Hybrid Cloud Manager

About this position

The Hybrid Cloud Manager will work within the Technology and Science Integration (TSI) team leading a sub-team of 3 cloud consultants and working with other IT teams across the Technical Services Cluster (TSC) at EMBL-EBI. More generally the TSI team provides coordination and supporting professional services across all of the IT activities at EMBL-EBI and reports to the Head of Technical Services, Steven Newhouse. 

The TSC has 90 staff distributed across 6 teams (including TSI) providing a range of IT services to over 800 technical research and administrative users who together deliver a set of life-science related services around the world. We are based at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) located on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus near Cambridge in the UK.

Your role

The use of public cloud at EMBL-EBI is about to enter a step change in its profile and interaction. After 3 years of experimental public cloud usage, a commercial framework delivered through an internal tender process, is being established that will initially include AWS and GCP. Both of these agreements will provide opportunities for teams across EMBL-EBI and impose technical and non-technical obligations on EMBL as an organisation that will need to be discharged through an internal policy framework that will continue to be developed over the next few years in consultation with users, security and legal teams. 

We are therefore seeking to appoint a cloud native able to support the porting and running of scientific workloads in cloud infrastructures. You will work with scientists inside EMBL-EBI and with their collaborators across EMBL and in other research organisations in moving applications to the cloud. You will ideally have experience in bioinformatics and now be looking to increase your experience in cloud, or be experienced in cloud technologies and be looking to learn about a new application domain. A common theme across all of these science workloads is the need to work with ‘big data’ stored and analysed at scale.

This role will provide critical technical and policy leadership as we make this transition. Leading a small team of cloud consultants within TSI, you will also work with teams inside and outside EMBL-EBI as you support EMBL-EBI in our transition to a hybrid cloud model. Reporting to the Head of TSC you will identify technical and policy issues that need wider consultation across EMBL and identify changes needed to the TSC service portfolio which require further consultation.

Teams across TSC provide large scale clusters, storage, object store, software development, VMware hosting environments for virtual machines and containers, OpenStack cloud and many other IT services available for your use. Through our own cloud procurement activities and the resources available within the European Open Science Cloud, you will have access to a number of diverse public cloud environments to work within.

Your main working relationships will be with:

• Head of TSC is your line manager and an escalation point for technical, legal, staffing, financial and other issues.
• Your team who will provide application consultancy support to projects determined by yourself in line with the priorities set by the Head of TSC.
• The technical and managerial contacts within the internal (TSC teams) and external (AWS & GCP) cloud providers delivering services.
• The internal users from the service and research teams who will be using the team for consultancy services and as a route to access public cloud services.

You have

• At least 5 years IT experience in cloud computing or using virtualised environments (i.e. with virtual  machines or containers) with an element of providing application support to demanding users (e.g. research/scientific communities) on a leading cloud platform (e.g. AWS, GCP, OpenStack).
• Experience in the frameworks available to support automated and repeatable service deployments that configure and manage Linux systems (and their applications) in the cloud so that they meet the needs of scientific applications.
• Ability to manage, balance and re-prioritise your time to meet deadlines and the work of a team of cloud consultants (i.e. DevOps and application engineers) to drive individual tasks to a conclusion and to represent the work of the team at internal and public meetings.
• Excellent communication (verbal & written) in English on technical topics within international teams and of communicating and working with expert technical users (e.g. in a science community).
• Be self-motivated and capable of working both independently and with teams both within and external to EMBL-EBI.

You might also have

• Appropriate cloud certifications with DevOps or Site Reliability Engineering experience possibly with an open-source software development.
• Experience of having operated in the scientific/research community (e.g. Computational, Physics, or Biological science).
• Application experience in bioinformatics or providing bioinformatics services.
• Experience of working within distributed project collaborations (e.g. European Commission projects) and an ability to work across multiple projects
• Ability to work up, down and sideways with stakeholders within an organisation and outside an organisation.

Why join us

EMBL-EBI is a worldwide leader in bioinformatics. We encourage personal and professional development and are committed to ensuring our employees feel valued, supported and empowered to reach their potential at work.

Surrounded by beautiful South Cambridgeshire countryside, our state-of-the-art Campus provides employees with a relaxed atmosphere where the pursuit of scientific discovery and meaningful work, underpin every role. In addition, our employees have access to a wide range of benefits including:

• 30 days annual leave per year plus 8 bank holidays
• Flexible work arrangements
• Unique pension scheme including 17% employer contribution
• Annual salary review
• Private medical insurance for you and your immediate family (including all prescriptions and generous dental & optical cover)
• Death benefit, long-term care, accident at work and unemployment insurances
• Relocation package including installation grant (if required)
• On-site library and subsidised on-site gym and cafeteria
• Casual dress code
• Free shuttle bus to and from Campus
• Extensive sports and social club activities (run on campus and remotely)
• Family benefits: Onsite nursery, child sick leave, generous parental leave, holiday clubs on campus and monthly family and child allowances
• Benefits for non-UK residents:Visa exemption, education grant for private schooling, financial support to travel back to your home country every second year and a monthly non-resident allowance

What else you need to know

This position is a 3 year contract, renewable to a maximum of 9 years. 

To apply please submit a covering letter and CV through our online system.  

At EMBL-EBI, we strongly believe that inclusive and diverse teams benefit from higher levels of innovation and creative thought. We encourage applications from women, LGBTQ and individuals from all nationalities. Visa exemptions will be offered to international candidates and details will be discussed during interview. We believe in science without borders and this continues after Brexit.

This role is based in Hinxton, UK and you will be required to relocate once it is safe to do so if you are currently based abroad. More info on how we are recruiting in this period is available on our page: Recruitment and Onboarding during Covid19.

Applications will close on 31st January 2021 and we aim to provide a response within two weeks after the closing date.