System and Security Manager

About this role

Starting Salary: £35000 - £48000 depending on experience

Contract: Permanent position with probationary period

Hours: Full time, although we will consider requests for a part-time position. Occasionally you may have to work outside of usual office hours to minimize working hours down-time for staff and customers.

Holiday entitlement: 25 days per year plus bank holidays (pro rata for part-time working)

Who we are

System Simulation is a group of 15 individuals working together to make and support computer software called CollectionsIndex+ for managing museums and archives. Many of the staff are software engineers. We have lovely customers including some of the biggest and best such as the Victoria and Albert museum, the British Museum, the Royal Academy and the BBC. We have offices in Clerkenwell in London, although since the pandemic most of us work at home most of the time.

We have servers and desktops in our office which we can use both from the office and when working remotely. We run a hosting service for customers who would like us to run their CollectionsIndex+ system. The hosting operation makes use of servers rented from a variety of web host service providers—we make some use of Amazon Web Services, but mostly we use non-virtual ("bare metal") servers from smaller providers. We run a mixture of Linux and Windows and our software is supported on both.

What you'll be doing

The role is to ensure that our computing platform is well managed and secure. This is a new position and we are looking for someone to take on the work of maintaining our systems. You will work with the people who currently manage our systems, and they will continue to be there to support you. If possible, as you gain experience and confidence, we would like you to grow to lead on this work for the company.

Above all, your role will be to provide an appropriate, reliable, well managed and secure computing platform for staff and customers.

Example tasks

• ensuring operating systems are up to date and planning server migrations when end-of-life dates are approaching
• maintaining an excellent service on which engineering and administrative staff can rely to carry out their day-to-day work
• anticipating the needs of engineering staff and supporting their software development and project work
• helping with installation of CollectionsIndex+ for customers
• running our hosting operation and planning its future
• contributing to cyber security and risk management policy
• cyber security incident management and disaster recovery
• understanding and maintaining our physical network connections and equipment
• maintaining our VPN for staff working remotely
• helping staff to use customer VPNs for access to customer systems
• running and maintaining various software systems such as our backups and backup systems, our ticketing system and our a file-transfer service
• helping to respond to data security questions from customers and prospective customers
• strategic planning of future systems needs
• developing our system infrastructure and introducing appropriate technologies such as virtualisation, containers, cloud, wide-area authentication, etc.
• tool-chain design, selection and maintenance, e.g. source-code control, build systems, monitoring, automated testing
• managing our Active Directory system
• providing a systems support service to staff and customers
• documenting how things are set up and how to do things on the internal company wiki

Depending on your interests and capabilities, there will be opportunities to contribute as a software engineer on project work such as data migration, CollectionsIndex+ configuration and core development work.

What you bring

• systems administration experience in a mixed Windows and Linux environment
• an enthusiasm for well-designed, secure and well-running systems
• the ability to research and implement solutions even if you haven't seen the problem before
• a willingness to work with colleagues to share and develop ideas and build consensus
• an ability to explain what has been set up both verbally and in internal and sales+marketing documentation
• an awareness of the importance of security for us and for our customers
• a track record in designing, implementing and running secure systems

First interviews can be held on-line; second-round interviews will be in person at our offices.

To apply, please send your CV and a cover letter telling us why you're the right person for the role, to joinus2026@collectionsindex.com.

System Simulation has always welcomed employees from diverse backgrounds and with wide interests. We strive to be a good, equal opportunities employer. Responses from agencies will not be considered.

We will ask you to provide references from your previous employment and/or academic tutors.

Please note that successful candidates will be required to undergo a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check prior to appointment.

Pay: £35,000.00-£48,000.00 per year

Ability to commute/relocate

• Clerkenwell, Greater London: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Language

• English (required)

Work authorisation

• United Kingdom (required)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Clerkenwell

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