Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education.

OpenLearn is the home of free learning from The Open University. It delivers the university’s Royal Charter commitment to support the wellbeing of the community. Since its launch in 2006, the Openlearn site has published over 10,000 free courses, articles, videos and educational activities. It has attracted more than 70 million visitors – many of which go on to becoming a formal student, strengthening the journey between informal and formal learning. For more information, visit the OpenLearn site: www.openlearn.com

The role

The role of Senior Platform Manager is a challenging and rewarding role. You will be accountable for, and build capability in, the design and delivery of the technical infrastructure and system framework that underpin the efficient delivery of content on OpenLearn. You will manage multiple technical systems, products and services, and collaborate with other departments including OU IT and an offshore IT team to ensure excellent performance of the OpenLearn platform, operating in line with the University policies and procedures.

Skills and experience

You will have extensive experience in maintaining and developing online learning systems, and knowledge of good web and user interface design (UX). You will also have sound understanding of website standards, issues relating to web usability and accessibility, as well as the relevant legislations.

You will have proven experience of managing projects and leading teams within a technical or result-focused environment.

You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, a collaborative approach to problem-solving, and ability to build productive working relationships with a range of colleagues. You will be able to negotiate, persuade and influence appropriately and effectively to shape realistic outcomes.

What you get in return

Benefits include a supportive and friendly working environment, 33 days holiday per annum pro rata, plus Bank Holidays and Christmas closure days and an attractive pension proposition.

How to apply

Unless otherwise stated in the advert, all applications are completed online following the instructions below and clicking the “Apply Now” link below.

To apply for this role please submit the following;

• CV
• Personal statement, up to 1,000 words, you should set out in your statement why you’re interested in this role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job and person specification.

The above documents will need to be submitted as one attachment during the application process, please include the personal statement followed by the CV in this document.

To ensure your file is uploaded to our system correctly, please make sure your document is saved with the following file name as appropriate to the vacancy you are applying for: reference, surname, first initial.

You will need to have your documents ready ahead of submitting the electronic application

We value diversity and we recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. Applications from candidates with protected characteristics are welcomed.

Where you start in life doesn’t dictate where you go.

Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education.

OpenLearn is the home of free learning from The Open University. It delivers the university’s Royal Charter commitment to support the wellbeing of the community. Since its launch in 2006, the Openlearn site has published over 10,000 free courses, articles, videos and educational activities. It has attracted more than 70 million visitors – many of which go on to becoming a formal student, strengthening the journey between informal and formal learning. For more information, visit the OpenLearn site: www.openlearn.com

The role

The role of Senior Platform Manager is a challenging and rewarding role. You will be accountable for, and build capability in, the design and delivery of the technical infrastructure and system framework that underpin the efficient delivery of content on OpenLearn. You will manage multiple technical systems, products and services, and collaborate with other departments including OU IT and an offshore IT team to ensure excellent performance of the OpenLearn platform, operating in line with the University policies and procedures.

Skills and experience

You will have extensive experience in maintaining and developing online learning systems, and knowledge of good web and user interface design (UX). You will also have sound understanding of website standards, issues relating to web usability and accessibility, as well as the relevant legislations.

You will have proven experience of managing projects and leading teams within a technical or result-focused environment.

You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, a collaborative approach to problem-solving, and ability to build productive working relationships with a range of colleagues. You will be able to negotiate, persuade and influence appropriately and effectively to shape realistic outcomes.

What you get in return

Benefits include a supportive and friendly working environment, 33 days holiday per annum pro rata, plus Bank Holidays and Christmas closure days and an attractive pension proposition.

How to apply

Unless otherwise stated in the advert, all applications are completed online following the instructions below and clicking the “Apply Now” link below.

To apply for this role please submit the following;

• CV
• Personal statement, up to 1,000 words, you should set out in your statement why you’re interested in this role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job and person specification.

The above documents will need to be submitted as one attachment during the application process, please include the personal statement followed by the CV in this document.

To ensure your file is uploaded to our system correctly, please make sure your document is saved with the following file name as appropriate to the vacancy you are applying for: reference, surname, first initial.

You will need to have your documents ready ahead of submitting the electronic application

We value diversity and we recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. Applications from candidates with protected characteristics are welcomed.

Where you start in life doesn’t dictate where you go.

An opportunity has arisen for an experienced and professional Linux technical specialist with an interest in taking the first steps into management and in developing and supporting the diverse research equipment in the University’s Science and Engineering faculties.

About us

The Faculty IT Support Team for the Science and Engineering Faculties has 16 members with a broad range of skills and experience and is part of the University’s IT Services division. We support the teaching and research of the two faculties, which includes everything from Windows and mac devices to complex multi-node Linux based computational clusters, via an array of Linux and Windows labs and research systems, running engineering and scientific software.

About the role

The majority of your role will involve dealing with complex CentOS & Ubuntu Linux systems supporting and used in the faculties; however you will also be one of two deputies for the Team Manager, with particular responsibilities for technical management of all the Linux systems across the two faculties and for providing leadership and mentoring to other team members, potentially including line management. The University has an ITIL based change management system and you will need to be continuously engaged with this process, and to manage and implement local projects as part of the IT work request process. You should expect to be an advocate for user needs, whilst being prepared to constructively challenge wants expressed as needs. 

About you

You should be highly motivated and enthusiastic about working in a fast paced and constantly changing environment and be able to work in a highly autonomous fashion. You must be able to demonstrate considerable experience and knowledge in Linux Systems Administration, ideally with prior experience in a research-led university. Suitable applicants must have a degree relevant to IT Services or vocational experience which demonstrates equivalent professional development. ITILv3 Foundation Diploma is desirable. You do not need experience of line management at work, however you should have a desire to move into carrying out these activities and be able to demonstrate leadership experience either within work or outside. Experience of any of the following would be very desirable for the post:

• Configuration management and version control systems especially Puppet and git
• Specific CentOS/RHEL and/or Ubuntu experience or qualifications
• License management, especially FlexLM on redundant clusters
• Linux integration with windows especially NFS4 authentication via AD
• HPC/HPT cluster management and queuing, especially Rocks, Bright, Slurm & Torque/Maui
• Scientific programming, especially Fortran & Python
• Windows and/or macOS support especially AD
• ITIL concepts, especially change management

For more information on this role please contact Chris Tothill at chris.tothill@bristol.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is midnight on Wednesday 18th March 2020.

We welcome applications from all members of our community and are particularly encouraging those from diverse groups, such as members of the LGBT+ and BAME communities, to join us.

An opportunity has arisen for an experienced and professional Linux technical specialist with an interest in taking the first steps into management and in developing and supporting the diverse research equipment in the University’s Science and Engineering faculties.

About us

The Faculty IT Support Team for the Science and Engineering Faculties has 16 members with a broad range of skills and experience and is part of the University’s IT Services division. We support the teaching and research of the two faculties, which includes everything from Windows and mac devices to complex multi-node Linux based computational clusters, via an array of Linux and Windows labs and research systems, running engineering and scientific software.

About the role

The majority of your role will involve dealing with complex CentOS & Ubuntu Linux systems supporting and used in the faculties; however you will also be one of two deputies for the Team Manager, with particular responsibilities for technical management of all the Linux systems across the two faculties and for providing leadership and mentoring to other team members, potentially including line management. The University has an ITIL based change management system and you will need to be continuously engaged with this process, and to manage and implement local projects as part of the IT work request process. You should expect to be an advocate for user needs, whilst being prepared to constructively challenge wants expressed as needs. 

About you

You should be highly motivated and enthusiastic about working in a fast paced and constantly changing environment and be able to work in a highly autonomous fashion. You must be able to demonstrate considerable experience and knowledge in Linux Systems Administration, ideally with prior experience in a research-led university. Suitable applicants must have a degree relevant to IT Services or vocational experience which demonstrates equivalent professional development. ITILv3 Foundation Diploma is desirable. You do not need experience of line management at work, however you should have a desire to move into carrying out these activities and be able to demonstrate leadership experience either within work or outside. Experience of any of the following would be very desirable for the post:

• Configuration management and version control systems especially Puppet and git
• Specific CentOS/RHEL and/or Ubuntu experience or qualifications
• License management, especially FlexLM on redundant clusters
• Linux integration with windows especially NFS4 authentication via AD
• HPC/HPT cluster management and queuing, especially Rocks, Bright, Slurm & Torque/Maui
• Scientific programming, especially Fortran & Python
• Windows and/or macOS support especially AD
• ITIL concepts, especially change management

For more information on this role please contact Chris Tothill at chris.tothill@bristol.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is midnight on Wednesday 18th March 2020.

We welcome applications from all members of our community and are particularly encouraging those from diverse groups, such as members of the LGBT+ and BAME communities, to join us.

Cardiff University are looking for two skilled Web Developers to join the Web and Mobile Development Team. These roles will be focused on delivering technical solutions defined by the Education Service Transformation Programme that will help develop and improve the Student and Staff digital experience. You will be part of an established team of developers situated only a couple of minutes from the University campus and town centre. The role holders will take responsibility for the design, development, integration, testing and documentation of a number of bespoke web applications.

We are looking for an experienced developer comfortable writing web and mobile applications with experience of using APIs to consume data and connect systems together. We primarily use PHP and JavaScript for front end development, but you will be joining a diverse team that uses a range of languages to develop and support web applications for students and staff.

We work in an agile way and expect knowledge of standard good practices, version control, test-driven development and documentation are required.

There has never been a more exciting time to join Cardiff University. We are investing in improving the experience of our students via a strategic change portfolio. We have a wide variety of projects and programmes across the entire student journey, including investing in new digital ways of working for staff and students, developing new operating models, refurbishing our learning and teaching spaces, and investing in our central student-facing support services in our new Centre for Student Life.

Cardiff University is a globally recognised centre of excellence for teaching and research. A member of the Russell Group, the University has over 28,000 students, 6,000 members of staff and a turnover exceeding £429m. The University is based in the heart of Cardiff, one of the most dynamic cities in the UK. Cardiff is a vibrant, growing and friendly place, home to many national institutions, and international sporting and cultural amenities.  The city’s rail and road links provide easy access to the rest of the country, ensuring that University staff can build and maintain links across the UK.

Cardiff University is an ambitious and innovative university with a bold and strategic vision, their research is world-leading and they provide an educationally outstanding experience for students.

“The university is the acknowledged leader of higher education in Wales… it is the principality’s only member of the Russell Group of research-led universities and has two Nobel Laureates on its staff” University Guide 2014, The Sunday Times.

This post is full-time and fixed term for 18 months.

Salary: £33,797 - £40,322 per annum (Grade 6)

Closing date: Saturday, 4 April 2020  

Please be aware that Cardiff University reserves the right to close this vacancy early should sufficient applications be received.

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds.  We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Cardiff University are looking for two skilled Web Developers to join the Web and Mobile Development Team. These roles will be focused on delivering technical solutions defined by the Education Service Transformation Programme that will help develop and improve the Student and Staff digital experience. You will be part of an established team of developers situated only a couple of minutes from the University campus and town centre. The role holders will take responsibility for the design, development, integration, testing and documentation of a number of bespoke web applications.

We are looking for an experienced developer comfortable writing web and mobile applications with experience of using APIs to consume data and connect systems together. We primarily use PHP and JavaScript for front end development, but you will be joining a diverse team that uses a range of languages to develop and support web applications for students and staff.

We work in an agile way and expect knowledge of standard good practices, version control, test-driven development and documentation are required.

There has never been a more exciting time to join Cardiff University. We are investing in improving the experience of our students via a strategic change portfolio. We have a wide variety of projects and programmes across the entire student journey, including investing in new digital ways of working for staff and students, developing new operating models, refurbishing our learning and teaching spaces, and investing in our central student-facing support services in our new Centre for Student Life.

Cardiff University is a globally recognised centre of excellence for teaching and research. A member of the Russell Group, the University has over 28,000 students, 6,000 members of staff and a turnover exceeding £429m. The University is based in the heart of Cardiff, one of the most dynamic cities in the UK. Cardiff is a vibrant, growing and friendly place, home to many national institutions, and international sporting and cultural amenities.  The city’s rail and road links provide easy access to the rest of the country, ensuring that University staff can build and maintain links across the UK.

Cardiff University is an ambitious and innovative university with a bold and strategic vision, their research is world-leading and they provide an educationally outstanding experience for students.

“The university is the acknowledged leader of higher education in Wales… it is the principality’s only member of the Russell Group of research-led universities and has two Nobel Laureates on its staff” University Guide 2014, The Sunday Times.

This post is full-time and fixed term for 18 months.

Salary: £33,797 - £40,322 per annum (Grade 6)

Closing date: Saturday, 4 April 2020  

Please be aware that Cardiff University reserves the right to close this vacancy early should sufficient applications be received.

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds.  We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age.  In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Are you passionate about repeatable scalable infrastructure, observability, optimization, and continuous deployment? Are you an expert in Google Cloud, AWS or Azure, Terraform, Ansible or other Configuration Management, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment tools? Do you have experience working with cloud native services operations like Container Management, Kubernetes, Docker Containers, and Helm?

The University of Cambridge’s Information Services is looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer (Cloud Architect) to join a growing team of 18 engineers working on building new Cloud native services and modernising legacy applications. The services that the team maintains, of which some are public facing, are mainly used by university staff and students (circa 60,000 people). Your work will have a significant impact on the reputation of one of the world’s leading universities. These services use modern web architecture standards with APIs and are continuously built and tested using Continuous Integration tools. They run on Docker containers and get deployed to a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud infrastructure.

In your day to day job you will:

• Help developers build good Dockerfiles.
• Advise and work together with developers on infrastructure, maintenance, scalability, continuous integration and continuous deployment.
• Create GitLab CI configuration to:
  • Build a production container.
  • Integrate with GitLab’s built in:
    • Static security analysis (SAST)
    • Dependency scanning
    • Secrets detection
    • Vulnerability detection
  • Run automated tests using a production container and report on code coverage and code quality.
  • Auto-deploy to a production-like test instance to then run functional tests using selenium.
• Design cloud infrastructure, components, security, etc.
• Use Terraform to create repeatable and scalable infrastructure in primarily Google Cloud with some infrastructure in Amazon Web Services. A typical infrastructure will be:
  • Google Cloud SQL
  • Either Google Kubernetes Engine (container based) or Google Cloud Run (serverless with containers). In the case of using GKE, Helm will be used to deploy services on to the platform.
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Google Cloud KMS
  • Stackdriver monitoring and alarming for different components of the infrastructure and the service.
• Mentor and train less senior DevOps engineers, helping them grow in the organisation.
• Participate together with other senior engineers in other areas of expertise (Backend, FrontEnd, API, Security, etc) in continuously improving the University of Cambridge’s Information Services services, processes, and technology.

The team has a strong learning mindset and have produced boilerplates for our technology stack (Terraform, Ansible, Python, Django, React, and Typescript) that help us be more efficient, work better at scale and keep ourselves DRY. The team has a DevOps culture and uses Scrum for its day to day work, and we have adopted an “open by default” approach to new work and so you can find much of our work to date at https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops

We are looking for someone who:

• Has experience working alongside developers in a multidisciplinary team
• Has designed and implemented cloud architecture for systems using Terraform or similar.
• Can explain in detail all the advantages of using containers.
• Knows when it’s better to use Knative, when it’s not, and where the potential dragons lie in K8s multi-tenancies.
• Is capable of cutting cloud bills by optimising resource utilization.

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Abraham Martin, amc203@cam.ac.uk.

Are you passionate about repeatable scalable infrastructure, observability, optimization, and continuous deployment? Are you an expert in Google Cloud, AWS or Azure, Terraform, Ansible or other Configuration Management, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment tools? Do you have experience working with cloud native services operations like Container Management, Kubernetes, Docker Containers, and Helm?

The University of Cambridge’s Information Services is looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer (Cloud Architect) to join a growing team of 18 engineers working on building new Cloud native services and modernising legacy applications. The services that the team maintains, of which some are public facing, are mainly used by university staff and students (circa 60,000 people). Your work will have a significant impact on the reputation of one of the world’s leading universities. These services use modern web architecture standards with APIs and are continuously built and tested using Continuous Integration tools. They run on Docker containers and get deployed to a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud infrastructure.

In your day to day job you will:

• Help developers build good Dockerfiles.
• Advise and work together with developers on infrastructure, maintenance, scalability, continuous integration and continuous deployment.
• Create GitLab CI configuration to:
  • Build a production container.
  • Integrate with GitLab’s built in:
    • Static security analysis (SAST)
    • Dependency scanning
    • Secrets detection
    • Vulnerability detection
  • Run automated tests using a production container and report on code coverage and code quality.
  • Auto-deploy to a production-like test instance to then run functional tests using selenium.
• Design cloud infrastructure, components, security, etc.
• Use Terraform to create repeatable and scalable infrastructure in primarily Google Cloud with some infrastructure in Amazon Web Services. A typical infrastructure will be:
  • Google Cloud SQL
  • Either Google Kubernetes Engine (container based) or Google Cloud Run (serverless with containers). In the case of using GKE, Helm will be used to deploy services on to the platform.
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Google Cloud KMS
  • Stackdriver monitoring and alarming for different components of the infrastructure and the service.
• Mentor and train less senior DevOps engineers, helping them grow in the organisation.
• Participate together with other senior engineers in other areas of expertise (Backend, FrontEnd, API, Security, etc) in continuously improving the University of Cambridge’s Information Services services, processes, and technology.

The team has a strong learning mindset and have produced boilerplates for our technology stack (Terraform, Ansible, Python, Django, React, and Typescript) that help us be more efficient, work better at scale and keep ourselves DRY. The team has a DevOps culture and uses Scrum for its day to day work, and we have adopted an “open by default” approach to new work and so you can find much of our work to date at https://gitlab.developers.cam.ac.uk/uis/devops

We are looking for someone who:

• Has experience working alongside developers in a multidisciplinary team
• Has designed and implemented cloud architecture for systems using Terraform or similar.
• Can explain in detail all the advantages of using containers.
• Knows when it’s better to use Knative, when it’s not, and where the potential dragons lie in K8s multi-tenancies.
• Is capable of cutting cloud bills by optimising resource utilization.

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Abraham Martin, amc203@cam.ac.uk.