Storage Engineer Team Lead

What's this gig about?
You'll build and run a distributed team of 3-4 engineers maintaining the storage infrastructure of a global cloud services provider. (Glad that you found our ad even if Arbetsförmedlingen did not have that category..!)


What will I be working on?
If you decide to join us, you'll be working on several things:
We run City Cloud, an OpenStack based global public cloud that covers 7 distributed data centers. 4 of those regions already run fully on Ceph; your team would be responsible for these Ceph clusters. This includes upgrades, performance tuning, and improving observability.
The remaining public City Cloud regions are in the process of being migrated to Ceph; you and your team would take the lead in completing this migration.
We also run two separate OpenStack based cloud environments for our Compliant Cloud customers; your team would be responsible for those Ceph clusters as well.



What should I bring?
Here are the skills that you'll need to bring:
You should have a solid understanding of the Ceph storage platform, and operational experience running and maintaining Ceph clusters.
You should have at least two years' experience working in a distributed team, ideally in a team lead capacity.
You should be able to communicate in a concise and clear manner in English.
You should be comfortable with externalizing information.
You should know how to write to be understood.

As a second category, there are the skills that we're happy to teach you if you dont already have them!
Familiarity with the OpenStack platform.
An understanding of platform automation with Ansible.
Experience in building or improving observability in platforms you operate.

And then finally, there are some things that we can't teach you (and they're no deal-breaker), but that we would absolutely like to know about if you have them. Any of these are good in almost any extent, so even if one of these apply to you in the slightest, do let us know:
Broader familiarity with operating data center storage technology.
Proficiency in natural languages other than English.
Prior intercultural experience.

Are there formal education requirements I need to meet, such as a degree in a particular field?
Nope.
What can I learn?
Apart from the fact that you'd be very much deepening your technical skill set as a Ceph engineer and team lead, there are a many other learning and growth opportunities on our team:
This is an opportunity to become highly expert in the unique challenges of running a public cloud provider, from an operational and management perspective.
The entire learning curriculum at academy.citycloud.com is yours for the taking. We already have an array of courses there on technologies like OpenStack, Kubernetes, Ceph, and Terraform, and we continue to add more. You are absolutely welcome to plow through all of those.
We've got work as a distributed team down cold. We're also pretty public about what guidelines we follow when it comes to communicating in a distributed team.

What communities would I engage with?
You would engage primarily in the Ceph and OpenStack communities, although there is nothing to stop you from engaging more broadly with the open infrastructure, software-defined storage, and DevOps communities. We want you to build a reputation among your peers in the industry.
Who would be my direct manager?
Jennie Bondesson https://www.linkedin.com/in/je...
How's work at City Network?
We're growing pretty quickly at this stage, in customers, revenue, and head count. That said, we're also solidly profitable, and the company has existed for more than 15 years, so don't expect cash-burning startup insanity. This is all a good position to be in, but to be candid, just like any other company, we're not perfect.
As a company, we strive to improve and perfect the structure of how we collaborate and communicate, but we're not quite where we want to be in that regard. (We do have to set a pretty high bar here for ourselves, given that our role in the market comes with a great deal of responsibility.)


Our team is currently 50 people from 6 countries; we are 70% men and 30% women.
What does my team look like?
You'd be building a 4 person team (including yourself). That is a small team size, and that's quite deliberate.
We will be hiring two more new people to include on this team (where you will, of course, be involved in the hiring process).
One person from the existing engineering team will join your team.


Can I work from home?
Yes, indeed that's the expectation, but if it suits you better to work from one of our offices in Karlskrona or Stockholm, that's fine to. This is a position on a distributed team, where team members may work from home. You can work from anywhere where there's a reliable internet connection.


What countries can I work from?
Regretfully, we can't hire people currently residing in the United States.
For organizational reasons (we do occasionally meet in person, see below) we would generally prefer people who are able to travel to the EU without a visa.
Preferable you are a EU-citizen.
What timezone would I work in?
The majority of our team works in the CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2) timezones.


What employment conditions apply?
This is a full time position with 6 weeks' vacation. We have a company policy that specifies a 6-month probation period.
If you live in Sweden, you would be directly employed by City Network Hosting AB.
If you live in any country other than Sweden, we will enter into a contractor agreement as applicable to the legal situation in your country.


What will I make?
Your salary (if you live in Sweden, and you're thus a full employee) is € 55.000-70.000 annual — that is after employer taxes, before employee taxes, with legally applicable benefits.
If you live in another country, we make salary adjustments for purchasing power parity based on where you reside, according to the World Bank's PPP conversion rate applicable to your country.


I'm interested. What's next?
We'd like to hear from you! And we have a few additional questions we would like to ask you. Some of those are about your existing skills and strengths, but if one of them happens to leave you stumped, don't fret! That's totally OK. We don't expect you to bring everything to the table, we'd just like to know what we should prioritize in training. Note that most of the questions are non-mandatory.
#jobbjustnu