[Wiltshire] [JOB] Site Reliability Engineer - Capita National Strategies

[Stephen Nelson-Smith]

Hello,

National Strategies is looking for a talented person with Linux
Administration and Python programming skills to join our team to
support us in our drive to automate the whole infrastructure, set the
standard for deployment and continuous integration, build a
world-class monitoring and orchestration environment, and use
creativity and intelligence to bring about continuous improvement in
site speed and resilience.

The project is moving from a managed hosting environment to a
colocation environment, which brings with it the opportunity to bring
the entire current site, and all of the new site under puppet control.

The role is based around a 5 day week, in the project team building in
the centre of Reading, 7 minutes walk from the railway station.  You
will be reporting into the Infrastructure Lead, working in a small,
self-managing team.  Daily work is carried out from a ticket-driven
Kanban system.  Activities are typically broken into project and
support work, support being for the current website and the new
website, and the surrounding project team.

About National Strategies

National Strategies Online (NSO) is a hugely successful Drupal-based
resource for the whole education system - offering a wide range of
content to improve standards in the UK school system.  The site has in
excess of a million visitors a month, and has over 20,000 Drupal
nodes.  In 2010-2011 the project team will be taking the lessons
learned from the current site, and delivering a new site containing
some of the best content from the current site, new content, and
syndicated content from the leading educational websites in the UK.

The technology stack is Redhat Linux, Apache, Drupal, Memcache,
Varnish and Solr.  A number of custom tools have been developed in
Python to provide indexing, queue-based sharing capabilities and
general system programming.

The whole project team is strongly influenced by Agile methodologies,
with Scrum and Kanban implemented throughout.  XP-derived practices
such as pair programming and test-driven development are being
introduced.

Desired competencies:

* Python programming
* Configuration management (preferably Puppet)
* Experience with virtualisation technologies (VMware, Xen, KVM, Virtualbox)
* Familiarity with and interest in Agile ways of working
* Huge capacity and hunger for learning
* Solid understanding of the Linux operating system (exposure to both
Red Hat and Debian-based systems would be ideal)

In return, you will get:

* A reliable 6 month contract, with a good chance of a further 6 month extension
* Experience on a large government project
* The chance to work with a large number of highly skilled
programmers, technical architects and sysadmins
* A license to innovate and make things awesome

Rate negotiations will start at around £300 a day.

If you're interested, please contact Stephen Nelson-Smith at
stephen.nelson-smith at nationalstrategies.co.uk.  Strictly no agencies,
under any circumstances at all.

S.

-- 
Stephen Nelson-Smith
Technical Director
Atalanta Systems Ltd
www.atalanta-systems.com