Systems Engineer / DevOps Engineer (m/f/d)

The Department of Computer Science is opening a position for a Systems Engineer / DevOps Engineer (m/f/d), bridging development and operations functions within one of the most popular and well-established data analysis platforms for life science. The engineer will be responsible for implementing, supporting, and documenting several large-scale application systems. This role includes but is not limited to, the installation, modification, testing, and upgrades of applications, operating systems, file systems, hardware, and cloud environments. The work will be carried out together with other administrators. 

Who we are

The European Galaxy team is a core group within the worldwide Galaxy project. We are an open, passionate, and supportive research group at the University of Freiburg highly involved in many software projects related to the global Galaxy community, including leading the Bioconda and BioContainers projects and developing state-of-the-art computational workflows for genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and pharmacogenomics data.

Based in Freiburg, usegalaxy.eu is the science gateway, providing an open-access computational infrastructure for accessing and running a vast catalog of data resources, tools, and workflows. It is used by nearly 100,000 users worldwide.

This position will allow the postholder to interact with an interdisciplinary bioinformatics, data science, and software development team, working with cutting-edge cloud infrastructure across Europe and engaged in advanced topics such as distributed heterogeneous computing, encrypted data processing, or smart scheduling of jobs across federated resources. 

• Development & maintenance of the Galaxy server and related infrastructure, e.g., TIaaS (Training Infrastructure as a Service), Pulsar-Network, and the Beacon Service
• Work within the team of Admins to design and improve developed software and deployment pipelines
• Conceptualization of update procedures and software integrations in the running system
• Implementing and maintaining best security practices and adhering to our information security policies and industry standards
• Staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies, e.g., virtualization and infrastructure technologies, automatization, and CI/CD pipelines
• Proactively identifying opportunities to enhance the Galaxy Europe instance as well as general deployment guides for other Galaxy instances
• Integrating infrastructural components like various storage systems and special-purpose computation nodes containing accelerators like GPUs
• Community support and training
  • Development of documentation and training material for Galaxy admins and automation workflows
  • support of services administrators
  • give workshops and train other administrators in live sessions

We are looking for a dedicated and motivated team player with strong communication skills and a good command of the English language.

The successful applicant will be an expert Linux system administrator with proficient knowledge of Python, Git, and SQL databases and a Bachelor or Master in Informatics or equal qualification. He/she is an analytical thinker, problem-solver and reliable, with a strong desire to learn and collaborate with the team.

Additional skills that are advantageous:

• several  years experience
• Experience building containerized applications
• Experience configuring continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) systems
• Proficiency using configuration management tools (Terraform, Ansible)
• Familiarity with cloud technologies (e.g. OpenStack)
• Experience in high-performance computing environments

Located in a region that connects Germany, France, and Switzerland, our institute offers an international research environment with outstanding infrastructure facilities and a positive working atmosphere that places a high value on work-life balance.

• A team of admins to work with
• Professional training and development opportunities
• Challenging tasks in European-wide distributed projects in a modern working environment
• Flexible working hours and trust-based working time
• 30 days holiday a year
• Reduced-cost public transport within the local area
• Family-friendly offers (affiliated daycare center at the institute, family service)

This position is open immediately and funded for two years, with the possibility of extension. The salary will be determined in accordance with TV-L up to E13 if the personal and collective bargaining requirements are met.

More information about the European Galaxy project is available at https://galaxyproject.eu.

Please submit your complete application documents, including a 1-page motivation summary, CV and contact details.