Pay Grade/Pay Range:  Based on qualifications.

Department/Organization: 750501 - Alabama Water Institute (AWI)

Normal Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00am to 4:45pm

Job Summary: The Associate Research Professional should show a high level of achievement and impact as appropriate for the position’s duties. Oversees research projects and assumes responsibility for the day-to-day activity supporting the project. Contributes significantly to the planning and design of research and creative projects. May assist in both short-term and long-term planning and project goals, as well as in research and creative proposals and dissemination of project findings. This is only a representation of possible duties and is not an all-inclusive listing.

Additional Department Summary: Can you lead the DevOps team creating the infrastructure that will make performing experiments with the National Water Model a breeze? If you are a DevOps Architecture genius and want a new challenge, please apply and let’s talk!

The Alabama Water Institute at the University of Alabama seeks applications for an Enterprise Architect/DevOps Manager to support a hydrologic model software development project. AWI is creating a replicable, hybrid HPC-cloud water science environment to support a collaborative experiment to analyze the National Water Model and improve US capacity for critical flood and drought prediction. The applicant will have a strong software development background and be familiar with DevOps, high performance computing, and migration to the cloud. As lead for the DevOps team, the applicant will have experience working with and managing distributed agile teams.

To support the project, the DevOps Manager will work closely with hydrologic modelers and other subject matter experts and team leaders to provide guidance on geographic information systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and databases, etc. The applicant will coordinate the software development across a range of research software engineers and domain and computer scientists. The applicant will also support CI/CD establishment with an extensive range of tests in coordination with a diverse team.

Continuation in this position is contingent upon availability of external funding derived from research programs or specific projects. To best execute its mission, the Office for Research & Economic Development (ORED) prefers that all ORED employees work on the campus of The University of Alabama. However, ORED will consider, on a case by case basis, remote work for an employee if such work makes strong business sense for ORED based on the scope of work and expectations for that employee. Prior to any remote work, the employee and their direct supervisor(s) and the Vice President will execute a remote work agreement.

Required Department Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and four (4) years of experience in system architecture development and DevOps team leadership; OR Master's degree in Computer Science and three (3) years of experience in system architecture development and DevOps team leadership.

Skills and Knowledge: Agile team management; CI/CD pipeline development; Complex Containerization and IaC (incl. Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, etc.); Service provisioning on at least two of AWS, Azure, and GCP; High Performance Computing (HPC)

Preferred Qualifications: 7+ years cloud architecture experience. Experience with massive data storage scaling (e.g., via Ceph) and Data lake architecting. GIS data tiling and cloud optimized large-file formats. Experience with transitioning research-level software development products into operations. Background in Data Analytics or AI/ML HPC-to-Cloud migration experience
AWS Certifications or equivalent: Solutions Architect, Developer Associate, Solutions Architect Professional. Demonstrated high level of. interpersonal skills for effective collaboration with academics, scientists, practitioners, and students. Demonstrated strong capacity for personal responsibility, taking initiative, original thinking, and communication skills.

Background Investigation Statement: Prior to hiring, the final candidate(s) must successfully pass a pre-employment background investigation and information obtained from social media and other internet sources. A prior conviction reported as a result of the background investigation DOES NOT automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration for this position. A candidate with a prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags will receive an individualized review of the prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags before a hiring decision is made.

Equal Employment Opportunity: The University of Alabama is an Equal Employment/Equal Educational Opportunity Institution. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment or volunteer status without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, age, genetic or family medical history information, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, and will not be discriminated against because of their protected status. Applicants and employees of this institution are protected under Federal law from discrimination on several bases. Follow the link below to find out more. "EEO is the Law" Poster