Job Description

Your responsibilities

Become a member of the system administration team of the LHCb experiment. We are managing more than 5000 servers and virtual machines and 100s of network devices in our own 2.5 MW data-centre. Work with server computers running Linux which are the basis of the data acquisition, trigger and control system of the LHCb experiment.

Since we are a small team you will have the opportunity to work on everything from hardware management to automation using puppet, pulp and foreman. Also support for developers will be part of the job. The system administration team works in close collaboration with the software developers and maintainers of the LHCb Online system and our goal is maximum availability of the system during the times of data-taking of the Large Hadron Collider in particular.

Your profile

Skills and/or knowledge

• Good knowledge of the Linux commandline and Good understanding of PC hardware are a must.
• Basic notions of any or many of the following domains would be an advantage:
  • Networking,
  • Remote server management (Redfish, IPMI)
  • OS-level security
  • Performance metrics and monitoring using typical cloud-tools Grafana, Opensearch, Prometheus etc…
  • Management of web-services
  • Containers and Kubernetes
  • Virtualization using ovirt and KVM,
• You will be given the opportunity to learn what you do not know yet, we therefore value curiosity and the willigness to learn new and unfamiliar subjects.
• Fluent in English, the ability to work in French would be an advantage.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• By the application deadline, you have a maximum of two years of professional experience since graduation in Sysadmin, IT technician or similar (or a related field) and your highest educational qualification is a general secondary education diploma.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.
• Applicants with a Bachelor, Master or PhD degree are not eligible.

Additional Information

Job closing date: 14.04.2024 at 12:00 AM (midnight) CEST.

Job reference: EP-LBC-2024-26-GRAE

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 36 months maximum.

Target start date: 01-October-2024

This position requires:

• Work in Radiation Areas.
• Interventions in underground installations.

What we offer

• A monthly stipend of 4556 Swiss Francs (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN’s comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

About us

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter – fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. Find out more on http://home.cern.

Diversity has been an integral part of CERN’s mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. Employing a diverse workforce is central to our success.