Background
UbuntuNet Alliance is the regional research and education networking organisation for Eastern and Southern Africa. It builds and operates UbuntuNet, the regional high speed Internet backbone network for Eastern and Southern Africa. UbuntuNet Alliance is registered in Malawi as a not-for-profit association of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in Africa with the aim of providing a secure data communications network that supports research, teaching and learning in the region. Membership of the Alliance includes NRENs of the following countries: Botswana, Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbwabwe. The member NRENs work together in promoting networking for the purposes of research and innovation, but also welcomes not-for-profit transnational research and education organisations.
UbuntuNet Alliance has its headquarters in Lilongwe, Malawi while the Network Operations Centre is located in Kampala.
The Alliance is seeking to engage the services of suitably qualified candidates to fill the following position tenable at Lilongwe office:
1. Development Operations (DevOps) Engineer, Lilongwe Office
Reporting to the Service Portfolio Manager, the Dev/Ops Engineer will provide support in the day-to-day management and oversee all aspects of development and packaging of value-added services for offering to NRENs.
Major Duties and Responsibilities
The following are the duties and responsibilities of the position:
- Develop and operate relevant e-infrastructure services – as well as assist member NRENs in running these services themselves – for research and education.
- Research and define requirements for services demanded by the research and education community.
- Assist in running the Service Desk dealing with support tickets from NRENs.
- Monitor servers and apps, troubleshoot issues and inform users proactively about issues.
- Make sure that proper backup and failover procedures are in place.
- Patch and enhance OS software used by UbuntuNet Alliance and member NRENs.
- Assist in developing and customizing applications.
- Build CI/CD pipelines and help to design solutions that will aid smooth application deployment
- Work on cloud-based infrastructure service offering.
- Write and update guidelines on platform and other services for NRENs.
- Setup and administer applications for internal use at the UbuntuNet Alliance secretariat and by external involved parties.
- Provide technical first and second level support to the UbuntuNet Alliance staff.
- Any other relevant duties as may be assigned from time to time
Qualifications and Personal Attributes
The person must possess the following qualifications and personal attributes:
- A degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering or equivalent from a recognized university.
- At least two years of experience in a relevant field at least covering product development and system administration (such as in the use of virtualisation technologies)
- Working knowledge of requirements gathering, product design and development life cycle
- Experience in development of web-based applications using either of the following programming languages (and or their frameworks): PHP, Python, Ruby.
- Working knowledge of Linux, configuration management and version control systems
- Good experience in IT project management
- Good inter-personal skills.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.
Appointment and Remuneration
UbuntuNet Alliance is an equal opportunity employer and offers attractive remuneration package commensurate with qualification, competence and experience of the successful candidate.
Method of Application
Application for this position is through submission of an online form: https://forms.gle/uxkGUBrsGoTs86F38
Receiving applications will close at 23:59 CAT on 13 February 2023.