Research Operations Engineer

Job id: 067888. Salary: £35,502 to £40,333 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 25 May 2023. Closing date: 07 June 2023.

Business unit: Research Management & Innovation. Department: E-Research.

Contact details:Stuart Morrison. [email protected]

Location: Lavington Street Offices. Category: Professional & Support Services.

Job description

We are seeking a technically skilled graduate, post-graduate, post-doc or early career ResOps/DevOps/SRE professional to join KCL’s expanding e-Research team. The posts represent a great opportunity to join the core Operations function required by KCL’s continued investment in Cloud, Storage and HPC capabilities for its world leading researchers. 

This role will provide front line support to researchers using e-Research infrastructure platforms across KCL’s vast multi-disciplinary software developer, computational and data intensive research community. The post benefits from close mentorship from a highly skilled and experienced senior technical team that will empower the successful candidate to resolve issues and make long term improvements to the platforms they support. 

A non-exhaustive list of technologies that you will work with in this role: 

• Linux: Ubuntu, AlmaLinux 
• Development: python, git, ansible, puppet, SQL, PHP/Laravel 
• Virtualisation and Cloud: OpenStack, ProxMox VE, Azure, AWS 
• HPC: Slurm, InfiniBand, CUDA 
• Build tools: Spack/Nix 
• Containers: docker, kubernetes, singularity 
• Monitoring and metrics: Icinga, Prometheus, Grafana, InfluxDB 
• Windows: cloudbase-init, PowerShell, Chocolatey 

Some examples of our work can be seen on our public GitHub page: https://github.com/kcl-eresearch 

Benefits: 

• Flexible working arrangements (guideline of minimum 1 day on-site per week) 
• On the job training from highly skilled colleagues 
• 35 hour week 
• 27 days holiday + Christmas closure 
• 1 day in 10 dedicated to employee led personal development (attend lectures or research a technology of your choice)

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract 

This is a full-time post

Key responsibilities

• Respond to support requests from researchers using e-Research Cloud, Storage and HPC systems 
• Procure, install and configure new server hardware (including site visits to data centres located in Slough/Uxbridge) 
• Configure and tune monitoring systems for e-Research infrastructure 
• Diagnose and resolve performance issues and failures detected by monitoring systems 
• Compile and deploy scientific software packages for use on e-Research platforms 
• On-campus meetings with research groups to understand their workloads and technology requirements 
• Identify and execute on opportunities to eliminate repetitive operational tasks via automation 

*The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post. *

Skills, knowledge, and experience 

Essential criteria

Bachelors degree in science or engineering field 

Confidence using common Linux command line utilities 

Experience learning from open source documentation sites, Linux man pages and built-in help commands 

Competence in at least one high-level programming language and demonstrable ability to learn python, modern web and configuration management technologies 

Logical and methodical approach to problem solving and technical troubleshooting 

Strong verbal and written communication skills 

Strong customer service ethos with the ability to cater to clients that range from technical novices to subject matter experts 

Desirable criteria

Strong python development skills 

Web development skills 

Demonstrable Linux administration experience (taught, self-taught or professional) 

Undergraduate level exposure to machine learning techniques and technologies 

Experience configuring and diagnosing computer networks (taught, self-taught or professional) 

Configuration of Linux based storage systems (taught, self-taught or professional)