OpenStack Cloud Engineer

The Cloud Engineer is a key element within the Rackspace support infrastructure and is expected to provide a high level of technical support to our customers via the phone, ticketing system, and automation. This role owns complex customer issues which may take several days or weeks to resolve and keeps our customers updated through every step of the process. Responsible for the support of internal and external customers on multiple platforms. Work with customers and other teams to troubleshoot customer environments to increase user satisfaction. Resolves customer issues, providing guidance and recommendations to increase efficiency and reduce customer incidents. Develops tooling and processes to drive and improve customer experience, creates playbooks, and providing mentoring on customer related issues to support teams. The Support Engineer is expected to take initiative and advise on potential pitfalls that a customer may encounter and suggest alternatives which may better serve the stability and security of the customer's solution. Keeps informed of emerging technologies. Responsible for adhering to company security policies and procedures and any other relevant policies and standards as directed.

Career Level Summary

Requires specialized depth and/or breadth of expertise in own job discipline or field

Leads others to solve complex problems

Works independently, with guidance in only the most complex situations

May provide functional leadership to teams or projects

Critical Competencies

Systems Thinking: Enables optimum organizational efficiency by taking a whole systems approach and thinking across boundaries to identify which polices/processes should be standardized and which should differ

Idea Creation: Examines new ideas of solutions, methods and products to ensure the potential and alignment with departmental and business goals

Work Location: MUST be Onsite role at the Toronto office

Key Responsibilities

• Technical point of escalation to the Cloud Support and Engineering teams; resolving customer issues, working in collaboration with partners across the business, as required
• Lead cross-functional business continuity/transformational projects and customer engagements (both technical and non-technical), delivering key objectives for the Organization
• Advise leadership in setting and executing technological strategy to ensure Rackspace remain head of industry
• Proactively assess, propose, and implement enhancements to system architecture, problem management, fleet management, process improvement, reporting, product integration and customer infrastructure
• Lead Workload/Workforce Management and Optimization related tasks
• Review technical training for all Rackers supporting Rackspace Supported Cloud Products
• Coach, mentor and assists Rackers across the business
• Provide technical expertise underpinning communications targeting a range of stakeholders - from individual contributors to leaders across the business
• Collaborate with Account Managers and Business Development Consultants to build strong customer relationships
• Collaborate and share knowledge with other Engineers on the support floor

Must Have Skills

• Advanced knowledge of Cloud Platform Products such as OpenStack Ansible, Red Hat OSP and Kubernetes
• Advanced skills in at least one of the following languages: , Python, PHP, Ruby, and Java
• Advanced skills with git and git workflows
• Advanced skills in leveraging CI and CD tools to automate testing and deployment
• Advanced knowledge of Linux or Windows OS, including but not limited to: Server Failover Clustering, Active Directory, IIS
• Broad knowledge of the following with deep knowledge of some: PHP, Python, Ruby, Javascript, Memcached, LAMP, nginx, , nosql, Varnish
• Strong web programming and scripting ability
• Strong knowledge of designing, building, implementing, analyzing, and troubleshooting distributed, highly available systems
• Strong automation skills with at least one configuration management system such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt, or other such tools
• Strong knowledge of software development methodologies including code profiling, regression testing, and continuous integration
• Strong knowledge of Project Management methodologies
• Strong understanding of services and protocols, configuration, management, and troubleshooting of hosting environments, including web servers, databases, caching, and database services
• Strong knowledge in the application of current and emerging network software and hardware technology and protocols
• Requires specialized depth and/or breadth of expertise in own job discipline or field
• Interprets internal/external business challenges and recommends best practices to improve products, processes or services

Skills

• Passionate about technology and has a desire to constantly expand technical knowledge
• Detail-oriented in documenting information and able to own customer issues through resolution
• Able to handle multiple tasks and prioritize work under pressure
• Demonstrate sound problem-solving skills coupled with a desire to take on responsibility
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, both highly technical and non-technical
• Ability to communicate technical issues to nontechnical and technical audiences
• English language fluency preferred

Education:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related technical field
• At the Manager's discretion, 4 years of additional related experience may substitute for the degree requirement; if substitution allowed, regional equivalent to High School Diploma is required.

Required Skills

• 8 -11 years of technical engineering and administration experience
• Minimum 5 - 6 years hands-on experience supporting Linux systems including 2 or more of:
• Virtualization - primarily using KVM or OpenStack.
• Automation - Ansible, Puppet, SaltStack or other IT automation tools for medium and large environments with practical experience of Ansible Playbook creation
• Containers - especially with Docker, LXD/LXC, or Kubernetes.
• Storage technologies - block, object and network.
• Networking (bonding, firewalling, bridging, switching, network file system tuning, MTU issues, etc.)
• Linux integration with other environments (authentication/directory services, network file systems, etc.)
• Cloud computing (provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, etc.)

Troubleshooting experience:

• Basicreading of stack traces to be able to search for duplicates, escalate to the correct team.
• Understand OS and Application level bugs and advise on next steps
• Programming fundamentals in any language.

Customer support experience:

• Customer support is a priority
• Excellent communication skills
• 3+ years of current commercial experience working with a high-traffic site
• Experience with high-availability, high-performance, open source web technologies
• Experience automating and orchestrating workloads across multiple public cloud providers
• Experience with cloud platforms, open source databases and caching layers
• Experience working in a containerized environment (Docker/LXC)

Physical Demands

• General office environment: no special physical demands required
• May require long periods sitting and viewing a computer monitor
• May require work on non-traditional shifts
• Schedule flexibility to include working weekends and/or evenings and holidays as required by the business for 24/7 operations
• A willingness to work weekends and/or holidays when required as the business dictates