Job Description

ENVIRONMENT:
Join a team of scientists, engineers, and computer scientists working on the world's most advanced radio telescope project. The Platform Engineer will contribute to the development, integration, and day-to-day operation of shared platform services that underpin scientific computing and complex software systems. This role focuses on platform construction, automation, observability, and operational readiness as the platform transitions from construction into steady-state operations.
RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Build, configure, and maintain highly available and scalable platform infrastructure.
• Automate infrastructure provisioning, deployment, and configuration using Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Python, and Packer.
• Manage containerisation and orchestration environments (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, containerd, Podman).
• Implement CI/CD pipelines and automation workflows (GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, FluxCD).
• Monitor platform services and respond to incidents using Prometheus, Grafana, Zabbix, ELK stack, and alerting systems.
• Support cloud and virtualized infrastructure on AWS, GCP, Azure, or OpenStack.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams using Agile/DevOps practices.
• Ensure operational reliability, scalability, and resilience of distributed software systems.
• Document technical processes and share knowledge across the team.

REQUIREMENTS:

• 5+ years hands-on experience in platform, systems, or infrastructure engineering in distributed environments.
• Strong Linux systems administration, tuning, troubleshooting, and scripting.
• Proficiency with containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Containerd, Podman).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automation tools.
• Infrastructure provisioning and automation (Ansible, Terraform, Packer, Bash, Python).
• Working knowledge of monitoring and observability practices.
• Knowledge of distributed systems architecture, microservices, and service meshes.
• Familiarity with networking and security in cloud or containerized environments.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills.

Desirable Requirements:

• Exposure to scientific computing, control systems, or data acquisition environments.
• Experience with hardware acceleration (GPU, FPGA) and parallel programming (MPI).
• Performance tuning, profiling, and reliability engineering.
• Experience with large-scale distributed storage systems (Ceph, Lustre, BeeGFS).
• Integration of security practices into platform operations.

Qualifications:

• NQF Level 7 qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Electronic Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• B.Tech/B.Sc. (Comp Sci) with 8+ years relevant experience
• B.Eng./B.Sc. Hons (Comp Sci) with 5+ years relevant experience
• M.Eng./M.Sc. (Comp Sci) with 3+ years relevant experience

Qualifications:

• NQF Level 7 qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Electronic Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• B.Tech/B.Sc. (Comp Sci) with 8+ years relevant experience
• B.Eng./B.Sc. Hons (Comp Sci) with 5+ years relevant experience
• M.Eng./M.Sc. (Comp Sci) with 3+ years relevant experience

Skills Required