DevOps / Backend Developer, D-Team at Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Context

• We believe in a world where the rights of displaced and vulnerable persons are protected during a crisis. We do this through our programmes, where we provide assistance to meet immediate humanitarian needs, prevent further displacement and contribute to durable solutions.
• At the root of our programmes are our solid technical expertise and specific sectorial knowledge aiming for the highest possible quality, whether in stand-alone or integrated approaches.

Background

• Data and technology are the fuel for decision making, process improvement and analysis within the humanitarian sector.
• The DevOps Engineer will be responsible for developing and maintaining technical solutions which will provide direct benefit to our staff and the people that we serve.
• The main task will be to support the creation of an optimal development experience for various digital initiatives with a solid platform in Kubernetes-based cloud infrastructure.

Your team will focus on:

• Be the technical expert on the ongoing development of new NRC projects for all DevOps subjects (infrastructure’s resilience, security, performance, and cost-effectiveness)
• Perform the continuous improvement and SRE for legacy NRC projects
• Working on some fast-moving and dynamic projects the position will directly impact NRC’s ability to improve the lives of millions of people in an ever-changing world.

Role and Responsibilities

• The DevOps Engineer will work closely with other members of NRC’s D Team (Digital Transformation Team) to understand automation opportunities, develop recommendations and tasks, co-implement NRC’s infrastructure (Backbone) and support other teams.
• The position will also contribute to providing strategic direction, development/security standards, and DevOps training for other technical staff to improve and leverage overall development practice in NRC.

Generic Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the design, delivery, and rollout of the cloud platform (Infrastructure as Code) and actively participate in shaping solutions and setting up plans.
• Migrate NRC’s legacy applications to the centralised Kubernetes platform based in Azure.
• Produce periodic documentation to share progress and learning.
• Define and maintain Technical Devops Guidelines to be sure that news applications delivery respect all Best Practices Industry standards.
• Actively participate in promoting and embodying a highly collaborative, dynamic work culture.
• Ensure compliance and adherence to NRC's policies and procedures, especially in relation to information security and data protection standards.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Maintain and upkeeping of NRC’s Kubernetes (Staging + Production) clusters – hosting global applications, including data backup and restore functions.
• Write manifests and manage the automated deployment of application stacks to NRC’s Kubernetes clusters with the Infrastructure as Code concept.
• Setup and maintain automated CI / CD workflows (Continuous integration & continuous delivery).
• Prepare technical documentation and specifications on a regular basis.
• Create unit test plans, and contribute to functional/UAT test plans as needed.
• Provide technical oversight of external consultants’ work that includes custom design and assist in handover of these to NRC (to ensure long-term ownership).
• Support the recruitment of future NRC technical staff and support the evaluation of external technical consultants.
• Perform data migration and other integration work in a safe and controlled environment – validating these actions before going to live (production) systems.
• Communicate and represent NRC with partners, consultants, and service providers at a technical level.

Critical interfaces:

• By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons.
• Relevant interfaces for this position are:
  • Digital Transformation team members
  • ICT Support and Operations teams
  • ICT team across offices
  • Field Operations teams
  • Suppliers, consultants, and other external service providers
  • Application owners and developers (internal and external)
  • Peers from other organizations working on similar problems, particularly in the NetHope community

Qualifications / Competencies

• Competencies are important for the employee and the organisation to deliver desired results.
• They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following two categories:

Professional Competencies:
These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance.
Generic professional competencies for this position:

• Proven experience with IT projects.
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or related subjects or demonstrable expertise in the field.
• Advanced analytical skills and problem-solving attitude.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Capable of operating in an "Agile" environment and high levels of uncertainty.
• Comfortable working remotely within a geographically distributed team.
• Fluency in written and spoken English. Other languages are an asset.
• Pro-active in keeping up-to-date with industry trends and innovation

Context / Specific skills, knowledge and experience:

• Working knowledge of automating infrastructure in a cloud environment, preferably Azure.
• Previous experience in working with infrastructure as code (Terraform) and service mesh (Istio): Ability to comfortably use and configure Istio Service Mesh features, such as:
  • Authorization Policies
  • Ingress and Egress gateways (with or without SNI proxy-)
  • Request Authentication Policies
  • Virtual services, Gateways
• Knowledge and implementation of containerization and container orchestration: We use Docker, Kubernetes, Kustomize, etc.
• Preferable skills in Cloud security and cloud network
• Application operations knowledge (Backup, monitoring, deployment) will come in handy.
• Knowledge of one or more programming languages (Go, Python, etc) and/or scripting languages would be desired.

Behavioural Competencies:

• Analyzing: Understands and sees problems from different angles; able to break down complex problems and connect the dots; considers contextual caveats and risks.
• Planning and delivering results: Takes initiatives and sees things through to completion; anticipates problems and solves them, can operate with little to no direction.
• Coping with change: Adopts a flexible and responsive mindset; comfortable with uncertainty; can adapt plans quickly.
• Working with people: A team player by nature; able to build bridges across silos; defaults to sharing and supports colleagues in achieving their goals; focus on solutions rather than obstacles.

Performance Management:

• The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual.
• The following documents will be used for performance reviews:

The Job Description:

• Work and Professional Development Plan
• The Mid-term/End-of-trial Period Performance Review Template
• The End-term Performance Review Template
• The NRC Competency Framework.

We are also looking for people who share our values:

• To be dedicated to what we do;
• To be innovative with our solutions;
• To act as one unified and inclusive team;
• Curiosity, eagerness to learn and passion are more important than fulfilling all the requirements!
• If you are passionate about humanitarian work, technology, and the role, we would love to speak with you.

Remuneration
What makes this position attractive?

• You will collaborate with a passionate and experienced international team doing incredibly meaningful work advocating for the rights of people forced to flee.
• Our pay is competitive based on the sectoral standard and we are committed to your growth.  
• You get to work on a challenging and exciting opportunity that will provide direct benefit to NRC staff (7000 and counting) and beneficiaries (11 million and counting)
• A 1-year full-time contract (possibly extended) with Berlin as the preferred duty station but we are also open to considering other duty stations where NRC has an office (we support remote collaboration).