CLOUD ENGINEER

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is a leading Africa-based, African-led, international research institution headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. APHRC conducts policy-relevant research on population, health, education, urbanization, and related development issues in sub-Saharan Africa.

APHRC seeks to recruit a Cloud Engineer to join the Data Science and Evaluation (DSE) Theme.

 Duties/Responsibilities

The Data Science team is developing the DASSA (Data Science Architecture and Sharing Center in Africa) data platform to host data from multidisciplinary sources including in-house research studies stored at the APHRC microdata portal, data from several African Health and Demographic Health Surveys and open-source datasets. The Cloud Engineer will be responsible for designing, building and maintaining cloud-technology-based infrastructure that supports our organization’s technology goals. S/he will also ensure the security, reliability and scalability of the DASSA platform:

• Design, implement, and maintain private/public/hybrid cloud infrastructure using best practices and in accordance with our organization’s technology goals and objectives;
• Collaborate with cross-unit teams such as the health and well-being, population dynamics and urbanization, and human development. Data from units will be harmonized and made accessible through the federated platform;
• Work with full-stack developers, network engineers and IT security engineers to ensure that the DASSA platform is secure, reliable and scalable;
• Develop and implement processes and procedures for cloud-technology-based systems that ensure efficiency, stability and security;
• Automate infrastructure, data management and application deployments;
• Monitor and optimize the performance of the DASSA platform and ensure that systems are highly available, resilient and interoperable with other platforms in Africa;
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues related to cloud infrastructure, and work with cross functional teams to ensure quick resolution of any issues that arise; and
• Continuously evaluate and implement new tools and technologies that can help improve the efficiency, security and scalability of our cloud-based systems.

Qualifications, Skills, and Experience 

• Master’s degree or in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field.
• 5 years’ experience working as a Cloud Engineer, DevOps Engineer, or a related role.
• Strong understanding of cloud-technology-based infrastructure, including virtualization, networking, storage and security.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform and open source tools from the cloud native landscape.
• Experience with Infrastructure Code tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• Practical working knowledge of some of the following: Linux, Python, C++, R, Java, Networking, Bash, PowerShell.
• Know-how in containerizing applications with Docker and container orchestration with Kubernetes.
• Proficiency in SQL, ideally having worked with data warehouses and ETL jobs.
• Experience in data harmonization platforms and data models such as the OMOP common data model as a plus.
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools such as Prometheus, Grafana and ELK stack.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to quickly troubleshoot and resolve complex issues.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams.

This position is classified under Nationally Recruited Positions (NRP), Grade V in our scales.

Interested candidates are encouraged to apply through our recruitment portal https://aphrc.org/vacancies/ by March 26, 2023. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted; shortlisted candidates will be required to have a Police Clearance Certificate. Cover letters should be addressed to:

The Human Resources Officer

African Population and Health Research Center, Inc

APHRC Campus, Manga Close, off Kirawa Road, Kitisuru

P. O Box 10787-GPO, Nairobi

Website: www.aphrc.org

APHRC is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to the protection of vulnerable persons