Data Center Team Lead

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Job Summary

IPAC, in the Physics, Math, and Astronomy Division at Caltech (www.caltech.edu), provides science operations, user support, data and archive services, and scientific vision to enhance discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground. IPAC supports NASA, NSF, and privately funded projects and archives including: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, SPHEREx, the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, the Euclid NASA Science Center, the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, the NASA Ariel/CASE Science Center, the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, the NASA Exoplanet Archive, the Zwicky Transient Facility, the Vera Rubin Observatory, the Keck Observatory Archive, the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA-2000).

In support of these and other activities, IPAC hosts two data center facilities, with about 90 racks hosting more than 800 servers and 15 PB of spinning disk, robotic tape libraries with a 3000-tape capacity, and significant UPS infrastructure. The data centers have recently undergone an upgrade to 100 Gbps connectivity throughout. IPAC continues to investigate ways to make more use of commercial cloud computing where that approach is cost-effective. IPAC is seeking an Engineering Lead to manage IPAC data center operations and supervise the IPAC Support Group (ISG) Data Center team of network architects and system administrators.

As the Data Center Team Lead you will report to the IPAC Manager, supervise the ISG Systems Engineering team of about 10 staff full and part-time staff, and serve as a member of the ISG Leadership team which provides financial, administrative, facilities, systems engineering, and operations support to IPAC staff, projects, and centers.

Essential Job Duties

The responsibilities of the Data Center Team Lead include:

• Coordinating with other members of the ISG Leadership Team.
• Supervising ISG Systems Engineering staff, including hiring, training, work assignments, promotions, discipline, and annual reviews.
• Maintaining and operating IPAC's data centers, and monitoring and reporting their status.
• Managing the configuration of IPAC data center compute systems.
• Participating in the design, configuration, procurement, and deployment of compute capabilities in support of IPAC activities, including systems hosted locally as well as in the cloud.
• Supporting IPAC proposal preparation activities with data center technical information and descriptions.
• Ensuring security for IPAC's data center systems and data, including local and offsite backups, physical and environmental security, and cybersecurity -- including audits and renewals of IPAC's authority to operate.
• Overseeing an annual inventory of IPAC data center systems.
• Interfacing with Caltech Information Management Systems & Services (IMSS).
• Developing and implementing strategies for incorporating new technologies and processes to enhance IPAC data center operations.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field.
• 10 years of experience with information systems, including architecture, system administration, network engineering, and systems deployment.
• Expertise in Unix-flavor operating systems.
• Demonstrated supervisory experience and project management skills
• Qualify as a United States (US) person as defined by ITAR regulations - A US person is a citizen of the United States, a lawful permanent resident alien of the US ("Green Card" holder), or individuals granted refugee and Asylee status under US law.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing data center operations.
• Familiarity with configuration management tools such as Ansible.
• Familiarity with IT Security, email administration, and data center infrastructure such as LDAP, Xymon, and DNS.
• Experience with cloud computing, especially Amazon Web Services.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to translate scientific and engineering project needs, constraints, and terminology to the data center team, and vice-versa.
• Ability to manage multiple customers with conflicting priorities and deadlines.

Required Documents

• Cover Letter
• Resume

Application Deadline is July 25, 2025.

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