Top 12 Systems Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume

In a crowded hiring landscape, Systems Managers need to spotlight the skills that actually move the needle. This guide breaks down a dozen essentials—technical depth plus people-savvy—so you can run stable systems, tame complexity, and lead teams without getting buried in the noise.

Systems Manager Skills

1. Linux/Unix
2. Windows Server
3. VMware ESXi
4. AWS/Azure
5. Cisco Networking
6. PowerShell/Bash
7. Active Directory
8. SQL Server
9. Docker/Kubernetes
10. Ansible/Chef
11. Nagios/Zabbix
12. Git/SVN

1. Linux/Unix

Linux/Unix systems power servers, appliances, and cloud images across the world. They’re prized for stability, security, and flexibility—perfect for running critical workloads with fine-grained control.

Why It's Important

They form the backbone of modern infrastructure. As a Systems Manager, you lean on them for predictable performance, robust security controls, automation, and broad tooling support.

How to Improve Linux/Unix Skills

Sharpening Linux/Unix operations blends monitoring, tuning, and disciplined hygiene.

1. Stay current: Patch regularly. On Debian/Ubuntu use apt; on RHEL/Rocky/Alma use dnf. Hold back only with clear justification and maintenance windows.

2. Watch the pulse: top/htop, vmstat, iostat, sar, and perf reveal hot spots. Baseline first, then tune.

3. Tune the kernel safely: sysctl for network buffers, file handles, vm settings. Document changes and track via configuration management.

4. Choose and tune filesystems: Pick the right FS (XFS, ext4, btrfs, ZFS where appropriate). Adjust mount options and scheduler to match workload patterns.

5. Harden by default: Firewalld/nftables (or iptables if required), SSH keys, fail2ban, minimal packages, SELinux/AppArmor in enforcing mode where feasible.

6. Automate the grunt work: Cron/systemd timers for backups, rotations, health checks, and housekeeping.

7. Network sanity: Prefer the ip tool over ifconfig, validate duplex/MTU with ethtool, and trace paths with mtr. Tune TCP settings thoughtfully.

8. Leverage tooling: sysstat, tuned, and perf for deeper dives. Keep profiles per workload.

9. Read the logs: journalctl and logwatch surface early warnings. Build alerts around anomalies, not just errors.

10. Back up like you mean it: rsync, tar, snapshots, and tested restores. Disaster recovery runbooks should be boring and fast.

Do these well and your estate becomes calmer, faster, and far less brittle.

How to Display Linux/Unix Skills on Your Resume

2. Windows Server

Windows Server underpins identity, files, apps, and virtualization across many enterprises. It’s the hub for AD, Group Policy, and a slew of roles that keep business humming.

Why It's Important

It enables centralized control, consistent policy, and secure access at scale—while hosting core services and line-of-business apps.

How to Improve Windows Server Skills

1. Patch on rhythm: Adopt a steady cadence with maintenance windows and rollback plans. Validate updates in a staging environment first.

2. Measure, then adjust: Performance Monitor and Resource Monitor help pinpoint bottlenecks. Right-size CPU/RAM, tune storage and NIC settings.

3. Trim the fat: Only install roles/features you actually need. Fewer components, smaller attack surface.

4. Backups you trust: Regular full and incremental backups, application-consistent snapshots, and periodic restore drills.

5. Security posture: Least privilege, fine-grained delegation, credential hygiene, Defender AV/EDR, and strong baselines via Group Policy or desired state tools.

6. Visibility and auditing: Centralized logs, alerts for privilege changes, and health checks for domain services.

7. Networking done right: Sensible DNS design, DHCP reservations where appropriate, QoS where latency matters, and hardened SMB.

8. Storage tuning: Proper RAID, ReFS/NTFS selection, tiering/SSD for hot data, and deduplication where it fits.

9. Virtualization hygiene: With Hyper-V or others, align VM generation, integration services, dynamic memory, and NUMA-awareness to workload needs.

10. Keep learning: Newer Windows Server releases add features; fold them in where they simplify operations or strengthen security.

How to Display Windows Server Skills on Your Resume

3. VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor for consolidating workloads, carving a single host into many efficient, well-governed virtual machines.

Why It's Important

It slashes hardware sprawl, boosts utilization, and gives you clustering, HA, and lifecycle tooling to keep services available without the drama.

How to Improve VMware ESXi Skills

1. Stay updated: Maintain supported ESXi and VM hardware versions. Standardize firmware and drivers across hosts.

2. Storage matters: Right-size VMFS/NFS, align VMDKs, use SSD or NVMe where I/O is hot. Monitor latency carefully.

3. Networking choices: Prefer VMXNET3, use distributed switches for consistent policy, and separate management, vMotion, and storage traffic.

4. Watch performance: esxtop and vCenter charts reveal CPU ready time, co-stop, ballooning, contention—then you fix, not guess.

5. Resource discipline: Reservations, limits, and shares are scalpels, not hammers. Resource pools should serve priorities, not hide problems.

6. Cluster features: DRS and HA balance load and recover fast. Test isolation responses and admission control before you need them.

How to Display VMware ESXi Skills on Your Resume

4. AWS/Azure

AWS and Microsoft Azure deliver elastic compute, storage, networking, identity, and managed services. They turn infrastructure into APIs and policy, so teams can move faster with guardrails.

Why It's Important

Scalability, global reach, and deep services catalogue—plus tools for reliability, cost control, and security—make cloud a force multiplier for Systems Managers.

How to Improve AWS/Azure Skills

Think in terms of performance, reliability, security, and cost—then automate the lot.

AWS

1. Govern and tag: Organizations, SCPs, consistent tagging, and accounts per boundary. Clean boundaries, cleaner bills.

2. Right-size and auto scale: Use autoscaling groups, spot where safe, and modern instance families. For data, match storage classes to access patterns.

3. IaC everywhere: CloudFormation or Terraform with code reviews, modules, and drift detection.

4. Defense in depth: IAM least privilege, WAF/Shield where needed, encryption by default, centralized logging and detective controls.

5. Cost awareness: Budgets, alerts, and reserved/savings plans when stable. Kill idle.

Azure

1. Landing zones: Management groups, policy, and blueprints to standardize. Resource groups with sane naming and tags.

2. Scale smart: VM Scale Sets, Autoscale for PaaS, and performance tiers that fit your workload curves.

3. IaC standards: Bicep, ARM, or Terraform. Pipelines that lint, validate, and test before deploy.

4. Secure by design: RBAC, PIM for just-in-time access, Key Vault, Defender plans, and centralized logs.

5. Cost controls: Budgets, tags, and rightsizing. Park dev/test when you sleep.

How to Display AWS/Azure Skills on Your Resume

5. Cisco Networking

Cisco’s portfolio—switching, routing, wireless, security—anchors many enterprise networks. Reliability and rich features, from VLANs to SD-WAN to identity-based access.

Why It's Important

It’s the circulatory system of your org. If the network falters, everything else limps or stops.

How to Improve Cisco Networking Skills

1. Standardize configs: Templates, golden images, and a clean baseline per device family.

2. Harden the edge: Device passwords, AAA, SSH-only, secure SNMP, port security, DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP inspection, and sane ACLs.

3. Monitor like a hawk: NetFlow/sFlow, syslog, SNMP, model-driven telemetry. Alert on loss, latency, errors, and changes.

4. Automate: Ansible, Python/Netmiko/NAPALM, or controller APIs to reduce manual drift and speed rollouts.

5. Document and label: Topology, IP plans, trunk/access policies, and change history. Future you will applaud.

6. Practice failure: Change windows with rollbacks, and drills for link loss, device failure, and control-plane events.

How to Display Cisco Networking Skills on Your Resume

6. PowerShell/Bash

PowerShell brings object-centric automation across Windows and, with PowerShell 7, Linux and macOS. Bash is the ubiquitous shell for Unix-like systems—lean, scriptable, everywhere. macOS now defaults to zsh, but Bash remains deeply entrenched.

Why It's Important

Scripts don’t forget. They move faster than fingers, reduce mistakes, and make complex changes repeatable and reviewable.

How to Improve PowerShell/Bash Skills

PowerShell

1. Fundamentals first: Cmdlets, pipelines, objects, and providers. Think objects, not text.

2. Write modules: Package functions, version them, and share. Build help. Sign scripts.

3. Error handling: Try/catch/finally, $ErrorActionPreference, and robust logging.

4. Remoting safely: Just Enough Administration (JEA), constrained endpoints, and least privilege.

5. Cross-platform: Test scripts on PowerShell 7, not just Windows PowerShell.

Bash

1. Write defensively: set -euo pipefail, safe quoting, and clear exits.

2. Lean on the classics: awk, sed, grep, xargs, and find—small tools chained smartly.

3. Structure: Functions, usage messages, and logs. Keep scripts idempotent where you can.

4. Lint and test: shellcheck and simple harnesses catch footguns early.

5. Parameterize: Flags and env vars, not hard-coded values.

How to Display PowerShell/Bash Skills on Your Resume

7. Active Directory

Active Directory (AD) centralizes identity, policy, and access across Windows domains. Many environments also run hybrid with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD).

Why It's Important

It’s the gatekeeper. Strong identity underpins security, access control, and smooth user experiences.

How to Improve Active Directory Skills

1. Patch and backup: Domain controllers updated, multi-DC replication healthy, and system state backups tested.

2. Enforce strong auth: Complex passwords, Password Settings Objects where needed, MFA via hybrid integration, and smart lockout policies.

3. Tiered administration: Separate admin tiers, privileged access workstations, and just-in-time elevation.

4. Audit and alert: Monitor privileged group changes, DC logons, Kerberos anomalies, and GPO edits.

5. Harden DCs: Minimal roles, no internet browsing, strict firewalling, and guarded credentials (LSA protection, gMSA, LAPS for local admins).

6. GPO hygiene: Consolidate, document, and test. Fewer, clearer policies beat spaghetti.

7. Plan recovery: Forest and domain recovery runbooks. Practice them.

How to Display Active Directory Skills on Your Resume

8. SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a robust relational database engine for OLTP, analytics, and hybrid scenarios—packed with features for performance, security, and HA/DR.

Why It's Important

Your apps are only as healthy as their data layer. Strong SQL Server management keeps queries quick and data safe.

How to Improve SQL Server Skills

1. Index strategy: Add what helps, drop what doesn’t. Watch fragmentation and selectivity. Cover hot paths.

2. Query tuning: Use execution plans and Query Store to tame scans, parameter sniffing woes, and implicit conversions.

3. Statistics and plans: Keep stats fresh. Consider optimize for ad hoc workloads and appropriate MAXDOP/Cost Threshold settings.

4. Maintenance cadence: DBCC CHECKDB, index maintenance, and verified backups with periodic restores.

5. Memory and tempdb: Bound max server memory, size tempdb correctly with multiple data files, and watch PLE and waits.

6. Security: Least privilege, contained users where appropriate, TDE, row-level security, and auditing.

7. HA/DR: Availability Groups, failover testing, and clear RTO/RPO targets.

8. Capacity and monitoring: Track growth, waits, and top offenders. Plan scale before it’s urgent.

How to Display SQL Server Skills on Your Resume

9. Docker/Kubernetes

Docker standardizes packaging and runtime. Kubernetes orchestrates fleets of containers with scheduling, scaling, and self-healing.

Why It's Important

Consistency from laptop to prod, faster deployments, and resilient services—without handholding every instance.

How to Improve Docker/Kubernetes Skills

1. Right-size resources: Requests and limits for CPU/memory keep clusters fair and stable. Avoid noisy neighbor chaos.

2. Security early: Minimal base images, image signing and scanning, non-root containers, RBAC, Pod Security, and network policies.

3. Autoscale wisely: HPA/VPA based on meaningful metrics. Scale out before users feel it.

4. Workload classes: Use QoS and priority classes to protect the important things during stress.

5. Observe everything: Central logs, metrics (Prometheus-style), traces, and golden signals dashboards. Alert on SLOs.

6. CI/CD lanes: Build, test, scan, sign, and deploy through pipelines. GitOps for drift-free clusters.

7. Stay current: Regularly patch Kubernetes, container runtimes, and nodes. Plan upgrades, don’t wing them.

8. Persist correctly: PVs/PVCs matched to the right storage class and access mode. Backups for stateful sets.

9. Network choices: Pick a CNI that fits (performance, policy, observability). Keep east-west traffic controlled.

10. Test failure: Pod disruption budgets, chaos drills, and rolling strategies that actually roll.

How to Display Docker/Kubernetes Skills on Your Resume

10. Ansible/Chef

Ansible and Chef automate configuration, deployment, and compliance—repeatable infrastructure without repetitive keystrokes.

• Ansible: Agentless, YAML playbooks and roles, great for fast starts and broad platform coverage.

• Chef: Code-driven with recipes/cookbooks in Ruby, strong for complex, policy-heavy estates. Chef InSpec covers compliance nicely.

Why It's Important

Consistency wins. These tools turn tribal knowledge into code, accelerate rollouts, and shrink drift.

How to Improve Ansible/Chef Skills

Ansible

1. Modular design: Roles, collections, and variables scoped cleanly. Idempotence always.

2. Inventory strategy: Dynamic inventories, per-environment vars, and vault for secrets.

3. Test first: Molecule or similar for linting and scenario tests. CI pipeline on every change.

4. Controller: Use AWX/Automation Platform for RBAC, scheduling, and audit trails.

Chef

1. Resource fluency: Write concise, reusable resources and cookbooks. Keep them small and composable.

2. Policyfiles: Pin versions, lock dependencies, and ship predictable builds.

3. Test Kitchen: Validate across OS targets before promotion. Add InSpec for compliance checks.

4. Pipelines: Automate lint, unit, integration, and security scans before converge.

How to Display Ansible/Chef Skills on Your Resume

11. Nagios/Zabbix

Nagios and Zabbix keep watch over networks, servers, apps, and services. Alerts when things go sideways; trends to stop problems early.

Why It's Important

Without monitoring, you’re flying blind. With it, you fix issues before users start filing tickets.

How to Improve Nagios/Zabbix Skills

Nagios

1. Automate configs: Generate checks from inventory and CMDB. Templates reduce toil and typos.

2. Plugins for depth: Use community or custom plugins for apps and edge cases. Standardize thresholds.

3. Alert hygiene: Tune dependencies, flap detection, and escalations. Less noise, faster response.

Zabbix

1. Template smart: Start with vendor templates, then tailor items, triggers, and discovery rules to your environment.

2. Scale out: Proxies for distributed sites keep data flowing and WANs calm.

3. Visualize: Build clear dashboards and SLA views. Tie alerts to runbooks for quick actions.

Make monitoring part of change management. New service? New checks, dashboards, and alerts—by default.

• Nagios Community
• Zabbix Forums

How to Display Nagios/Zabbix Skills on Your Resume

12. Git/SVN

Version control tracks change, enables collaboration, and makes rollbacks boring. Git is distributed with fast branching; SVN is centralized and straightforward.

Why It's Important

You get history, accountability, and safer experimentation—crucial for infra code and scripts as much as app code.

How to Improve Git/SVN Skills

Git

1. Branching discipline: Adopt a clear model (trunk-based or Git Flow). Protect main branches.

2. Commits that tell the story: Small, scoped commits with meaningful messages. Reviewable diffs win.

3. Hooks and checks: Enforce formatting, tests, and security scans before merge.

4. Handle big assets: Use LFS or external artifact stores to keep repos lean.

5. Sign and scan: Signed commits/tags and secret scanning to keep the supply chain clean.

SVN

1. Repo structure: Clear trunk/branches/tags layout. Keep experimental work contained.

2. Hook scripts: Validate messages, block large binaries, and auto-check policies at commit time.

3. Merge discipline: Document branching and merging patterns so releases aren’t guesswork.

4. Backup and audit: Regular hotcopy backups and access reviews to protect history.

5. Access control: Path-based authorization for fine-grained permissions.

How to Display Git/SVN Skills on Your Resume