Required Education

• Degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Mathematics, related degree, or demonstrable equivalent experience.
• RHCE Certification and/or MCSE/Microsoft Solutions Architect Expert is nice to have.

Required Experience

• Three to five years of Systems Administration/Engineering, with proven abilities in full-stack devops engineering.
• Experience in the disciplines listed in the summary above, and the skills below in a team-based environment.

Primary Duties/Essential Functions

• Build and maintain configuration scripts/playbooks/images for rapid deployment of systems.
• Design, document, and implement solutions for providing various types of high availability systems.
• Manage Linux and Windows system hosts and clusters in a virtual environment (VmWare).
• Continuous integration and deployment of application and infrastructure code, configuration, etc from development through to production.
• Build, design and deploy servers (physical, virtual, and cloud), as needed.
• Automate routine server software maintenance, patching, and performance tuning to ensure optimal performance and availability.
• Perform benchmarking, tuning, capacity planning for systems and applications.
• Perform direct and indirect monitoring and log analysis, as well as establish thresholds for automated alerts and notifications or triggers.
• Deploy, manage, and troubleshoot common application stacks (e.g. App, Web, Database).
• Promote, identify and uphold security practices for applications and systems. (e.g. SELinux, iptables, windows firewall, antivirus)
• Configure and allocate cross-platform storage to infrastructure. And maintain storage replication and snapshots, or whatever means necessary to allow for recovery.
• Maintain enterprise and systems directories (OpenLDAP, Active Directory) for both client/server systems management and authentication, authorization, group, and attribute services.
• Research and recommend new technology, services, applications and procedures for long-term server infrastructure and application optimization.
• Respond quickly to service disruptions according to on-call schedule, updating according to protocol, and documenting the event, participating in positive post-mortems, and determining root cause, and resultant service improvements.
• Container Orchestration: Perform systems engineering for server environments and integration middleware, with a specific focus on Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management.
• Rancher Administration: Utilize SUSE Rancher to streamline cluster deployments, manage security policies, and provide centralized visibility into containerized workloads.
• Scalability & Reliability: Design for high availability and reliability of critical enterprise services, ensuring that microservices architectures are robust and self-healing.
• Automation-First Mindset: Increase standard and automated methods for scaling operations via Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines for container deployments.
• Other duties as assigned.

Skills

• Ability to solve problems quickly and automate processes.
• Our team-based model requires initiative, good communication skills, the ability to work on multiple efforts concurrently, and the desire to learn multiple disciplines.
• Mastered Systems Engineering disciplines.
• Learn new technologies in support of the disciplines described above, as well as emerging integration patterns and DevOps models for operational efficiency, availability, and performance.
• Ability to manage Linux and Windows and virtualization and containerized servers in an enterprise environment.
• A solid understanding of operating systems in general; understands paging and swapping, inter-process communications, devices and what device drivers do, file system concepts, and can use performance analysis to tune systems.
• Cloud Providers (e.g. Amazon AWS, Azure etc.).
• Scripting in various languages: Python, Bash, PowerShell, Perl etc. (especially in relation to config management Ansible playbooks).
• Ability to manage server hardware and infrastructure hardware in an enterprise-class datacenter environment.
• Ability to manage a virtual infrastructure for hosting virtualized desktops and virtualized servers.
• Ability to manage various storage technologies including SAN, NAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, clustering file systems, Cloud block/file, and storage operating systems.
• Strong understanding of Apache, IIS, Tomcat, VMware, SMTP Servers (postfix, sendmail, etc.)
• Installation and maintenance of database platforms: (Oracle, Postgres, MySQL, MSSQL).
• Strong understanding of the following protocols: HTTP, SFTP, DNS, LDAP, IMAP, SMTP, SSL, SSH, SMB, NFS.
• Knowledge of LAN/WAN technologies and protocols.
• Expertise in deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters at scale; experience with SUSE Rancher for centralized multi-cluster management and provisioning is highly desirable.

Mental Demands

• Requires excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Level of Independence: In order to function effectively, this person must have a high level of independence, show a high level of initiative, have the ability to make decisions, and be highly motivated. This must be done in a consistent way with the team management structure and culture that is employed by IT.
• In agreement with the purpose and goals of Azusa Pacific University in providing a Christian-based higher education for its students.
• To enable IT services to operate normally at all times, this person is required to be available by telephone for management, consultation, and liaison with support, development and technical staff after normal working hours and on weekends. This may require considerable onsite presence to manage emergency situations.

Physical Demands

• Ability to lift, pull, grasp, bend.
• Ability to lift up to 50 lbs.
• Repetitive keyboard work.

Visual Demands

• Computer monitor and reading.

Environment

• Pleasant office, comfortable temperatures. 
• Multiple conversations and transactions occurring simultaneously.

Technologies

• Containers & Orchestration: Kubernetes (K8s), SUSE Rancher for multi-cluster management, Docker, and Helm.
• Configuration Management: Ansible (playbooks and automation).
• Virtualization: VMware vCenter and ESXi hosts.
• Continuous Integration/Deployment: Drone for automated testing and deployment, Git for revision control.
• Monitoring & Observability: Prometheus/Grafana (recommended for K8s), Centreon, and log analysis.
• Scripting & Development: Python, Bash, PowerShell, and Go.
• Collaboration & Operations: JIRA, Confluence, Slack (ChatOps), and Google G Suite.
• Core Services: OpenLDAP, Active Directory, and standard protocols (DNS, DHCP, HTTP, SSL).

Compensation

• Grade 16: $40.96 to $47.11 is the hourly compensation for this role and reflects what Azusa Pacific University reasonably expects to pay for this position. Actual compensation may vary based on the qualifications, experience, and internal equity. In addition to compensation, APU offers a competitive benefits package. 

Azusa Pacific University is a Christ-centered, multicultural community that values and seeks faculty and staff who are committed to diversity, work effectively with diverse populations, and engage others in ways that honor our rich cultural mosaic and biblical foundation. Please click the links to learn more about 'what we believe', our 'mission statement', and our 'statement of faith'.

You can learn more about APU by watching the stories of faculty, staff, and alumni as they carry out our mission here: http://www.apu.edu/stories/.

Azusa Pacific University will conduct a background check on all final candidates.

Review of applications will begin immediately, and the position will remain open until filled unless otherwise stated. Azusa Pacific University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, or status as a veteran in any of its policies, practices, or procedures. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.