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National Radio Astronomy Observatory · 1 month ago

Systems Administrator III-IV - UPDATED

800 Bradbury Dr SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA

Full-time

Onsite

Mid, Senior Level

4+ years exp

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a prestigious research and development organization that plays a vital role in the study of the universe. They are seeking an experienced Systems Administrator to maintain the Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure supporting the end-to-end science data pipeline for NRAO’s flagship observatories. This role involves deep systems expertise, operational ownership, and mentoring, as well as contributing to mission-critical science delivery.

CommunitiesEducationInformation TechnologySatellite Communication

Work & Life Balance

No H1B

Responsibilities

Contribute to the design, implementation, and lifecycle management of RHEL-based systems supporting processing and archival science data flows across global observatories

Lead the transition to GitOps-driven infrastructure and application deployment, striving for consistency, auditability, and reproducibility

Migrate legacy science services from Docker Swarm to future environments based in kubernetes

Develop and maintain automation tools in Python and SQL to monitor data pipeline health, generate operational metrics, and trigger reliable alerts

Serve as Level-3 escalation for production incidents; conduct root-cause analysis, author post-mortem reports, and implement preventive measures

Triage and resolve escalated support tickets, providing timely, astronomer-facing status communications during incidents

Participate in agile development cycles (2-week sprints, daily stand-ups, Jira/Confluence) to deliver measurable improvements in stakeholder projects

Validate software releases, prepare deployment packages, and produce comprehensive user documentation and training materials

Contribute to the NRAO Common Computing Environment (CCE) initiative for cross-site standardization and knowledge transfer

Mentor junior and peer administrators in infrastructure-as-code, automation, and operational best practices

Travel occasionally to NRAO sites, including the Very Large Array (VLA), Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and international operations centers

Qualification

Red Hat Enterprise LinuxPython 3SQLAnsible Automation PlatformKubernetesGitOps workflowsAnalytical thinkingCommunication skillsMentoring

Required

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Astronomy, Physics, or equivalent professional experience

At least four years of progressive responsibility in mission-critical or scientific computing environments

Strong communication skills (written and verbal); ability to remain calm while supporting demanding clients; analytical thinker; ability to learn new systems quickly

Expert in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8/9

Proficient in modern infrastructure automation and orchestration

Skilled in Python 3 automation and SQL (PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL) for monitoring, reporting, and system health

Experienced with Telegraf, Prometheus, and alerting systems in operational settings

A clear communicator capable of translating complex technical conditions into concise updates for astronomers, project leads, and senior management

Preferred

RHCE or RHCA certification strongly preferred

Direct experience with high-data-rate scientific pipelines (radio astronomy, genomics, earth observation, or similar)

Working knowledge of VictoriaMetrics, Ceph, SLURM, Prometheus/Grafana/Loki stacks

Familiarity with both agile (Scrum/Kanban) and traditional waterfall project methodologies

Ansible Automation Platform (playbooks, collections, Execution Environments)

GitOps workflows using ArgoCD or Flux

Production container platforms (Kubernetes/OpenShift and Docker Swarm)

Benefits

Excellent paid time off (13 holidays, annual accrual of up to 24 vacation days and 15 sick days, additional time off for doctor/dentist visits, and 8 weeks of paid parental leave)

Medical, dental and vision plans are effective on the first day of employment

AUI’s retirement benefit contributes an amount equal to 10 percent of a qualified participant’s base pay with no required employee contribution

An optional supplemental, tax-deferred plan for employee retirement contributions