Job Description

Mid Computer System Engineer (CPT) (Contract) Engineering/Technical
Cape Town - Western Cape - South Africa
ENVIRONMENT:
Join a multidisciplinary team on the the worlds largest radio telescope project, as a Mid Computer Systems Engineer. This role involves developing, integrating, and maintaining computer hardware and systems to support the telescopes technical and operational goals. Responsibilities include deploying, monitoring, upgrading, diagnosing, and restoring systems, applying systems engineering practices, supporting infrastructure planning, and ensuring alignment with SRE requirements. The engineer collaborates across teams to build secure, reliable, and scalable systems that enable both project development and sustainable operations.
RESPONSIBILITY:

• Implement and maintain computing systems and infrastructure
• Contribute to infrastructure planning and system integration efforts
• Assist in performance tuning and reliability improvements
• Apply basic automation and scripting to improve operations
• Support containerized environments and cloud infrastructure
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and contribute to documentation and knowledge sharing

REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum Education Required (NQF Level):

• NQF Level 6 qualification in IT, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Electronic Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• N.Dip. with at least 5 years experience OR
• B.Tech/BSc (Comp Sci) with at least 3 years experience

Extreme Importance (Essential):

• Demonstrated ability to contribute effectively to cross-functional engineering projects and follow through on implementation plans under direction
• Hardware maintenance and support: basic skills such as changing hardware components (hard drives, memory modules, CPU, motherboard)
• Firmware and drivers diagnostics, configuration, and updates
• Health and safety, self-care within data centres, assembly workshops, and computer labs
• Tools and equipment use and management: regular cleaning, proper storage, routine maintenance, inspection, safe handling, inventory management, and asset tracking
• IT spares inventory and tracking: inventory categorization, asset tagging and labeling, maintenance of inventory system, stock management, access control, lifecycle and warranty tracking, disposal and waste management
• Computer infrastructure asset management: tracking, maintaining, and optimizing relevant hardware and software assets across their lifecycle to ensure availability, compliance, and cost-effectiveness
• IT audit and documentation: rack positions, network and server diagrams, topology maps, service and support logs
• Hands-on experience in Linux systems administration, basic automation, and performance tuning, with a willingness to deepen expertise
• Proficiency in Linux command-line usage, service configuration, and troubleshooting; learning kernel and system-level tuning practices
• Ability to manage assigned tasks within an Agile environment and collaborate effectively with teammates on sprint goals
• Effective troubleshooting skills, with a learning mindset toward root-cause analysis and improving operational resilience

High Importance (Desirable):

• Familiarity with distributed systems concepts and practical experience deploying and supporting services in scalable environments
• Working knowledge of containerization tools (Docker) and exposure to container orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes) in test or staging environments
• Experience using CI/CD tools to support automated builds, tests, and deployments; able to troubleshoot basic automation pipelines
• Familiarity with DevOps workflows (e.g., IaC, basic config management), and initial exposure to observability and system reliability practices
• Knowledge and awareness of scalable storage platforms, such as Ceph, S3-compatible systems, or NFS, including deployment, tuning, and lifecycle management
• Exposure to high performance computing (HPC) environments, including schedulers (e.g., SLURM), shared filesystems, and workload optimization, with openness to ramp up
• Lifecycle and service integration capabilities: planning upgrades, dependency management, and operational runbook development
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe, enabling efficient collaboration across product and infrastructure teams
• Continuous improvement mindset, with a track record of learning, researching, and adopting emerging technologies in storage, compute, and observability domains
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to interface across infrastructure, development, and stakeholder groups, translating complex systems into clear priorities

Minimum Work Experience Required:

• Experience working with server installations, monitoring, and diagnostics
• Experience with hardware upgrades and repairs
• Experience working in data centres or server rooms/environments
• Basic experience with computer networks
• Experience working with Operating Systems, IAAS tools
• Basic experience working with SANs and storage systems
• Demonstrated hands-on experience in infrastructure design and automation, distributed systems, observability, CI/CD, container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes), DevOps/SRE practices, and cloud-native technologies
• Experience working in international teams or initiatives that intersect with data platforms, storage, networking, and systems engineering domains

Job Knowledge Required:

• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, including performance optimization, fault tolerance, and resource scheduling within Linux-based environments
• Hands-on experience monitoring, diagnosing, and repairing various OEM hardware (HPE, Dell, Super Micro)
• Proficient in remote-first infrastructure management and monitoring
• Familiarity with containerized environments (Docker, Podman), orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Helm), and container runtime architectures (e.g., CRI)
• Knowledge in infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD methodologies using tools such as GitLab CI, Ansible, and Terraform
• Working knowledge of networking fundamentals, including cabling and basic diagnostic procedures
• Experience in asset management practices: maintaining asset registers, system and architectural mapping, warranty and service tracking
• Proven experience working with service levels (SLAs) and understanding operational frameworks such as SRE, ITIL, and COBIT
• Sound knowledge of IT security principles, including change management, physical and logical access control
• Skilled in managing component and spare inventories, and tools/workspaces for system assembly
• Awareness and adherence to Health and Safety standards and best practices

ATTRIBUTES:

• Problem Solving and Analysis: Root cause analysis, systems troubleshooting, performance bottleneck resolution
• Communication and Collaboration: Clear articulation of technical recommendations, cross-functional stakeholder engagement, feedback integration
• Planning and Delivery: Participation in Agile and Systems Engineering processes and methodologies
• Continuous Learning: Staying current with evolving technologies incontainerization, cloud-native systems, observability, systems automation, and computing infrastructure (hardware, storage, memory, motherboards, processors, I/O, GPU, HBA, NICs)
• Documentation and Knowledge Sharing: Ability to produce high-quality technical documentation and share knowledge across engineering teams

Apply for this Job

Skills Required