 stale accounts and rebuilding 160 Group Policy objects into 45, closing three audit findings on access control.
- Built Ansible playbooks for RHEL 8 and 9 server builds and CIS hardening, cutting new server delivery from five days to one.
- Lead a team of three systems administrators, run the on-call rotation and review every change before the weekly change advisory board.
- Administered 140 Windows and Linux servers, VMware vSphere and NetApp storage for a 1,400-employee insurance carrier, keeping core systems at 99.9% uptime.
- Moved backups from tape to Veeam with off-site replication, shortening restore time for a typical file server from a day to under an hour.
- Deployed Citrix Virtual Apps for 400 claims staff, replacing locally installed policy software and cutting desktop support tickets for that application by 60%.
- Wrote PowerShell scripts for account provisioning and license assignment, saving the help desk about 10 hours a week.
- Designed and tested the first documented disaster recovery plan for the company, meeting a four-hour RTO in the annual test.
- Supported 300 users and 40 servers at two plants, covering Active Directory, file and print services, Exchange and the ERP database server.
- Virtualized 22 physical servers onto three VMware ESXi hosts, retiring end-of-life hardware and reducing maintenance contracts by $45K a year.
- Introduced WSUS patching and SolarWinds monitoring, giving the team its first alerting on disk, CPU and service failures.
- Handled escalations from two help desk technicians and documented 50 common fixes in a shared knowledge base.
Want yours to read like this? Upload your resume and a job posting, and FitMyRole rewrites it for that job in this template.
Tailor my resumeWhy This Resume Works
- The summary gives the size of the estate in one sentence: 380 servers, a 24-host vSphere environment, 6,500 Active Directory users and 99.97% availability on tier 1 systems.
- Backup and recovery are proven by an event, "Restored all critical systems in under four hours during a 2024 ransomware attempt", which is stronger than listing Veeam as a skill.
- Windows Server, Linux, Active Directory, VMware and virtualization keywords appear in bullets that describe real changes (an AD clean-up of 1,100 stale accounts, a vSAN consolidation, RHEL builds with Ansible).
- Patch compliance from 81% to 98% and server delivery from five days to one show operational discipline, the qualities a hiring manager for a senior sysadmin is screening for.
- Microsoft, Red Hat and VMware certifications line up with the three platforms the resume claims, so every major skill has a matching credential.
Common Resume Mistakes
- No server or uptime metrics.
- Missing AD or virtualization keywords.
- Vague "managed servers" without scale.
Keywords Recruiters Look For
- Systems administration
- Windows Server
- Active Directory
- Linux
- VMware
- Virtualization
- Backup
- Uptime
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