IT & Development ✦ Dedicated & full-time

System
Administrator

Server, identity and infrastructure administration that keep systems healthy — from $14/hr + GST.

Looking for VA work? Apply at staffingsolutions.ph
$14/hrFrom, + GST · full-time
70%Average saving vs a local hire
14 daysBrief → first day
Fully managedWe hire, you lead

What a System Administrator does

A system administrator keeps the lights on — servers, identity, backups and monitoring — so your infrastructure stays secure, patched and available.

Every StaffingSolutions.io system administrator is recruited, hired and managed by us — reference-checked for your tools, working your business hours, and backed by our zero-risk promise: no placement fee, money-back first week, and a free replacement if the fit isn't right.

What they handle

  • Server administration — Windows/Linux.
  • Identity & access — AD/M365.
  • Backups & recovery — verified.
  • Patching — scheduled.
  • Monitoring — alerts actioned.
  • Documentation — maintained.
The actual work

A week in the role

Infrastructure most people only notice when it stops. The week runs on a maintenance rhythm — patch rings, backup verification, certificate expiries, monitoring alerts — plus the escalations the service desk cannot close. Works across Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Windows Server, the hypervisor and whatever still runs in your comms room.

The taskWhat that actually involves
Work the monitoring alert queue

Clears overnight alerts in the RMM or monitoring platform — disk thresholds, stopped services, offline agents, failed backup jobs — resolving what is actionable and raising a ticket with diagnostics attached for anything needing a maintenance window or a vendor support case.

Run the monthly patch rings

Approves and stages Windows and third-party updates in Intune, Datto RMM or ConnectWise Automate, releases to the pilot ring first, chases failed installs and reboot-pending devices, then promotes to the production ring once the pilot group reports clean.

Verify backups actually restore

Checks nightly Veeam or Datto job results, investigates warning-state jobs rather than only failures, and runs test restores of a file, a mailbox item and a full VM into an isolated network — recording the result so recovery is evidenced, not assumed.

Joiner, mover and leaver builds

Creates the Entra ID account, assigns licences and group memberships from the role template, enrols the device in Intune under the right compliance policy, and on exit converts the mailbox to shared, revokes active sessions and reclaims the licence.

Certificate and domain expiry watch

Keeps a register of SSL certificates, domain renewals and Entra ID application secrets, renews replacements ahead of expiry, and re-binds them across IIS sites, load balancers and the firewall's remote access portal before anything starts throwing browser warnings.

Hypervisor and server housekeeping

Reviews VMware or Hyper-V host health, clears snapshot sprawl, checks datastore free space and cluster resource usage, applies VM tools and firmware updates in a scheduled window, and records pre- and post-change state on the ticket.

Entra ID and conditional access hygiene

Audits conditional access policies, risky sign-in detections and stale accounts in Entra ID, reports on users with no MFA method registered, and drafts policy changes for your IT lead to approve before they move from report-only to enforced.

Firewall and network changes

Prepares firewall rules, VPN profiles and DNS records against a written request, stages the configuration on the Fortinet, Sophos or Meraki device, takes a config backup, and applies it inside an approved window with a documented rollback.

Escalated desktop and server faults

Takes the tickets the service desk cannot close — corrupted profiles, mapped drives failing on specific subnets, stuck print server queues, Outlook connectivity breaking for particular mailboxes — works them to root cause through event logs, and writes up the fix.

Documentation in IT Glue or Hudu

Keeps runbooks, network diagrams, credential entries and hardware asset records current in IT Glue or Hudu after every change, so the next person on the ticket is not reverse-engineering the environment from the firewall configuration.

Storage and permission audits

Reviews NTFS and SharePoint permissions against the requested access matrix, replaces direct user grants with security groups, reports folders shared to everyone or to anonymous links, and archives stale data ahead of any storage expansion.

Suspicious activity escalation

Investigates impossible-travel sign-ins, unauthorised mailbox forwarding rules and endpoint detection alerts, isolates the affected device and gathers logs, then escalates to your nominated security contact. Breach assessment and any notification decision remains with your business.

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Questions

Frequently asked

How much does a system administrator cost?
From $14/hr + GST for a full-time, dedicated team member — roughly $29K a year against $95K–$115K all-in for the local equivalent once you add super, leave, payroll tax, software and a desk. No placement fee, no setup fee, no recruitment retainer: you pay from the day they start, for hours worked, and interviewing candidates costs nothing. Specialist roles sit a little higher. Run your numbers →
How fast can they start?
Typically 14 days from your discovery call to day one. In the first week we source and screen against your brief; you get three matched profiles and interview whoever you like. Once you choose, we handle the offer, the contract, equipment and connectivity checks, and induct them on our side before they reach you. Specialist roles — developers, NDIS claims, anything needing niche software — can take a week longer, because we won't pad a shortlist just to hit a date.
What if the fit isn't right?
You're covered twice over. If it's clearly wrong by day five, your first week is refunded in full. After that, a free replacement any time — new shortlist, new interviews, no second fee, because there was never a first one. Before it gets that far, talk to us: our HR manager will work through it with you and the team member, since most problems turn out to be an unclear process rather than the wrong person, and a fortnight of coaching usually fixes it. Replacing someone is the last resort, not the first move.
Is there a minimum term?
Three months, then month to month. It's the same runway you'd give a new local hire to learn your systems, your clients and your standards — and the team members who get a fair run are the ones who stay for years. There are no exit penalties at any point, and if the issue is the person rather than the role, the first-week refund and free replacement cover that separately.
How do you handle confidentiality?
The same way you'd treat any remote team member. Every placement signs an NDA and a confidentiality clause before day one, and they work inside your systems — your email, your CRM, your file storage — so you control what they can see and can revoke access instantly. No client data is stored on our side.
What stays with you, and what goes to them?
They take the recurring, process-driven part of the system Administrator role — the work that happens the same way every week and eats your day. Judgement calls, client relationships, anything requiring your licence, sign-off or authority stay with you. The clients who get the most out of a system Administrator hand over a defined process and keep the decisions, rather than handing over the whole function and hoping. On the discovery call we'll map which tasks fall on which side of that line before you commit to anything.
How do I hand the work over without losing weeks to training?
Record yourself doing the task once and talk through it as you go — a fifteen-minute screen recording beats a written manual every time, and your system Administrator will turn it into a documented process you both work from. Expect the first fortnight to be shadowing and checking, then steadily less. If you have nothing documented, that's normal and it's not a blocker: we'll help you decide what to record first, and your account manager checks in through the whole ramp-up.