Global Tech Systems Support Engineer

Job Title: Global Tech Systems Support Engineer
Reports to: Global Technology Hub Director
Location: Remote
Duration: 18 months (with possible extension)
Start Date: ASAP
LoE: 60 – 100% (depending on scope of contract with successful applicant)
Salary: Salary commensurate with experience

About Internews:

Internews empowers people worldwide with the trustworthy, high-quality news and information they need to make informed decisions, participate in their communities, and hold power to account. Our vision is to unleash human potential everywhere by turning on the bright light of information.

For more than 35 years, in more than 100 countries, Internews has worked to build healthy media and information environments where they are most needed. We have proudly launched hundreds of sustainable organizations, bolstered the skills of thousands of media professionals, activists, and citizens, and helped our partners reach millions of people with quality, local information.

Internews is a non-profit organisation operating internationally, with administrative centres in California, Washington DC, London and Paris as well as regional hubs in Bangkok, Kiev and Nairobi. Formed in 1982, Internews currently has offices in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.

Job description

Internews seeks an experienced system administrator to join its Global Technology Hub (GTH) for an initial 18-month contract. You’ll be taking part in our work supporting media and civil society remain online, securely and accessibly, and helping develop and iterate processes that can be replicated across Internews projects and support local partners’ digital capacity.

This is a junior-level internet systems engineering and administration position within a small team that is part of the larger Global Technology Program at Internews, which oversees diverse projects. You will take on a variety of devops, sysops and investigative tasks – with supervision and with the possibility for structured learning opportunities along the way.

The work of this position focuses around information security and accessibility, and it involves working with partners, charities and NGOs worldwide. English is our work language within the team, and fluency is required. Additional language fluency or understanding is beneficial.

Requirements and skills:

You will need to have hands-on experience in all of these areas:

• Linux, and use of the command line.
• Scripting for configuration and automation.
• Working in Git (using Github, Gitlab or other);
• Administration and security of web platforms (WordPress, Drupal, Node, Django, etc.).
• Documentation ability and clear writing for hand-over.
• Patience, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to explain technical concepts in plain language for those with different levels of digital experience and understanding.
• Ability to work in a globally distributed team.
• Ability to provide support remotely.
• Passions for free expression and internet freedom.

Useful skills:

You will have direct, hands-on experience using two or more of the following skills:

• Fluency in on or more other spoken and written languages in addition to English.
• Working in one or more of the following: Bash, Python, Ansible, Yaml.
• Leveraging APIs and third-party services.
• Scaping and bootstrapping.
• Technical platform assessment, security research, and analysis.

Responsibilities:

• Onboarding and migration of websites and web applications.
• Systems administration support for websites built in WordPress, Drupal, Django, Node, Jekyll, Hugo, and other systems.
• Helping to monitor and implement security updates at server and web application levels.
• Co-building and running QA tests, performing technical security reviews of web platforms, and implementing bug fixes in contributed code and frameworks.
• Supporting professional archiving of project sites (to preserve sites at their URLs in flat-site gitlab/github pages or in hosted environments, and as formally archived sites at The Internet Archive (web.archive.org).
• Following established pipelines and check lists for work moving from development to staging and/or production environments.
• Providing support as needed to for continuous integration setups for automated site deployment using gitlab or github, adding content management integrations (such as Prose.io) for flat-file sites to relevant sites.
• Supporting server and web application updates and content migrations.
• Onboard external developers into workflows and processes for submitting, fixing and maintaining work.
• Helping the team to maintain an automation toolset including git, charts and playbooks.
• Collaborating or offering input where relevant on documentation of processes and in extending training materials.
• Collaborating with an international team to maintain good communications, timelines and maintain reasonable expectations on service delivery.

How to apply

Please respond with ALL of the following REQUIRED items. When you submit your application, you must include:

• A CV in English.
• A cover letter explaining your background, qualifications and interest in this role, in English.
• 2-3 references that could be checked upon a conditional offer of employment.

If you prefer to use PGP encrypted email or other secure means to communicate, this can be accommodated, please use the above address to first let us know your preference if you have special requirements.

Extra submission materials

Links to relevant samples of work (Git repositories, online materials or related writings or other creations or proof of experience and/or skills) are helpful, if you have them, but not essential to the application process.

Technologies and processes

Possibly helpful for your application, projects supported by this team can incorporate: Python, Perl, PHP, LAMP, LEMP, Kubernetes, Docker, Salt, Chef, Jenkins , Mariadb, MySQL, CI/CD, Continuous Integration and GitOps.