System Administrator Middle / Senior

We are Timeweb Cloud, a cloud solutions provider with a geographically distributed infrastructure. We develop a full-fledged IaaS/PaaS platform that includes Managed Kubernetes services, DBaaS, S3 object storage, Load Balancing as a Service (LBaaS), and virtual private networks.

We are looking for a system administrator who will handle non-standard server configurations, investigate complex incidents, and automate everything that moves.

Role focus — cloud infrastructure: virtualization, networking (overlay/underlay), performance, platform-level incidents.

What you will do:

• Investigate complex problems
• Analyze logs, traces, and metrics to find root causes of incidents in any part of the cloud.
• Diagnose problems at the level of Python services and scripts (understanding the code is sufficient, active development is not required).
• Work with the Linux kernel, network stack to find bottlenecks.
• Design and install non-standard configurations
• Deploy distributed systems in production and under live load.
• Optimize the performance of virtualization hosts and network dataplane components (NUMA, IRQ/RPS, I/O, schedulers).
• Participate in architectural design of new solutions with the team.
• Write scripts in Bash and Python to automate software installation and server configuration.
• Work with configuration management systems (SaltStack / Ansible).
• Configure and develop monitoring (Zabbix and other systems).
• Participate in on-call rotations (approximately one week per month, oncall).
• Assist in resolving emergency situations when standard tools and junior teams are insufficient.

We expect from you:

• Deep understanding of Linux operation: cgroups, namespaces, network stack, systemd, processes, and initialization system.
• Understanding of processor topology, including NUMA, and the ability to consider it when configuring performance.
• Ability to investigate problems at the kernel and system call level: from analyzing logs and strace to finding bottlenecks.
• Understanding of disk I/O, file systems, volume managers, and schedulers.
• Experience with QEMU/KVM and libvirt.
• Understanding the differences between virtual machines and containers.
• Understanding of VLAN, VXLAN, BGP.
• Experience with OpenvSwitch, understanding of OpenFlow.
• Experience with SaltStack and/or Ansible.
• Configuration and support of monitoring (Zabbix or similar).
• Python at the code reading level (understanding what is happening in services and scripts).
• Confident Bash skills.

Will be a huge plus:

• Basic understanding of Ceph: what it is, how S3 and RBD disks for virtual machines are built on it.
• Experience with SAN/NAS.
• SDN and virtualization
• Experience with OpenStack / OpenNebula / oVirt.
• Familiarity with SDN solutions (OVN, Tungsten Fabric).

Our stack:

• OS and virtualization: Linux, QEMU, KVM, libvirt
• Networking: VLAN, VXLAN, BGP, OpenvSwitch, OpenFlow, FRR
• Automation: SaltStack, Ansible, Bash, Python
• Monitoring: Zabbix, Prometheus, Victoria Metrics
• Storage: Ceph
• CI/CD: GitLab CI/CD

What we offer:

• Official employment in an accredited IT company with all the ensuing benefits;
• Voluntary Medical Insurance (DMS);
• Sports compensation;
• Psychological counseling compensation;
• 8 additional days off per year - 2 each quarter;
• Remote work format or work in the office near Moskovskiye Vorota metro station (St. Petersburg) with the possibility of hybrid work - at your choice.

Additional benefits for those working in our St. Petersburg office:

• Office doctor visits;
• Meal compensation via "NaLunch";
• Office library, opportunity to learn from colleagues from other departments and divisions.
• Office kitchen with unlimited coffee, tea, fruits, and snacks.