Contract type: Permanent
Job Level: Skilled / Middle Management
Work Location: Cape Town, Western Cape
Closing Date: 31 August 2024
The National Research Foundation (NRF) supports and promotes research and human capital development through funding, the provision of National Research Facilities and science outreach platforms and programmes to the broader community in all fields of science and technology, including natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.
The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) spearheads South Africa's activities in the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, commonly known as the SKA, in engineering, science and construction. SARAO is a National Facility managed by the National Research Foundation and incorporates radio astronomy instruments and programmes such as the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in Gauteng, the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry (AVN) programme in nine African countries as well as the associated human capital development and commercialisation endeavours.
Purpose: The DevOps Engineer automates and supports the tools and processes relating to continuous delivery, integration and deployment for software packages, platforms, operating systems and infrastructure in the Digital Signal Processing Department within the Engineering & Technology Development Division.
The DevOps Engineer works closely with and supports the various development teams within the Digital Signal Processing Department.
Key Responsibilities:
* Develop, maintain and support the CI/CD pipeline of the group to enable continuous delivery, integration and deployment of the group's products and applications
* Develop, maintain and support the logging and monitoring stacks to enable system health status monitoring to support and improve reliability and quality
* Manage, maintain and support the Compute and Network Infrastructure within the group in terms of supporting the design of new systems, deployments, technical configuration management, and ensuring required uptime
* Participate in software design processes, across the entire life cycle, to improve quality, maintainability and robustness of delivered products
* Provide operational support for the operation of Digital Signal Processing Compute and Network Infrastructure and participate in after-hours, on-call support as required
* Driving the incident management processes and continuously implementing lessons learned to improve overall quality and reliability
* Participate in the generation of technical system and product-related documentation applicable to the CI/CD pipeline, logging and monitoring stacks and Compute and Network Infrastructure to support the delivery and hand over of the Digital Signal Processing Group's products
Key Requirements:
Qualification:
* B.Sc (NQF 7) Computer Science or related with 6+ years relevant experience, OR
* B.Tech (Eng) (NQF 7) Computer, Electrical or Electronic with 6+ years relevant experience, OR
* B.Sc (Hons) (NQF 8) Computer Science or related with 4+ years relevant experience, OR
* B.Eng/B.Sc (Eng) (NQF 8) Computer, Electrical or Electronic with 4+ years relevant experience; OR
* MSc / M.Eng (NQF 9) Computer Science or relevant Engineering field with 3+ years relevant experience
Experience:
* Experience as a DevOps / System Administrator OR as a Software Developer coupled with further education or training in DevOps and System Administration
* Experience working in a high-performance computing environment is preferable
* Configuration and management of CI/CD pipelines to support development and delivery of software products
* Configuration and management of logging and monitoring stacks and frameworks for system health monitoring
* Linux system installation, configuration and administration
* Software development and scripting using the Python Programming Language
* Deployment, upgrade and maintenance of Compute and Network Infrastructure
* Working with workflow and issue management tools (e.g., JIRA)
* Working with source code and version control tools (e.g., Git)
* Being responsible for mission-critical pipelines and infrastructure
Knowledge:
* Containerisation (e.g., Docker, Podman, LXD, ECS)
* Orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes, Mesos, Nomad)
* Infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
* Distributed monitoring and alerting (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic)
* Distributed logging (e.g., ELK stack)
* Deployment (e.g., MaaS, FAI)
* Virtualisation (e.g., Openstack, proxmox)
* Continuous integration (e.g., Jenkins, Buildbot, Github Actions)
* Distributed Storage (e.g., Ceph, Lustre, MinIO)
* Knowledge of high-performance computing infrastructure
* Knowledge of Ethernet networks
Additional Notes:
* Desire to continuously learn, problem solve and acquire new skills with cutting edge technology
* A clear and methodical approach to problem solving
* A high attention to detail, excellent organisation skills
* Good communication skills, written and verbal
* Ability to effectively transfer knowledge and skills to other team members
* Eagerness to develop a technical specialisation and expertise
Information:
The website www.nrf.ac.za provides more details on the NRF initiatives and activities.
Applications:
Applicants should submit a comprehensive CV by logging to https://ess.nrf.ac.za/Account/Recruitment and apply online. Applications should be accompanied by a letter of motivation indicating the applicant's suitability for the position. The names and contact details of at least three referees should be provided.
Closing Date: 31 August 2024
The NRF offers a challenging career and competitive remuneration package which is commensurate with qualifications and experience.
The NRF is committed to employment equity and redress and the appointment to the position will be made in line with the NRF Employment Equity Plan.
The NRF reserves the right not to make an appointment.
Correspondence will be sent to short-listed candidates only
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