Library DevOps Engineer

Description

Reporting to the Head of Library Technology Services at Washington University Libraries, the Library DevOps Engineer will be responsible for creating a customer-first approach to building and maintaining library services and applications supporting the University’s mission.  Platforms to be supported range from repository applications to resource discovery layers to related library systems, as well as emerging technologies in libraries, such as data visualization platforms and instructional technologies.  As a member of the Library Technology Services team, the successful candidate will play a key role in the architecture, development, deployment, monitoring, maintenance, and troubleshooting of new and existing library applications.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Lead the design, implementation and maintenance of library systems in collaboration with Libraries’ staff and campus stakeholders.
2. Gather requirements and develop specifications for library and research systems architectures, including Hydra, Fedora, Omeka, Primo, Wordpress, VMWare Vsphere, SAN disk array storage, and cloud storage.
3. Collaborate with campus-wide technology services to ensure proper implementation and management of hardware infrastructures, security policies and authentication/authorization procedures.
4. Participate in iterative testing and integration of user feedback throughout the development and implementation process.
5. Write and maintain documentation for systems architecture and application code for internal developers and the wider library development community.
6. Maintain awareness of national and international best practices and advances in library applications, frameworks, and implementations by actively engaging in library and research development communities (Hydra, Code4Lib, GIS, etc.).
7. Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

GroupBox1

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field and three years of experience, or an equivalent mix of education and experience.
• Experience with hardware virtualization environments, such as VMware.
• Strong experience with SQL, MySQL and related database platforms, including management and deployment.
• Demonstrated experience with Unix/Linux, including basic administration and shell scripting.
• Experience working with SAN disk array storage, as well as protocols like NFS and CIFS.
• Working knowledge of authentication and authorization technologies, including LDAP and Active Directory.
• Ability to use a wide variety of open source technologies and cloud services, such as Office365, Box and AWS.
• Experience with automation/configuration management using either Ansible, Puppet, or Chef (Ansible preferred).
• Knowledge of security best practices and experience automating security patching.
• Experience managing server-side technologies, including Apache Solr, NGINX and/or Apache HTTP Server, Tomcat and/or Jetty, and Passenger.
• Working understanding of code and script (PHP, Ruby, and/or Python).

Preferred Qualifications

GroupBox1

• Demonstrated experience with Windows Servers, including basic administration of IIS and the use of Powershell.
• Experience developing and implementing data repository solutions, especially Fedora.
• Demonstrated experience with data integration, for instance using REST APIs, and JSON or XML for data interoperability.
• Experience with a repository system, such as Hydra, a CMS like Drupal or an exhibit curation system like Omeka.
• Familiarity with digital library standards, such as Dublin Core, MARC, METS, EAD, and OAI-PMH.
• Experience with hardware load balancing technologies and techniques.
• Knowledge of at least one open source programming language and/or web framework (e.g. Ruby/Rails, PHP/Drupal, Python/WSGI, Java/Tomcat).
• Experience working in a large academic, cultural heritage, or research institution.
• Commitment to Open Source Software projects.
• Experience using Docker.
• Experience with testing, continuous integration (TravisCI, CircleCI), and continuous deployment frameworks.
• Experience with distributed version control, preferably Git/Github, for source code version control and collaboration.
• Knowledge of best practices and IT operations in an always-up, always-available service.
• Strong desire to learn new skills and adeptness to doing so.
• Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to manage projects.
• Strong interpersonal skills, demonstrated ability to work in a collaborative team-based environment, and to communicate well with IT and non-IT staff.
• Demonstrated ability to write clear documentation.