You will work on one of the largest and most distinctive IT environments in the Netherlands, relied upon daily by over 40,000 researchers, students, and staff. This environment includes a campus network supporting lecture halls, laboratories, quantum research, and high-performance computing, all from owned and operated data centers. The organization is transforming this environment from manual operations to code, with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) as the standard.
Everything goes through Git, is peer-reviewed, and moves into production quickly for real feedback. Your work is at the heart of this transformation.
What you do
- Automate the deployment, configuration, and registration of data center, network, and platform services using tools such as Ansible, Terraform, NetBox, GitLab CI, and Python.
- Help build an internal platform that enables other teams to securely consume standardized infrastructure services themselves.
- Establish a reliable source of truth (NetBox as CMDB) for network and infrastructure configurations.
- Connect to a shared automation landscape with an event-driven orchestration layer for automated service deployment.
- Build compartmentalized research environments for sensitive research, focusing on knowledge security, segmentation, access control, and demonstrable compliance.
- Rethink the virtualization layer, including exploring Proxmox as an alternative to the current VMware stack.
- Develop measurable reliability and observability.
- Freedom to make choices, initiate improvements, introduce new tooling, and explain/defend these choices.
What they ask
- Automated production infrastructure using code, for example with Ansible, Terraform, or Pulumi.
- Programming in Python or a comparable language at a level to build your own tooling.
- Comfortable working with Linux.
- Git and CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery) as an integral part of your workflow.
- Incorporate security into designs from the outset.
- Enjoy collaborating with other teams and can explain a technical decision to someone who is not an engineer.
Desired.
- Networking: routing, switching, firewalls, segmentation, and Software Defined Networking (SDN).
- NetBox or another source-of-truth platform.
- Virtualization: Proxmox, VMware, and OpenShift.
- Event-driven architecture, workflow orchestration, and container platforms.
- Experience in an environment with formal security and compliance requirements (e.g., Dutch Cybersecurity Act).
Profile
- You are an automation engineer. Networking knowledge is an advantage, not a requirement.
- This role is probably not for you if you primarily want to continue working in a hyperscaler-driven environment; the emphasis is on own infrastructure in own data centers.
- This role is probably not for you if you expect the environment to already be completely streamlined; cleaning up and automating manual processes is part of the job.
- This role is probably not for you if you only want to build and not persuade; automation affects other teams, and bringing those teams along is part of making it work.
Practical
- Work in multidisciplinary teams using an agile way of working.
- Everything is peer-reviewed, including infrastructure code.
- Documentation where necessary, code wherever possible.
- Use of AI agents to work faster and more accurately.
- Will join a team focused on campus connectivity.
- Working language within the team is Dutch or English.
How to apply
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