Vacant Position – Senior Systems Administrator

Contract type: Permanent
Job Level: Skilled / Middle Management
Work Location: Cape Town, Western Cape

The National Research Foundation (NRF) supports and promotes research and human capital development through funding, the provision of National Research Facilities and science outreach platforms and programmes to the broader community in all fields of science and technology, including natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) spearheads South Africa’s activities in the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, commonly known as the SKA, in engineering, science and construction. SARAO is a National Facility managed by the National Research Foundation and incorporates radio astronomy instruments and programmes such as the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in Gauteng, the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry (AVN) programme in nine African countries as well as the associated human capital development and commercialisation endeavours.

SARAO seeks to appoint a Senior Systems Administrator to perform a role of ensuring high availability, performance, software product evaluation and testing on the computing environment including system configuration, troubleshooting, resource monitoring, administration of Storage Area Networks (SAN) software and development of specialised programs and security of systems while providing technical leadership and expertise in managing diverse operating systems, also collaborate with cross-functional teams to design, implement, and support complex IT solutions that meet business needs and objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Designing, setting up, and executing jobs to customise software
• Executing software upgrades to new versions and releases
• Integrating vendor products across platforms
• Utilising complex installation techniques and procedures
• Applying appropriate software maintenance fixes
• Acquiring and installing new software
• Generating, tuning, configuring, and upgrading system software
• Modifying existing software and/or creating software for specific business needs
• Design, implement, and manage backup and disaster recovery solutions for critical systems (Veeam, Ceph, Spectrum Protect, Flash Copy etc.)
• Design, implement & manage Virtual Tape Library
• Providing technical support in the installation and maintenance of products
• Providing technical support with multi-vendor integration at all levels, i.e. (communication gateways, data and file servers, overall management and linking networks)
• Provide Tier 3 support and troubleshooting for complex system issues.
• Performing software product evaluation, including planning, installation, testing, and technical support for the applications
• Implementing and using capacity management tools
• Developing a database to maintain statistics for various hardware and software components
• Monitor system health, network performance, and system logs for proactive issue detection
• Implement and manage security policies, access control, and encryption protocols across all server environments.
• Conduct security audits, vulnerability assessments, and ensure compliance with industry standards.

Key Requirements:

Qualification:

• B.Tech IT with 13+ years; OR
• B.Eng/B.Sc Hons IT 9+ years; OR

Experience:

• 9 years of relevant experience includes:
• System Administrator oriented role, preferably in a high-performance computing environment

Knowledge:

• Linux system installation, configuration and administration
• Operating systems (Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, etc.)
• Security (intrusion detection, data backup/recovery)
• Scripting (Python, C C++ Programming Language)
• Databases (SQL etc.)
• Hardware (server hardware, storage systems and other related components)
• Infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
• Distributed monitoring and alerting (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic)
• Distributed logging (e.g., ELK stack)
• Deployment (e.g., MaaS, FAI)
• Virtualisation and containerisation (e.g., Openstack, proxmox, Docker)
• Continuous integration (e.g., Jenkins, Buildbot, Github Actions)
• Distributed Storage (e.g., Ceph, Lustre, MinIO)
• Knowledge of high-performance computing infrastructure
• Knowledge of Ethernet networks

Information:

The website www.nrf.ac.za provides more details on the NRF initiatives and activities.

Applications:

Applicants should submit a comprehensive CV by logging to https://ess.nrf.ac.za/Account/Recruitment and apply online. Applications should be accompanied by a letter of motivation indicating the applicant’s suitability for the position. The names and contact details of at least three referees should be provided.

Closing Date: 14 October 2025

The NRF offers a challenging career and competitive remuneration package which is commensurate with qualifications and experience.

The NRF is committed to employment equity and redress and the appointment to the position will be made in line with the NRF Employment Equity Plan.

The NRF reserves the right not to make an appointment.

Correspondence will be sent to short-listed candidates only.