Platform Engineer Linux & Kubernetes

As a Platform Engineer, you will be part of an ambitious and technically strong team that is responsible for developing and maintaining the existing Internal Cloud Services (on-premise IaaS and PaaS) and has the ambition to form an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) on top of this. You'll play a key role in automating development environments, improving the developer experience, and optimizing our cloud-native infrastructure. Click here for a short impression

We are looking for someone with a passion for scalable systems, a developer productivity center, and experience building reliable platform solutions based on Kubernetes and the broader cloud-native landscape.

Our platforms are used intensively within WUR. What we devise and maintain is used by our Research customers, for example, to conduct groundbreaking research, so that you can make an important contribution to our mission: "to explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life".

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Designing, developing, and maintaining our PaaS (Kubernetes) and our Internal Developer Platform;
• Design and management of the Kubernetes cluster and its CI/CD pipelines;
• Design and management of our Linux IaaS offering (RedHat/Ubuntu) and its tooling;
• Automate platform operations;
• Monitoring and improving the performance, security and reliability of the platform;
• Collaborate with developers to improve their workflows and offer them as self-service (XaaS) capabilities;
• You build it, you own it: you solve disruptions and performance issues together with the team itself;
• Thinking along about technical strategies, tooling choices and long-term solutions, and converting this into manageable next steps.

Your team
You are part of a team of eleven professionals who manage the entire on-premise internal cloud services for WUR. This includes IaaS (Windows, Linux, VMware), PaaS (Kubernetes), and nearly a thousand Windows and Linux servers, including the Kubernetes hosts. Together as a team, we provide a stable development platform that enables our colleagues in education and research to deliver the highest quality to our students and clients.

Our IT teams work according to agile principles. Collaboration, communication, transparency and continuous feedback are essential. The team works on campus at least two days a week and may choose to work from home the other days, for good focus and a healthy work-life balance.

You are an independent and curious IT professional with a strong DevOps mindset. You thrive in agile environments and enjoy working with other professionals and stakeholders. You're a true team player, and you're not afraid to speak up, ask questions, and challenge the status quo when necessary.

You are driven, communicative and have a passion for education and research. With a sharp analytical mind and a customer and solution-oriented approach, you take initiative and act as a driving force to get things done. Your organizational skills will help you deliver results efficiently and effectively.

You are always looking for ways to improve existing systems and enable new functionalities. At the same time, you ensure that the infrastructure you support is available, stable, scalable and user-friendly.

Once fully onboarded, join your colleagues in a 24/7 security incident call rotation, approximately once every six weeks, on a shared schedule.

You also have:

• HBO working and thinking level; preferably a completed education in ICT.
• Experience as a Platform Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) or DevOps Engineer in an enterprise environment;
• Knowledge of and experience with Kubernetes. You are in possession of a CKA/CKAD certification for this or are willing to obtain it;
• Knowledge of and experience with Linux. You are in possession of a RHCSA certification for this or are willing to obtain it;
• Knowledge of designing and managing Internal Developer Platforms or cloud-native architectures;
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) and a declarative mindset;
• Experience with containerization and CI/CD tools (e.g. ArgoCD, Git(lab));
• Basic knowledge of programming and scripting languages such as Python or Bash;
• A good command of Dutch and English. The working language within the team is Dutch, but in our international working environment, more and more communication is in English.

If you do not have a completed HBO education, an assessment may be part of the application procedure.

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent working conditions. A few highlights from our collective labor agreement are:

• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• sabbatical leave, study leave and partially paid parental leave;
• There is a lot of attention for vitality and you can use the sports facilities that are available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed end-of-year bonus of 8.3%;
• Excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-class fringe benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. Depending on your experience, we offer a competitive gross salary between € 3,316 and € 6,008 for a full-time working week of 36 hours, in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement for Wageningen Research (scale 9/10/11). A contract for 32 hours is negotiable. We initially offer a one-year contract, with the intention of converting it to an indefinite contract.

Wageningen University & Research offers plenty of opportunities for growth and development, with a strong internal recruitment policy and excellent training programmes.

You will work on the greenest and most innovative campus in the Netherlands, in an international and open working environment. For 20 years in a row, we have been named the "best university" in the Netherlands! A place to be proud of.

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,600 employees (6,700 fte) and 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch the video below to get an idea of our green campus!

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.

Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Because we expect you to work and live in the Netherlands our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family. If you come with a partner, we offer a Dual Career group program organized by our Welcome Center. This program helps your partner to get familiar with the Dutch culture, labour market and assists your partner to find a job.

Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. Wageningen University & Research's International Community page contains practical information about what we can do to support international employees coming to Wageningen. Furthermore, our Welcome Center can assist you with any additional advice and information about for example housing, opening a bank account or schooling. Finally, certain categories of international staff may be eligible for a tax exemption on a part of their salary during the first five years in the Netherlands.