Systems Programming Specialist – Linux / HPC - Develop secure Linux platforms and automation tooling for a complex supercomputing setting

Fishermans Bend, Victoria / Edinburgh, South Australia

Your new company

Join a highly technical Australian Government environment delivering secure supercomputing capabilities in support of advanced research. The multidisciplinary team develops and operates the Linux-based platforms, operating systems and privileged-space tooling underpinning a many-user supercomputer. This contract offers exposure to complex systems engineering, modern DevSecOps practices and high-performance computing infrastructure, with opportunities to collaborate closely with platform, infrastructure and research stakeholders.

The hiring organisation remains confidential throughout the initial recruitment process.

Your new role

As a Systems Programming Specialist, you will join the Supercomputing Platforms team to develop, maintain and support the base operating-system images and core tooling used across a secure supercomputing platform.

- Developing complex base-image artefacts aligned with design, security and performance requirements
- Building automation tools, configuration templates and supporting technical documentation
- Designing and maintaining testing and deployment pipelines
- Containerising services and implementing configuration-as-code practices
- Developing RBAC, HBAC, identity-management and access-control solutions
- Creating tools for project self-management, storage, filesystems and cluster administration
- Collaborating with infrastructure, project and research stakeholders while transferring knowledge to internal staff





The position must operate within established security boundaries and comply with Australian Government information-management requirements.

What you’ll need to succeed

You will be an experienced Linux systems programmer or platform engineer with strong automation skills and the ability to work effectively in a secure, stakeholder-rich environment.

- Systems-programming experience in Linux environments
- Deep knowledge of Linux internals, operating-system images, provisioning and configuration
- Experience with technologies such as Kickstart, cloud-init, PXE, Packer or equivalent
- Experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for system images and automation workflows
- Competence with configuration-as-code and infrastructure-automation tools such as Ansible
- Strong knowledge of identity and access management, including RBAC and technologies such as LDAP, Active Directory, FreeIPA or IDM
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, HPC schedulers such as Slurm or PBS, and high-performance networking such as InfiniBand or RDMA

An active Negative Vetting 2 security clearance is required.

What you’ll get in return

This is an opportunity to make a hands-on technical contribution within a sophisticated and security-focused computing environment.

- An initial contract term of 20 months, ending 30 June 2028
- Two potential 12-month extension options
- Exposure to modern DevSecOps, Linux automation and high-performance computing
- The opportunity to develop reliable and reproducible tooling for a large-scale supercomputing platform
- A government site-based environment in Fishermans Bend, Victoria, or Edinburgh, South Australia, with at least four days onsite each week

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