Storage and Datacenter Team Lead

The Voleon Group•Berkeley, CA

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

Voleon is a technology company that applies state-of-the-art AI and machine learning techniques to real-world problems in finance. For nearly two decades, we have led our industry and worked at the frontier of applying AI/ML to investment management. We have become a multibillion-dollar asset manager, and we have ambitious goals for the future. Your colleagues will include internationally recognized experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning research as well as highly experienced finance and technology professionals. In addition to our enriching and collegial working environment, we offer highly competitive compensation and benefits packages, technology talks by our experts, a beautiful modern office, daily catered lunches, and more. We are seeking a hands-on and strategic Storage and Datacenter Team Lead to guide and grow our critical Storage Engineering team. This individual will be both a technical expert and a team leader, providing architectural oversight, mentorship, and direct implementation support. The ideal candidate will bring a deep understanding of Linux-based storage systems, excellent problem-solving skills, and a passion for building reliable, scalable infrastructure. You should have proven experience managing Ceph or similar distributed storage systems, as well as handling large-scale data lifecycle processes including archiving and backup. You will be expected to lead by example—driving automation efforts, and contributing to high-level planning while managing team priorities and operations. Occasional participation in on-call rotation is expected.

Requirements

5+ years of Linux Systems Administration experience with significant recent focus on storage systems
2+ years of team leadership, technical project management, or mentoring experience
Knowledge of distributed storage systems such as Ceph and storage technologies including RAID, SAN, and NAS
Experience streamlining data lifecycle processes, including archiving, backup, and retention of PB-scale data
Hands-on experience with co-located data center infrastructure
Ability to travel to remote datacenter sites when needed
Strong scripting/development experience in Bash and/or Python
Experience with configuration management tools (Ansible) and infrastructure automation
Familiarity with monitoring and alerting systems (Nagios/CheckMK, Prometheus, Grafana)
Understanding of virtualization (KVM, ESXi) and containerization (Docker, Podman)
Knowledge of LDAP/IPA/AD and centralized identity management

Nice To Haves

Experience with Kubernetes container orchestration
PostgreSQL DBA experience
Experience in a high-throughput research or trading environment
Exposure to RHEL/CentOS/Rocky Linux in enterprise settings
Experience with DCIM tools for tracking assets, power, and space
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps principles
Experience managing colocation vendor relationships and SLAs

Responsibilities

Lead a small team of storage, database, and systems administrators with duties including mentorship, performance management, and career development
Coordinate datacenter operations across production and research facilities, including scheduling site work and managing vendor/contractor visits
Align team priorities with organizational goals and ensure timely delivery of projects
Participate in hiring efforts to grow and evolve the storage engineering team
Coordinate on-call schedules and ensure effective incident response processes are in place
Architect, implement, and maintain highly available and performant storage systems
Define and drive automation strategies for storage deployment and monitoring
Oversee storage lifecycle management including capacity planning, performance tuning, and data protection strategies such as archiving and backups for large-scale datasets
Provide architectural guidance and hands-on support for Ceph at PB scale
Oversee physical datacenter infrastructure including rack layout planning, power distribution, cooling systems, and capacity forecasting for space, power, and cooling
Manage equipment installation and decommissioning
Collaborate closely with networking, virtualization, research, and application teams to support diverse compute and storage needs
Participate in and improve CI/CD and configuration management processes with tools like Ansible and Git
Support database operations through database tuning, storage optimization, and collaboration with developers
Develop and maintain runbooks for remote-hands work and coordinate with contractors and facility personnel to perform onsite operations
Serve as an escalation point for advanced troubleshooting of distributed filesystems, databases, and high-performance storage infrastructure
Hands-on administration of Linux servers, network-attached storage, virtualization platforms, and cluster frameworks
Installation, cabling, and troubleshooting of physical server, storage, and network hardware in rack environments
Diagnose and resolve hardware-level issues impacting production systems
Support and enhance observability using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and others