Systems Administrator III-IV - UPDATED

Overview

Join to apply for the Systems Administrator III-IV - UPDATED role at National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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Location: Green Bank Observatory, PO Box 2, GREEN BANK, West Virginia, United States of America; 1011 Lopezville Rd, Socorro, NM 87801, USA; 800 Bradbury Dr SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA

Requisition Number: 139

Job Family: Systems Administration

Pay Type: Salary

Required

Education:

CPP

Position Summary

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a prestigious research and development organization that plays a vital role in the study of the universe. The Observatory is a hub for technological and scientific collaboration, operating state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. The NRAO also hosts conferences and workshops, providing opportunities to exchange ideas and expertise as well as build partnerships.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory seeks an experienced Systems Administrator (Level III or IV, based on qualifications) to maintain the Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure supporting the end-to-end science data pipeline for NRAO’s flagship observatories. This senior role combines deep systems expertise with operational ownership, mentoring, and direct contribution to mission-critical science delivery.

The position is based in Charlottesville, VA;
Green Bank, WV;
Albuquerque or Socorro, NM.

• 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 Git Ops-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.

Work is typically performed in an office environment. The successful candidate must be able to lift 25 lbs, climb stairs, and occasionally work at moderate altitudes (up to 7,000 ft / 2,134 m at the VLA site).

• You have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Astronomy, Physics, or equivalent professional experience.
• You are a seasoned Linux systems administrator with at least four years of progressive responsibility in mission-critical or scientific computing environments.
• Direct experience with high-data-rate scientific pipelines is a plus; working knowledge of Victoria Metrics, Ceph, SLURM, Prometheus/Grafana/Loki stacks; familiarity with agile (Scrum/Kanban) and traditional project methodologies.

• 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; RHCE or RHCA certification strongly preferred.
• Proficient in modern infrastructure automation and orchestration:
  Ansible Automation Platform, Git Ops with ArgoCD or Flux, production container platforms (Kubernetes/Open Shift and Docker Swarm), Python 3 automation…