Infrastructure Platform Engineer
About The Position
The University of Chicago Research Computing Center (RCC), within the Office of Research, provides centrally managed high-performance computing, storage, visualization, and AI infrastructure, along with scientific consulting, user support, education, and training. RCC helps researchers use local, national, and cloud-based computational resources. The Infrastructure Platform Engineer designs, deploys, and operates infrastructure and platform services supporting RCC and its users. This hands-on role spans infrastructure automation, private-cloud deployment, platform and service integration, and Linux system administration. The engineer provisions systems from bare metal, writes Infrastructure as Code, integrates community and third-party services, works with stakeholders in a research environment, and mentors student workers on programming and infrastructure projects. The position is hybrid and requires at least three days per week onsite.
Requirements
- College or university degree in a related field.
- Two to five years of work experience in a related job discipline.
- Knowledge of Linux administration; RHEL is strongly preferred.
- Solid understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, routing, firewalls, and VPNs.
- Proficiency in one or more scripting languages, such as Python or Bash.
- Understanding of security best practices for system hardening and access control.
- Ability to bend, stoop, and crouch in confined spaces.
- Ability to lift, push, and pull up to 50 pounds.
- Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical teams.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Ability to work as part of an interactive team while demonstrating self-initiative to achieve project goals and RCC's mission.
Nice To Haves
- Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience deploying and operating a private cloud platform such as OpenStack from scratch.
- Experience with container orchestration such as Kubernetes.
- Experience provisioning bare-metal infrastructure.
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and practices.
- Experience with monitoring and observability stacks such as Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK.
- Experience with identity/authentication integration, including LDAP, SSO, or Kerberos.
- Experience installing, configuring, and maintaining scientific or research software.
- Experience with virtualization such as Proxmox VE or VMware.
- Experience mentoring junior staff or students.
- Familiarity with community research computing tools such as XDMod, ColdFront, or Open OnDemand.
- Familiarity with data center work, including server installation and troubleshooting.
- Working knowledge of automation tools such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or Salt.
- Ability to understand and translate researchers' scientific goals into computational requirements.
- Ability to identify and gain expertise in appropriate new technologies and software tools.
Responsibilities
- Design, provision, and operate infrastructure from bare metal upward, including physical and virtual nodes, private-cloud platforms such as OpenStack, virtualization environments such as Proxmox VE, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Perform Linux system administration, including operating-system installation and security hardening, patching, package and repository management, storage, networking, backups, and monitoring.
- Automate the full lifecycle of systems and services using configuration management and CI/CD tooling, reducing manual operational work.
- Perform related data center activities, including cabling, installing physical servers and components, configuring out-of-band networking infrastructure, and configuring managed Ethernet switches.
- Deploy, configure, and integrate community and third-party services such as ColdFront, XDMod, and Open OnDemand with existing environments and identity/authentication systems.
- Establish and maintain metrics, logging, and alerting; respond to incidents; and troubleshoot performance, reliability, and configuration issues across the stack.
- Contribute to and maintain internal procedures, configurations, runbooks, and architecture documentation.
- Independently scope, investigate, and resolve emerging technical challenges, evaluating alternatives for cost, maintainability, and operational impact.
- Maintain complex system and network administration functions; administer simple systems with moderate guidance and assist with larger systems.
- Implement routine software and hardware solutions to ensure integrity, conduct routine workstation hardware and software audits, and back up information.
- Perform other related work as needed.
- Mentor student workers on programming and infrastructure projects.
Benefits
- Benefits-eligible; the University offers health, retirement, and paid time off programs and resources.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
