HEAnet – Systems Administrator (Hybrid, x2 open roles)
HEAnet is Ireland’s National Research and Education Network, providing internet connectivity and ICT shared services across all levels of the Irish education system, reaching in excess of 1,000,000 end users. We connect learners and researchers across all of Ireland to education resources and to fellow national educational and research networks in Europe and the rest of the world.
HEAnet also provides our client base with support in the procurement of ICT hardware, software, and services. The Brokerage Services portfolio covers a wide range of products and services, delivering significant savings for the sector annually.
We have two exciting opportunities for Linux Systems Administrators to join our Systems Team on a permanent contract basis.
This role is primarily based at our Dublin 1 offices, but we are pleased to offer a flexible remote working arrangement. This allows you to work from home up to three (3) days a week. You will be expected to work at least two (2) days a week in the office, giving you the opportunity to enjoy a balanced and dynamic work environment.
What the Systems Team does
The Systems Team drives the deployment and maintenance of HEAnet’s systems and services. The Teams responsibilities fall into 3 streams:
* Core infrastructure: This is a combination of virtual infrastructure, physical servers, and appliances, spread across our datacentres, and now an increasing foothold in containerization and the Cloud. Essential for smooth operation is the automation and management of these resources.
* Internal Services: All the pieces that go on behind the scenes to be able to deliver services, such as monitoring, logging, load balancers, database clusters, storage, authentication, as well as providing tools and services to other internal technical teams.
* External Services: All the above help us to provide a diverse range of shared services to IT departments, educators, learners, and researchers. Some of our more widely used services include Identity and Access Management (Edugate), Wi-Fi roaming (eduroam), large file transfers, and video hosting services.
What the Systems Administrator does
This role will help support the delivery and maintenance of our Federated Identity Services, and associated internal tooling and infrastructure. You will play an important part in ensuring the reliability, security, and efficiency of these services.
How we do it
Our company values underpin how we do things in HEAnet. We believe in and live by our values and understand they are integral to making HEAnet a great place to work.
Positive Future Empowered Enjoy It Equality & We Share
Impact Focused Decision Fairness
What you get from us
From the team
We value knowledge-sharing and communication. We start each week with a team meeting to cover outstanding issues and planned work for the week. You will also have a 1:1 meeting every one to two weeks with your manager. Every Friday we have presentations from anyone in the company on a wide range of topics from technical demos to project management to mental health. We have a mix of remote and hybrid team members, so we use Teams to stay connected, with regular coordinated days in the office to maintain relationships with team members, and do collaborative project work.
We encourage critical thinking and the exploration of innovative ideas. We often form cross-team special interest groups for specific topic discussions, both ongoing and for fixed projects. By design we encourage that the engineering standards that we set are influenced from the ground up, as the people working within the standards are the ones most informed.
We provide a diverse workload. Everyone on the team has a core responsibility to a service or piece of infrastructure, but we limit individual performance objectives to a max of 30%, so you will get to work in multiple areas with different team members.
We promote a healthy work/life balance. Work outside of standard hours is rare and agreed on in advance. We take care of our team members' mental health seriously.
Our Technology stack, current and in development
* OS: Ubuntu / Debian / CentOS
* Virtualisation: VMWare NSX-T
* Infrastructure: Physical Datacentres/ AWS / Azure
* Containerisation: Docker Swarm / Kubernetes (RKE)
* Network: Optical (DWDM) / MPLS / IP / ISIS / BGP / VXLAN
* Databases: Percona
* Orchestration & Automation: Ansible / Foreman / Terraform / GIT
* Logging & Monitoring: Elastic (OpenSearch) / Icinga2 / Munin / Cacti
Company Benefits
* Hybrid Working
* Flexible start/finish times
* Health insurance for employees
* Defined contribution pension scheme
* On-going well-being initiatives
* Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
* Tax Saver Ticket scheme
* Cycle to Work scheme
* Professional education support
* Comprehensive group and individual training & development initiatives
What we need from you
Required Technical Skills:
* Linux Administration: Strong foundational knowledge in Linux system administration (e.g., CentOS, Ubuntu), including file systems, configuration management, and networking
* Basic Scripting & Troubleshooting: Foundational skills in scripting (Python, Bash) and system troubleshooting
Desired Technical Skills:
* Container Infrastructure: Exposure to container maintenance and deployment (e.g., Docker, Swarm)
* Automation & Configuration Management: Exposure to automation and configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet, or Chef
Required Soft Skills:
* Communication & Collaboration:
o Clear written and verbal communication skills with the ability to create basic documentation
o Ability to work well in a team environment, supporting and learning from Senior team members
o Ability to explain technical issues to non-technical users with guidance
* Continuous Improvement: Eagerness to learn new skills, improve technical knowledge and support process enhancements
* Self-Motivated Learner: Enthusiastic about growing in the role and expanding technical skills
* Detail-oriented: Focused on delivering accurate and quality work
* Adaptable: Willingness to embrace new challenges and tasks
Bonus points:
We don’t expect you to have experience in all of the following areas, but it would be a plus if you do:
* Shibboleth/SAML Exposure: Experience or knowledge of working with IdP and SP setup. Familiarity with troubleshooting and maintaining SAML services.
* Security Awareness: Basic understanding of security best practices in system administration.
* DevOps & CI/CD Exposure: Familiarity with DevOps practices and tools like CI/CD pipelines.
* Cloud Platform Exposure: Experience or knowledge of working with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure).
* Monitoring and Performance Tuning: Exposure to system monitoring and performance tuning.
More important information
At HEAnet we celebrate diversity and understand how important it is to our ongoing success. We would like to hear from candidates who are great at what they do and whose values align with ours.
If you need any adjustments made to the application or selection process so you can do your best, please let us know.
HEAnet are delighted to be awarded with the Ibec Keep Well Mark. We take pride in developing, maintaining and enhancing our culture of wellbeing and continue to focus on this into 2024 and beyond.
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