DevOps Consultant

Job Description

Rackspace is recognised as a company of experts, delivering world-class cloud service and a superior support experience on the world’s leading technology platforms. As part of our commitment to our customers, we are dedicated to helping enable creative, automation-based solutions for all sizes of businesses and require an experienced DevOps Consultant to join our team.

DevOps is beginning to enter the ‘Slope of Enlightenment’ across the industry and forms a key part of Rackspace’s ongoing strategy to enable the best outcomes for our customers as they embrace new technologies, new processes, and new infrastructure platforms. Rackspace has been working with customers globally to deliver DevOps for the past three years and has built an excellent perspective on industry trends.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Developer who has been working with mission-critical systems and understands the importance of automation, culture, measurement, and iterative processes – and how to overcome challenges both exotic and commonplace.

The ideal candidate for the role will have several years’ experience with cloud platforms like AWS and tools related to Continuous Integration and Delivery, Infrastructure Automation, Containers, Application testing, API usage, Agile methodologies, centralised logging and metrics, and Cloud-first application architecture. We are looking for the top talent in the industry, highly-skilled in orchestrating application deployments and adept at the design and implementation of complex automation systems.

Your engagements will see you working directly with customers and prospects as well as educating other Rackers about the value of a balanced, pragmatic approach to using DevOps tools for automation. Each engagement will see you understanding our customers and prospects specific needs, and require you to understand complex applications that may sit across a multitude of service models and technologies.

You will have confidence in knowing your skills (and limitations), you are calm and collected under pressure and always available to mentor the less experienced. Your colleagues see you as a good team player who is keen to share knowledge as well as to listen and learn from others.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITES:

• Provide customer-facing workshops to educate customers and prospects and gather information for analysis and recommendations.
• Work with Solutions Architects and DevOps Engineering team to design and implement automation systems.
• Work with Project Managers to deliver customer outcomes on time and on budget.
• Write and maintain world-class documentation and materials for customer and Rackspace internal audiences.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

The ideal candidate for this role will have an excellent understanding of CI/CD, Configuration Management, Infrastructure Automation, and Application development methodologies. In addition, the right candidate will have the following skills:

• Deep expertise with a CI/CD automation system (e.g. Jenkins, TeamCity, Bamboo).
• Expert working knowledge of a Configuration Management system (e.g. Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Powershell DSC).
• Expert working knowledge of Operating Systems (Windows and/or Linux).
• Advanced knowledge of relevant web services, mail, backup, and application monitoring.
• Advanced knowledge and demonstrable proficiency in any programming language (e.g. Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript)
• Good knowledge of AWS (e.g. EC2, VPC, S3, RDS, Beanstalk, ECS, CodeDeploy, CloudWatch, CloudFormation)
• Good knowledge of data storage systems and consistency/availability trade-offs (e.g. SQL Server, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Cassandra).
• Good knowledge of networking fundamentals.
• Good knowledge of collaborative application development using Agile methodologies and distributed revision control (e.g. Git).
• Familiarity with Linux containers: usage and orchestration (e.g. Docker, Mesosphere, Kubernetes, Amazon ECS).

One or some of these would accreditations be advantageous: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate, AWS Certified DevOps Professional.

PERSONAL SKILLS:

• Can present concepts in authoritative and clear manner to customers through white boarding, presentations and proposals
• Creative problem solver, will own issues until full resolution
• Ability to create wow / delighter moments with customers
• Effective with time management and expected deliverables
• Exceptional communication skills; both written and verbal with great attention to detail

BUSINESS & COMMERCIAL EXPERIENCE :

• Experience as a developer or similar technical role
• Working with teams in different functional areas and across multiple time zones