Pay Grade/Pay Range:  Minimum: $74,200 - Midpoint: $100,200 (Salaried E12)

Department/Organization: 750501 - Alabama Water Institute (AWI)

Normal Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00am to 4:45pm

Note to Applicants: Position is eligible for remote work subject to University policy.

Job Summary: The Development Operations Engineer builds and configures containerization and clusterization. Monitors applications and servers. Monitors system reliability and compute performance. Implements various development, testing, automation tools, and IT infrastructure. Defines and sets development, test, release, update, and support processes for development operations operation. Encourages and builds automated processes wherever possible. Manages, tracks, and document changes to code with source control tools

Additional Department Summary: The Alabama Water Institute at the University of Alabama seeks applications for Development Operations Engineer (DevOps Engineer) to support a hydrologic model software development project.

CIROH at AWI is developing a hybrid and multi cloud water science environment to support a collaborative experiment to analyze the National Water Model and improve US capacity for critical flood and drought prediction. To support the project, this position will work closely with a DevOps Manager, Manager, System/Site Reliability Engineer, and Research Software Engineers, hydrologic modelers, and experts in geographic information systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and databases.

Continuation in this position is contingent upon availability of external funding derived from research programs or specific projects.

Required Minimum Qualifications: Master's degree and two (2) years of development operations experience; OR bachelor's degree and four (4) years of development operations experience; OR associate's degree and six (6) years of IT experience to include four (4) years of development operations; OR High school diploma or GED and eight (8) years of IT experience to include four (4) years of development operations.

Skills and Knowledge: Strong experience with containerization and clusterization. Ability to support CI/CD establishment with an extensive range of tests. Experience in Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible) and working knowledge with Kubernetes and Docker and any of the public cloud (Azure, GCP, AWS). Analyzing system requirements and scaling infrastructure components. Experience supporting a high availability infrastructure. Highly proficient with best practices and industry standards. Proven experience as a DevOps Engineer or similar role, with a focus on multi-cloud architecture and HPC. Strong proficiency in cloud computing platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes. Solid understanding of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) principles and tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible. Experience with high-performance computing (HPC) environments, parallel computing, and scientific computing workflows is highly desirable. Familiarity with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, version control systems (e.g., Git), and Agile methodologies.

Knowledge of networking principles and protocols. Experience with object storage. Knowledge of Big Data like GCP BigQuery. Excellent technical, analytical, and problem-solving skills. Strong communication and organizational skills. Working knowledge with High Performance Computing. Proficient with any of the cloud – GCP, AWS, Azure Cloud. Willing to learn new tools and technology. An understanding of high-performance computing.

Excellent problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment. Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with team members and stakeholders. High level of interpersonal skills for effective collaboration with academics, researchers, engineers, and students. Demonstratated capacities for personal responsibility, taking initiative, and original thinking.

Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. Experience in cloud/DevOps engineering. Experience with public clouds (e.g. Azure, AWS, GCP). 3 to 6 years of experience supporting Development Operations initiatives.

Background Investigation Statement: Prior to hiring, the final candidate(s) must successfully pass a pre-employment background investigation and information obtained from social media and other internet sources. A prior conviction reported as a result of the background investigation DOES NOT automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration for this position. A candidate with a prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags will receive an individualized review of the prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags before a hiring decision is made.

Equal Employment Opportunity: The University of Alabama is an Equal Employment/Equal Educational Opportunity Institution. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment or volunteer status without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, age, genetic or family medical history information, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, and will not be discriminated against because of their protected status. Applicants and employees of this institution are protected under Federal law from discrimination on several bases. Follow the link below to find out more. "EEO is the Law" Poster