Job Description

Your responsibilities

Join CERN’s IT department as a member of the Compute & Devices (CD) group, that manages end-user desktop and mobile services, supports various operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android), deploys core productivity applications like Microsoft Office, and offers interactive terminal services and batch farms for physics analysis. As a member of the Compute and Configuration (CC) section of the CD group, you will be participating in maintaining and supporting scientific computing services essential for laboratory operations and experiments, including the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid.

You will be responsible for the productionising and for the evolution of the central IT secret management service, that manages secrets for all puppet managed machines in the CERN Data Centre, for the OKD OpenShift containers and for the central batch infrastructure. CC section has been running a central secret management system for puppet infrastructure for over 10 years, and now we’re migrating to HashiCorp Vault, which is a more modern secret management solution.

Your main functions will include:

• Actively participate to productionise and help to evolve the central IT secret management service.
• Create the secret storage model in HashCorp Vault and migrate the existing secrets. Integrate the HashCorp Vault secrets backend for existing systems.
• Collaborate with new customers from different departments at CERN to study their secret storage needs and prototype HashiCorp Vault solutions that meet their requirements.
• To phase out the old infrastructure completely, validate a new GitLab-based solution for the access control of the Configuration Management tools on CERN Data Centre.

Your profile

Skills and/or knowledge

Technical skills:

• Excellent knowledge in Python and Linux OS distributions.
• Additional assets: Good knowledge in HashiCorp Vault, OIDC, kerberos, raft and RDBMS.
• Strong analytical skills. Experience in running OpenSource solutions.

Behavior competencies:

• Demonstrating flexibility
• Solving problems
• Communicating effectively

Language requirements: Fluent in English

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 Software/Computing Engineering (or a related field) and your highest educational qualification is either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.
• Applicants without University degree are not eligible.
• Applicants with a PhD are not eligible.

Additional Information

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

Job reference: IT-CD-CC-2024-50-GRAE

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

Target start date: 01-September-2024

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 5119 and 5631 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.