Job Description

Overview

Azavea is a civic technology firm based in Philadelphia that uses geospatial data to build software and data analytics for the web. As a B Corporation, our mission is to use advanced geospatial technology for civic, social, and environmental impact. Most of our work deals with local governments, non-profit organizations, and academic or federal research projects.  We build custom web applications, perform geospatial analysis, and contribute to open-source projects. Our engineers work across the technology stack, from modern browser-based front-ends to robust service-based backends residing on scalable infrastructure. Find out more about careers at Azavea here.

We are looking for an Operations (DevOps) Engineer who is passionate about building and operating cloud infrastructure applications that will have a positive impact. Ideal candidates will be folks interested in working on projects aimed at public good while working in a private sector organization. We’re excited about what we do, we’re growing, and we hope you will join us.

Skills & Requirements

Operations Engineers at Azavea are members of the engineering team, and are primarily responsible for the availability, performance, and cost-effectiveness of our production infrastructure.  Efficient software delivery is a responsibility shared across the entire engineering team, but Operations Engineers focus on assembling and maintaining infrastructure components that ensure everyone can confidently ship software. Often, they complement other engineers with a deeper knowledge of the components that make up our production infrastructure (system internals, networking, cloud compute). In addition, they are responsible for setting the direction that determines how we construct and deploy to production environments.

What you will do:

• Build cloud infrastructure to fit the needs of a diverse set of web software applications, including security, speed, and reliability.
• Design, configure, test, and document continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
• Leverage open source and other tooling to support core principles of security, infrastructure as code, and observability in our web applications.
• Work with software engineering teams to identify infrastructure requirements and implement solutions for reliability, performance, and management.
• Automate many of the steps required to safely develop and deliver software.
• Troubleshoot and mitigate complex production issues, and draft incident reports to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.
• Contribute to a growing company and to the open-source communities that support our work and to which we contribute.
• Stay up to date with cloud infrastructure technology and best practices.

You should have experience with:

• Infrastructure as Code technologies and best practices.
• Automating production environments and setting up CI/CD pipelines.
• Configuring and deploying cloud computing infrastructure (we primarily leverage AWS with a smattering of Azure, but we recognize that people may have a range of experience with other platforms).
• Optimization of infrastructure for performance and resilience including web servers, databases, load balancers, CDNs, and containers.
• Monitoring infrastructure and proactively identifying issues before they become problems.
• Cybersecurity as it impacts network design, testing, and application development.

You should also:

• Understand networking concepts and the Linux operating system.
• Be proficient at programming in at least one general purpose programming language.
• Have good communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Have experience working with contemporary software engineering best practices, such as code reviews, source control, build processes, testing, deployment, release, and change management.
• Be interested in working with small teams on meaningful projects.

You get extra points for:

• A deep understanding of the Linux operating system and network stacks, with ability to apply understanding to solve real-world problems.
• Knowledge of infrastructure tools like Docker, Terraform, Amazon ECS, Kubernetes, and Ansible.
• Sense of urgency and ownership over critical problem areas.
• Demonstrating community service contributions, such as volunteering, teaching, mentorship, and community organizing.
• Familiarity in engaging with or managing open source projects and communities or an interest in doing so.

You’ll notice that we don’t cite N years of experience or a Computer Science degree as requirements. Formal credentials like these are valuable, but we are primarily looking for people who have gained real-world experience successfully building sophisticated web applications. If you think this description fits you, even if your experience doesn’t match up perfectly with the technologies we’ve listed, we encourage you to apply. We do not use automated resume screening technology, and our employees review all applications that we receive.

A note on hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic 
Due to regulations in Philadelphia and our concern for the health and safety of our team, we expect to conduct most of the candidate interviews remotely. The majority of our colleagues generally work out of our Philadelphia office, but while our office has re-opened, most of us aren’t in the office full-time. Depending on the circumstances at the time of hiring, we are able to support remote on-boarding, including shipping relevant materials and a laptop to your home. We are fortunate to have invested in meaningful work-from-home tools and processes over the years, and have been able to continue providing a secure, flexible, and safe work environment for all of our colleagues. We ask for your patience as we adapt our hiring process as well, and are happy to answer any questions or concerns about the process.

Office and Benefits
Our Philadelphia headquarters is located in a brightly lit office on the 5th floor of a converted factory building in the Callowhill neighborhood, a short walk from Center City, the Reading Terminal Market, and SEPTA subway and regional rail stations. For bicyclists, we have in-house bike parking, showers, and lockers. The office itself is assembled as an open office plan with several smaller rooms for team meetings and concentration time. You get your own desk with a high-end Linux workstation or Apple laptop and extra monitors. We have flex-time to deal with personal stuff, and most people work a 40 – 45 hour week on a regular schedule. After the first six months, our staff can also spend up to 10% of their time on an open source, professional development, or R&D project. Recent 10% time projects include experiments with machine learning, React Native, and various forms of serverless processing with Amazon Lambda.

We offer a salary commensurate with skills and experience. Azavea’s starting salaries for Software Engineer III and Senior software engineer range from $96,000-$134,400. We differentiate between these levels based on four criteria: technical skill, execution, collaboration, and maturity. Our benefits package includes:
– Fully subsidized health care, dental care, prescription plan, including for spouse/partner and children
– Fully subsidized life and long-term disability insurance, plus voluntary short-term disability insurance
– Medical reimbursement plan to cover what the health insurance does not
– Retirement plan with matching percentage
– Almost 4 weeks paid vacation plus additional paid sick/personal time off
– Family and medical leave
– Flexible work schedule
– Paid maternity and paternity leave
– Child care subsidy
– Paid time off for voting and volunteering
– Education assistance plan
– Student loan assistance
– Public transit and biking reimbursement plans
– Monthly guest lectures with lunches on the company
– 10% time for research or learning projects
– Profit-sharing bonus plan
– Financial transparency through an open book policy
– Kind, capable and thoughtful colleagues

We welcome qualified candidates from all walks of life and value diversity in our company. We prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, veteran status, military service, disability unrelated to job requirements, marital status, or domestic partner status.

How to Apply

Job Types: Full-Time. Salaries: 80,000 - 100,000.

217 total views, 0 today

Apply for this Job