Research Systems Engineer

Universities of Wisconsin•Madison, WI

20h•$115,000 - $135,000•Remote

About The Position

The Research Cyberinfrastructure group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Division of Information Technology is hiring a Research Systems Engineer. The Research Systems Engineer will administer enterprise-wide applications for data movement, data management, and data sharing across the University’s distributed research infrastructure. In this role, you will be technical and operational lead for UW-Madison’s Globus service, which connects research data, storage, and computing resources across the University and enables secure sharing of data between internal and external research collaborators. You will design, develop, test, and maintain API automations for server management and large scale provisioning of storage gateways and collections that are integrated with multiple enterprise systems, including Campus Active Directory, ResearchDrive, Research Object Storage, as well as UW-Madison’s Azure, AWS, GCP, OneDrive, and Google Workspace tenants. You will consult with research groups to help them leverage this infrastructure to meet their data transfer and automation needs. You will become an expert at creating and advising researchers on low friction, automated paths for data movement. You will partner with groups in central and distributed IT, research computing centers, and the Libraries to identify best practices for automated data workflows, data-sharing, and data management. Your work will provide key elements of research computing infrastructure that support the University’s RISE (Research Innovation and Scholarly Excellence) initiative. This position is eligible for any of the following: 100% remote work; partial remote work; or fully on-site. Remote work requires an approved flexible work arrangement (FWA), which is reviewed and approved annually. An FWA requires successful candidates to possess their own high-speed internet and phone to perform the work on a university provided computer. Per University policy, transportation between home and assigned work location is not payable/reimbursable and will be at the expense of the employee. The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) is an exciting and dynamic work environment grounded in organizational principles that include family and personal life/work balance; an inclusive, respectful, and supportive work environment; professional development opportunities; innovation; and alignment with the campus's teaching, learning, and research missions. DoIT provides core IT infrastructure services to the university, develops and implements services for the university and in some cases, for the Universities of Wisconsin, plays a major role in managing the state-wide higher education network and regional networks. This position is part of the Wisconsin Research, Innovation and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) Initiative. Through accelerated and strategic faculty hiring, research infrastructure enhancement, interdisciplinary collaboration, and increased student and educational opportunities, RISE addresses complex societal challenges of importance to the state, nation and world. Building on UW–Madison’s strengths, RISE expands the University’s successful track record of connecting with communities and industry on collaborative solutions. Over the next three academic years, UW–Madison will substantially increase current hiring levels, bringing 150 new RISE faculty to campus. Candidates hired through RISE will join a community of scholars working across disciplines, schools and colleges on research, teaching and outreach endeavors. The community will engage regularly in venues such as seminar series and colloquia to share ongoing projects and identify opportunities to work together. The University will support the community, facilitating access to research infrastructure, and funding to support broad and rich collaboration. Further information regarding RISE can be found at: https://rise.wisc.edu/.

Requirements

Professional experience supporting and administering Linux web applications
Professional experience scripting, automating, and documenting workflows using command line and REST APIs for software integrations
Professional experience providing IT solutions to meet the needs of users with a wide range of requirements as part of a cross-functional technical team delivering services to varied audiences
Demonstrated experience using Python coding skills in a professional work environment
Experience supporting applications using enterprise Identity Management systems such as Globus/CILogon, SAML/Shibboleth/OIDC, Active Directory/LDAP, EntraID

Nice To Haves

Professional experience providing and maintaining processes for end-to-end IT service delivery and operational resilience
Experience supporting applications for research computing workflows, data storage and transfer, such as Globus
Knowledge of the day-to-day processes involved in research and discovery, including research workflows, data lifecycles, and grant funding cycles and requirements
Familiarity with protocols used to access network attached storage systems, such as SMB, NFS, and Amazon S3
Awareness of security protocols and regulatory compliance areas that impact research (i.e., NSPM-33, HIPAA, FISMA, Controlled Unclassified Information)

Responsibilities

Develops, programs, and/or deploys automation workflows for deployment, configuration, and/or monitoring of systems/services
Manages, maintains, selects, and develops automation tools and infrastructure, including security configurations
Analyzes requirements and communicates and coordinates with staff and internal stakeholders related to the system and/or project
Participate in interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts with other departments, schools and colleges
Maintains infrastructure for research systems
Provides support, documentation, training and expert guidance to research groups
Serves as a subject matter expert to internal stakeholders, providing guidance and training to staff
Performs integration, migration, configuration, and security of existing applications and services into automated infrastructures
Serves as technical lead for one or more aspects of the system