Pay Grade/Pay Range: Based on qualifications.

Department/Organization: 750501 - Alabama Water Institute (AWI)

Normal Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00am to 4:45pm

Job Summary: The Associate Research Professional should show a high level of achievement and impact as appropriate for the position’s duties. Oversees research projects and assumes responsibility for the day-to-day activity supporting the project. Contributes significantly to the planning and design of research and creative projects. May assist in both short-term and long-term planning and project goals, as well as in research and creative proposals and dissemination of project findings. This is only a representation of possible duties and is not an all-inclusive listing.

Additional Department Summary: Can you make virtual infrastructure move like lightning? Would you like to be the genius behind a flexible experiment platform for the National Water Model? If you are an SRE guru and want a new challenge, please send us your resume and let’s talk!

The Alabama Water Institute at the University of Alabama seeks applications for a System/Site Reliability Engineer to support a hydrologic model software development project. AWI is creating a replicable, hybrid HPC-cloud water science environment to support a collaborative experiment to analyze the National Water Model and improve US capacity for critical flood and drought prediction.

To support the project, the System/Site Reliability Engineer will work closely with a DevOps Manager, a UI/UX Design Engineer, and Research Software Engineers, hydrologic modelers, and experts in geographic information systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and databases. The applicant will lead containerization, portability design, hardware specifications, and large scale computing support for research across a diverse team of computer and domain scientists.

Continuation in this position is contingent upon availability of external funding derived from research programs or specific projects. To best execute its mission, the Office for Research & Economic Development (ORED) prefers that all ORED employees work on the campus of The University of Alabama. However, ORED will consider, on a case by case basis, remote work for an employee if such work makes strong business sense for ORED based on the scope of work and expectations for that employee. Prior to any remote work, the employee and their direct supervisor(s) and the Vice President will execute a remote work agreement.

Required Department Minimum Qualifications: Master's degree in a science or engineering field and two (2) years of experience in software engineering, system engineering, or system administration; OR Bachelor's degree in a science or engineering field and four (4) years of experience in software engineering, system engineering, or system administration.

Skills and Knowledge: Knowledge of planning for system availability, latency, performance, efficiency, monitoring, and capacity planning. Knowledge of automation, system design, and system resilience.
Experience with massive data storage scaling (e.g., via Ceph) and Data Lake management.

Preferred Qualifications: 5+ years SRE experience with strong background in one of software development, software engineering, system engineering, or system administration.
Experience with process orchestration and monitoring in diverse environments.
Familiarity with transition of research software to production
Certifications or demonstrated experience in CI/CD pipeline implementation
Solid experience with at least one of AWS/Azure/GCP
Experience with IaC (incl. Terraform + Docker + Kubernetes)
Knowledge of Hybrid HPC-cloud deployment
AWS Certification or equivalent as: Solutions Architect, Sysops Administrator Associate, DevOps Engineer Professional, Advanced Networking Specialty
Demonstrated high level of interpersonal skills for effective collaboration with academics, scientists, practitioners, and students.

Background Investigation Statement: Prior to hiring, the final candidate(s) must successfully pass a pre-employment background investigation and information obtained from social media and other internet sources. A prior conviction reported as a result of the background investigation DOES NOT automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration for this position. A candidate with a prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags will receive an individualized review of the prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags before a hiring decision is made.

Equal Employment Opportunity: The University of Alabama is an Equal Employment/Equal Educational Opportunity Institution. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment or volunteer status without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, age, genetic or family medical history information, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, and will not be discriminated against because of their protected status. Applicants and employees of this institution are protected under Federal law from discrimination on several bases. Follow the link below to find out more. "EEO is the Law" Poster