System & Network Administrator

About the role

Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions. As a system administrator working at LIGO Hanford Observatory, you will help deploy, maintain, and extend critical computing infrastructure at a world-leading gravitational wave observatory. You will work on a diverse set of challenges including the public network and its supporting services and infrastructure, as well as a local scientific data analysis compute cluster. You will collaborate with other local and remote system administrators and have input on the design, selection, and implementation of projects. Infrastructure includes DNS, DHCP, LDAP, containers, virtual machines, Kubernetes, high-throughput batch job systems, and clustered storage systems. This role is an enabler — you will work with users as needed and see the results of your work at a one-of-a-kind project in a new and growing field.

Responsibilities

• System Administration (35%)
  • Management and administration of multiple heterogeneous physical and virtual data centers
  • Communicate and coordinate with other system administrators, including reporting on progress and providing input to plans for future work
  • Provide application support for a broad range of database, business, engineering, and scientific analysis applications
  • Support and manage virtualized and container-based services
  • Support and manage automated configuration management systems, as well as enterprise backup systems at scale
  • Linux, Mac, and Windows systems administration for computer servers, workstations, laptops, and peripherals related to user support
• Maintenance and Install (20%)
  • Applying system updates
  • Deploy and maintain hardware and software through lifecycle upgrades (OS, hardware)
• User support (35%)
  • Responding to issues on the scientific data analysis cluster
  • Responding to user issues including network, wireless, printing, laptop, and software issues
• Other Duties (10%)
  • As assigned

Requirements

• 4-year degree in a technical field or equivalent experience
• 2+ years of experience with a consumer OS (Windows or macOS)
• 2+ years of experience with Linux
• Ability to support site infrastructure (such as DNS, DHCP, NAT, LDAP)
• Familiarity with an automated configuration management system such as Puppet, Chef, Salt, or Ansible
• Experience with end-user support, either remote or in person
• Strong communication and systems documentation skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in an academic or research environment
• Experience with the Puppet automation framework
• Experience with deploying and managing Kubernetes
• Experience with Proxmox virtualization
• Experience with a clustered file system
• Experience with HTCondor
• 2+ years of experience administering a network
• Experience with network infrastructure concepts such as TCP/IP, layer 2/3 routing (LAN/WAN), VLANs, subnetting, and network port management
• Experience with network gear from vendors such as Juniper, Cisco, Brocade, Fiberstore, Arista, or others

Required Documents

• Resume
• A cover letter that expresses your interest in working at LIGO Lab and summarizes your relevant experience

Pay

Hiring range: $40.50 – $45.00 per hour. The salary of the finalist(s) selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to internal equity, experience, education, specialty, and training.

Benefits

As one of the largest employers in Pasadena, CA, Caltech provides comprehensive benefits to eligible employees and their eligible dependents. The benefits package includes competitive compensation, health, dental, and vision insurance, retirement savings plans, generous paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick time, parental leave, bereavement, etc.), tuition reimbursement, and more. Non-benefit eligible employees have access to some benefits such as onsite counseling and sick time.