Based at University of York campus (with some remote working options available)
Role Description
The Smart Data Donation Service
We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer to join the exciting Smart Data Donation Service (SDDS) project.
The SDDS is a major infrastructure project funded by Smart Data Research UK, which aims to catalyse a paradigm shift in the quality and accessibility of smart data for research into digital and online experiences (e.g. games, social media).
The SDDS will achieve this by creating a service that facilitates the large-scale donation of data by the individuals that it features. This will be made possible due to the UK’s GDPR regulations, which allow people to access personal data that companies hold about them so that they can donate it securely for research purposes.
For more information, please see our SDDS brochure.
Role
As a Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, you will be instrumental in designing, building and scaling the core cloud infrastructure that powers the SDDS platform. Collaborating closely with developers, you will ensure that the SDDS cloud infrastructure is secure, resilient, and capable of supporting the emerging ecosystem of data donations and research.
A typical day in this role might include:
- Architecting and designing secure, resilient AWS cloud infrastructure to support the SDDS core infrastructure
- Writing and maintaining Terraform and CI/CD pipelines
- Managing and maintaining logging and alerting infrastructure, identifying inefficiencies and problems
- Liaising closely with developers to ensure the components they build are deployable
- Expanding cloud infrastructure as demand grows, ensuring we can accommodate large-scale donations
- Exploring new tools and technologies that can enhance functionality and scalability of the platform
- Creating detailed documentation and sharing knowledge with team members
You will have the opportunity to learn, innovate and collaborate within a diverse team of researchers and IT professionals.
Skills, Experience & Qualification needed
- Demonstrable experience designing, implementing and managing AWS infrastructure at scale (e.g, EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, Cloudformation, IAM)
- Strong understanding of Cloud security principles, including encryption, and secure data handling within AWS environments
- Hands on experience with tools such as Terraform to automating cloud infrastructure deployment in a version controlled environment
- Demonstrable ability to build and maintain scalable cloud solutions that handle large data volumes and ensure high availability
- Strong ability to work in a cross-functional team, including frontend developers, data engineers and researchers
Experience in the following areas is desirable:
- Knowledge of GDPR requirements, particularly in the context of cloud data processing and storage of personally identifiable information
- Familiarity building or maintaining cloud-based data pipelines (i.e, with AWS Glue, Athena or Kinesis) for large datasets
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerisation (e.g, Docker, AWS ECS), and continuous integration for deploying cloud based applications
- Experience with cloud monitoring, logging and alerting tools such as AWS Cloudwatch
If you are passionate about technology, the world of AWS and inspired by the vision of the Smart Data Donation Service, we want to hear from you! This role offers a fantastic opportunity to enhance your skills while contributing to the groundbreaking research that the SDDS aims to deliver, making a positive impact on the world.
For an informal discussion, or if you'd like a chat about how your existing experience might be a good fit for the role - please reach out to Dan Miller at dan.miller@york.ac.uk
