DevOps/SRE Engineer

As a DevOps/SRE Engineer at SURF, you will design and implement IT services running on a variety of platforms such as AWS, Azure, OpenStack and Oracle OCI. You will be involved in site/service reliability engineering and applying state-of-the-art infrastructure as code (IaC), containers and cloud technologies. With the goal to give optimal support to groundbreaking Dutch research. Do you immediately feel a click when you read this? Then be sure to read on!

Where you will work

SURF is the IT cooperative for Dutch educational and research institutions. Together with them, we work on digital services and complex innovation challenges to enhance the quality of education and research. We have two beautiful and centrally located locations in Amsterdam and Utrecht. Your place of employment will be Amsterdam. Our office is located at the Amsterdam Science Park, with good public transport facilities nearby.

The team you will join

The HPC Cloud team develops, manages and supports the SURF Research Cloud (SRC). That is the multi-cloud development and deployment framework, programmed in Python, Django and React. Together with other teams within SURF, we realize efficient virtual research environments. Our team is diverse, energetic and multidisciplinary. We work hard to make each other better and more productive and will quickly absorb you as a new DevOps/SRE Engineer into our team.

We take the time to get to know and understand the scientists we work for, we translate their projects into technical and usability requirements and together seek the very best solution. If necessary, we modify components or extend our environment to meet those requirements.

If you would like to know more about the SRC technology stack, the clouds we support, what we will be working on in the future or about the HPC Cloud team you will join, please visit our site.

What you will do

As a DevOps/SRE Engineer at SURF, you know one thing for sure: you are at the controls of an exciting range of tasks. You design, develop, write, implement and are involved in a variety of IT work. You do this for our internal users such as developers, teams and advisors, but especially for our end users working in science, research or education. You will also contribute to the development of the DevOps and agile culture within SURF.

What else will you be involved in:

• You redesign the offering of our cloud services and design CI/CD pipelines (GitLab) in order to deploy services appropriately on OpenStack and public clouds.
• You will support the design and deployment of services running on platforms such as OpenStack, AWS, Azure, Google GCI, Oracle OCI, Nomad and Kubernetes. When it comes to Kubernetes, you will solve possible deployment problems and link your findings back to the codebase, ensuring a quality boost of the CI/CD infrastructure as code.
• You contribute to and further develop Terraform modules, Ansible Playbooks and Helm Charts. You speak the Bash and Python language.
• You participate in developer sprint meetings on DevOps Ops.
• You liaise with vendors and users to see which current technologies fit their future research and teaching needs.

Your skills and experience

One trait you definitely have as our new DevOps/SRE Engineer is that you are solution-oriented. For you, service is a top priority. No matter how complex the multitier IT environments are, you not only see the work lying around, you pick it up and carry it out.

With you, we have a colleague who helps the rest of the team, internal SURF colleagues and external end-users every day. You feel at home in a team where we ask for help, guidance and support. Making mistakes is allowed; But we clean up the problems together. We share with each other what we do not yet know.

Your curiosity about emerging technologies and your broad experience and knowledge of matters within your field of work help you to do this. You also show responsibility when it comes to the availability, performance and monitoring of the various IT services. All this makes you eager to learn, helpful and in everything a pleasant colleague.

In addition, you have:

• a bachelor's or master's degree in a technical discipline;
• visible familiarity with DevOps, Git, Docker, Kubernetes and Linux Skills, as well as configuration management tools and infrastructure as code;
• demonstrable experience with a programming or scripting language, e.g. Python. Experience with a cloud provider may also will be to your advantage. You may be able to add to that later if required;
• functional knowledge of frontend, backend, databases, network topologies, identity management, security groups, firewalls, services meshes, service discovery and zero-trust. Your previous work experience shows that you are familiar with these concepts and definitions and that you have applied them.

What we offer

• A varied and challenging position for 32 to 40 hours (0.8 - 1.0 FTE) in an informal and collegial organisation with high ambitions;
• A salary range between 4428 - 6326 EUR EUR gross (based on a 40-hour workweek) (wage level 2025);
• 8.33% vacation allowance and a fixed year-end bonus of 8.33%;
• 36 vacation days per year (based on a 40-hour workweek);
• A good pension plan with PNO Media, where you contribute only 1/8 of the premium, and SURF contributes 7/8;
• The possibility to work hybrid. You will receive a home office allowance on your remote working days;
• A first-class NS-Business card.

Prior to starting this job, a VOG must be presented.

SURF takes pleasure in doing its recruitment itself; acquisition is therefore not appreciated.