DevOps Engineer

JOB TITLE: DevOps Engineer - Senior

CLIENT: USGS – Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) 

LOCATION/HOURS: Remote – Mon – Fri 8am – 5pm MT (Periodic after hours and/or weekend support may be required related to system outages, upgrades, or scheduled maintenance.) 

TRAVEL: Client is in Denver, CO, may require yearly in-person conference 

CITIZANSHIP: US or Green Card/Permanent Resident (must pass background check)

PROGRAM OVERVIEW:

The Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) program supports highly complex, distributed scientific data synthesis and analysis in partnership with remote USGS scientists and collaborators. Key elements of the SAS mission include developing national data products to enable USGS science; leading strategic research and informatics partnerships; creating innovative tools and technologies for scientific discovery, science data life cycle management, and rapid response to science issues; leading advances in biodiversity science and characterizing the biogeography of the nation; and implementation of digital library research and data services. Typical support areas include land cover and species distribution modeling, systematics, high performance computing, and effectively processing, managing and providing access to distributed large sets of scientific data (i.e. “Big Data”, down scaled model data, large regional land cover datasets, national species distribution data, species occurrence data, digital publications, etc.). SAS IT provides technical and operational support to the complete portfolio of SAS products/applications/tools. The SAS infrastructure consists of a local data center located at the Denver Federal Center and Cloud Hosting Services with Amazon Web Services as the cloud environment. SAS hosts over 200 Virtual machines in AWS and in our on-premises data center. On premise SAS is using a NetApp storage appliance and VMware for virtualization.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Systems or similar and/or equivalent work experience (15+ years’ work experience in lieu of degree)
• Certification in AWS Development/Solutions Architect preferred.
• Database Administration experience helpful

JOB FUNCTIONS:

Under general direction, participates as a technical expert in design development, coding, testing, and debugging new software or enhancements to existing software. Works with technical staff to understand problems with software and develops specifications to resolve them. Resolves customer complaints and responds to suggestions for improvements and enhancements. Participates in the development of software user manuals.

Performs a variety of systems engineering tasks and activities that are broad in nature and are concerned with major systems design, integration, and implementation. Provides quality assurance review and the evaluation of new and existing software products. Functional areas to be supported include but are not limited to: DevSecOps, System Administration, Database Administration, Network Administration, Web Server and Content Administration, Virtualization, Storage, Backups, and Cyber Security.

Products supported includes, but is not limited to scientific computing platforms, cloud computing platforms, science driven web sites, mobile applications, analysis databases, software deployments, system analysis and data release tools, best practices guides, end-user documentation, technical documentation, and security documentation.

• Managing virtualized infrastructure utilizing the VMware suite of virtualization tools (vCenter, vSphere, etc.).
• Implement and adhere to a SAS approved operations methodology that will ensure the most efficient use of system resources resulting in technically sound, usable solutions.
• Administer, secure, and develop various databases primarily using PostgreSQL 9.6 or higher, Solr/Lucene, Elasticsearch AWS RDS and MongoDB.
• Understanding of ETL concepts and data load procedures.
• Perform architecture planning using concepts such as virtualization, distributed infrastructure, storage networks, and load balancing.
• Use a USGS approved configuration management COTS (currently Puppet).
• Use Git for version control and CI/CD pipelines for streamlined deployments.
• Use tools such as Docker, ECS, EKS, NGINX, Apache, Tomcat, Traefik, Atlassian Suite (Jira, Service Desk) Python, shell scripting, Terraform, CDK and other open-source toolkits to enhance and maintain web applications, etc.
• Use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and Open-Source products to develop and support the various databases and scientific computing processes and systems.
• Understand infrastructure as code concepts and best practices.
• Demonstrate full understanding of security requirements and database maintenance/operations.
• Understand Geographic Information Systems concepts. Deploy ESRI tools and products or open-source mapping tools in an AWS or on-premises environment.
• Use back-up software, Commvault, and have a solid understanding of back-up policy on-premises and in an AWS environment.
• Provide analysis of SAS systems and optimization and tuning in preparation for SAS application migration and ongoing support required for Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure.
• Build and maintain current software packages and tools such as AWS CloudFormation, CDK or Terraform scripts to manage cloud infrastructure as code as needed and maintain user environments through modules or other tools as appropriate.
• Understand IAM roles and concepts.
• Provide support of several AWS modules and concepts, including but not limited to Cloud Formation/Terraform, AWS Networking concepts such as Elastic load balancing, DNS, auto scaling and AWS analysis and monitoring tools.
• Run Puppet and AWS OpsWorks configuration management scripts in a cloud environment.
• Work in collaboration with SAS system administrators to implement and adhere to best practices for an integrated infrastructure.
• Support AWS back-up procedures using tiered storage and replication.
• Assist with different functional teams to implement models and monitor outcomes.
• Work with SAS product owners to define and document project scope, goals, objectives, schedule, and functional requirements.
• Proactively work with SAS staff and operations teams to design technical solutions, and to coordinate product deployments.
• Make technical recommendations for development and implementation of requirements, with attention given to leveraging existing capabilities.
• Attend sprint meetings and work collaboratively with the product owners to remove impediments to progress.
• Assist the product owners in grooming the product backlog to ensure that it is mature and ready for the next development cycle.
• Work with project manager/scrum master to track development tasks in JIRA and provide status reports of progress, tasks, issues, and bugs across project tasks and subtasks.
• Database support: develop applications using various data storage mechanisms primarily, PostgreSQL, Solr/Lucene and Elasticsearch.

TECHNOLOGIES:

• Docker, Python, CloudFormation, Gitlab, Terraform Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Bash script, Puppet (Preferred Skills)
• MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Solr/Lucene, Elasticsearch, AWS RDS, REACT, Grails, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud Front, Cloud Watch CDK, VMware, JavaScript, Dremio, Flask, GraphQL, Jenkins, OGC Webservices, Ansible, Spring, Maven, Jira, AWS S3 (and other file object stores), ECS/EKS on Fargate, Lambda, On-premise file storage (NetApp), Globus, REST API (including R and Python libraries), Artifactory, AWS IAM Policy, Geo Server, ArcGIS/ArcGIS Server, Arc Enterprise Portal, Commvault, Git, Apache, Nginx, Tomcat, Traefik, Java