A full-time, Northern California specific contract position that is focused on IT Server support and enabling the development of games is needed. This position will be responsible for close interactions with senior development personnel to fully understand and align with studio pipelines, processes, and bottlenecks. The role will require a 'self-starter' mentality and pro-active collaboration with Software Engineers, Technical Directors, and Senior IT staff to solve for site specific server issues affecting development. This position is to be focused on environment optimization and engineering based initiatives to improve studio operations. The position will participate in IT communities focused on future standards and knowledge sharing and will be an escalation point and after hours support for local studio support organization. The Server Engineer role is to design, install, administer, troubleshoot, and optimize our servers and related components to achieve high performance of the various game development applications and storage supported by deploying and tuning the servers as necessary. This includes ensuring the availability of client / server applications, configuring all new implementations, and developing processes and procedures for ongoing management of the server environment. Where applicable, the Server Engineer will assist in overseeing the physical security, integrity, and safety of the data center / server farm. Build and maintain pro-active relationships with studio senior technical leads, executives, and IT team members. The successful applicant will possess the following requirements (items are required unless noted otherwise): * Strong understanding of server and storage hardware, operating systems (UNIX and MSFT), applications, development consoles, server administration, storage and networking * Experience supporting and a strong understanding of software development practices and culture * Strong Server OS background: RHEL / CENTOS 4, 5, and 6 or strong experience in comparable Linux distribution with interest in learning RHEL * Must have experience integrating with Windows 2003 / 2008 Systems * Strong Windows Server experience is a plus * BASH, Python, or Perl scripting in order of preference * Experience with Dell or HP Servers * Experience supporting systems remotely * Experience with LAMP Systems; MySQL; MS SQL or other server-based DBs (Apache Web Server, IIS, Tomcat, JBOSS or Jetty, and Java Applications) * Knowledge of enterprise and user administrative and management tools including Active Directory and MS DNS, and OpenLDAP/Krb or NIS * Knowledge of enterprise and user administrative and management of Perforce a plus * Experience maintaining SVN / CVS / GIT, also a plus * Knowledge of enterprise and user administrative and management of NetApp a plus; creating volumes, CIFS Shares, NFS Shares, and LUNs * Advanced networking capabilities and troubleshooting experience with network hardware, VLANs, subnetting and routing * Working experience with Cisco switches, routers and access points preferred * Basic understanding of server virtualization technologies, knowledge and experience with VMware ESX or Red Hat Xen or KVM required; experience deploying / troubleshooting a multiple VM environment * Strong day to day understanding of core network protocols / concepts: TCP/IP, UDP, DNS, DHCP, VPNs, ACLs, Firewalls, WLAN and LAN * Strong understanding of development pipelines including build process submittal / request, data paths, and build output reposito