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

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, emergency food security, and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: DevOps / Backend Developer, D-Team

Job Identification Number: 2735
Location: Nigeria
Job Schedule: Full time
Job Category: Information Technology and Systems
Reports To: Head of Unit, D team
Project Number: Different ones (NOMX0001, NOIS0003, etc)
Duration and type of contract: Initially 12 months with the possibility of extension

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).

Application Closing Date
21:27: 25th April, 2022.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here for more information (MS Word)

Note: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We welcome early applicants.