We’re growing and are looking for Debian Linux System Administors that would like to grow with us and provide sysadmin services to our customers.
TL;DR: (in random order) Debian Linux / Apache / PHP / MySQL / Python / Puppet / KVM / Qemu / PostgreSQL / Tomcat / GlassFish / Logstash / ElasticSearch / HAProxy / Graphite / Heartbeat / Pacemaker / Postfix / Icinga / NFS / DRBD / OCFS2 / Ext4 / Varnish / Unbound / POSIX File Permissions / Git / Kibana / Docker / Awesomeness
Who We Are
Kumina has been around since 2007, but we’re slow growers. Our ideal is to grow no larger than 10-12 people. Expansion should be done by automating the hell out of our work and making ourself obsolete so we can persue new knowledge and improve our own workflow. We stand behind the ideals of open source software and prefer working with packages from Debian. Our customers are very diverse, from large magazines to stockphoto sellers, from large multinational corporations that cater to telecom companies to a small foundation that helps people who kicked a bad habit back to work. The biggest common denominator between the customers are that they all run webapplications. We want to provide top quality services, whether it’s on our own VM platform, a customer’s own hardware or somewhere else entirely. We’re always innovating and trying to find new solutions to old problems. We take the time to implement proper solutions and tend to dislike workarounds for problems.
Your coworker’s Linux experience range from 15+ years to almost 2 years of experience, so there’s always something to learn or teach.
Who We Are Looking For
The most important quality we’re looking for is someone who fits into our team. We can be pretty chaotic, direct, obnoxious, distracted, distractive, busy and hyperactive, all at the same time, no kidding. You need to be able to work in this environment and although there are lots of moments in which everyone is focussed on their task, it can change in the blink of an eye.
We’re looking for someone with Linux/Unix experience, Debian Linux experience is preferred, but mostly because that’s what we use. If you’re a CentOS person and do not mind switching and learning about Debian, that’s fine too. The top of this post has a list of software we interact with on a regular basis, knowledge and experience with a few of them would be appreciated. We do not have actual LPI certifications (although we have some good books in our bookcase regarding LPI), but having knowledge equivalent to LPI level 2 is definitely preferred.
Currently, we do most of our configuration management via Puppet. But we’re planning massive changes in our workflow, so experience with other configuration systems is appreciated.
Willingness to learn and teach is another important quality we’re looking for. We try to have weekly presentations regarding technology, varying from an explanation about Apache MPMs to building Kibana dashboards. You’re expected to pass on knowledge to your coworkers and document much (and a bit more) as needed. We do consider most of our puppet code documentation as well (and have separate documentation for classes and defines, of course).
We’re not really interested in your formal education or math skill, we do want to see some of your work regarding scripting in Shell script or Python or Ruby. Being fluent in English is a must and speaking/writing excellent Dutch is definitely a pre.
The Job
Most of our time is spent on innovating our own business process and this is a continuous process, expect a lot of changes. We spent time on testing new technologies and integrating that into our processes.
That said, we always make time to help customers. Requests vary from adding serveraliases (which we should automate!) to setting up entire new environments for customers. We tend to work with customers, so expect a lot of communication, but we do prefer email and irc over other forms of contact.
Another part of our work is troubleshooting of problems. We have a 24×7 service for which we operate with rotating weekly shifts. Once you have enough experience with the way we work, you’ll be scheduled into those shifts as well (don’t expect too many calls outside of business hours, tough, one time during a single rotation is considered a lot). Once you’re part of the rotating shifts, you’ll get a phone from us as well.
We work from the office in Eindhoven 4 days a week, generally. Since we prefer traveling by public transit and none of us actually live near Eindhoven, we arrive at the office somewhere between 8:50 and 9:10. Although we try to be flexible in working hours, it’s important that we can depend on you being there at the times we’ve agreed upon!
Lunch is on Kumina when we’re working at the office and we’ve got our own coffee machine which grinds beans and makes awesome coffee. Should problems or projects require us to stay in the office late, dinner is on Kumina as well (but the last time that happened is almost a year ago).
Everything we do is a team effort and we expect you to be a team player. We do not have room for isolated individuals, we need you to complement our team. We expect you to be pro-active and pick up requests and problems from customers when they arrive (or even before) without being told to.
The Location
Our office is situated in the centre of Eindhoven, it is just a ten minute walk from the station.
We expect you to be able to work from our office several days a week so if you live in close proximity to Eindhoven, that’s convenient, but of course it’s up to you how far you’re willing to travel. Working from home is possible (requires an internet connection, which you need to get yourself and a computer, which we can supply) but is not mandatory.
What Do We Offer
We offer a slightly chaotic but very open environment in which your are encouraged to keep exploring new technologies and ideas. Contributing to the open source community is highly encouraged. We are proud of our work and the things we do and we encourage you to improve on our processes so you can be proud as well.
Based on your skills, we can offer you a salary between €35k and €45k, depending on the level of your skills. If you’re truly exceptional, we might be willing to pay you even more, but you’ll have to prove your exceptionality. Your income will grow with the company and pay raises can happen often, depending on our success. If the company is doing well financially, so will you. A 10% increase is not unheard of.
Based on a 40 hour work week, you’ll get 25 days of paid holiday. This excludes national holidays, so those are extra. If you prefer to work less, those 25 days are scaled to match.
Interested?
Let us know! Mail us at jobs@kumina.nl with some details about you. Links to online repository which contains your commits are appreciated, but we recognise that not all sysadmins are programmers. Tell us about you and why you’re interested in the job. A resume is interesting, just like links to your LinkedIn account. If you have questions, you can mail those as well.
Or join us on IRC (channel >#kumina on irc.kumina.nl). If you type ‘kumina’ in a sentence, we’ll get a highlight, just keep in mind that it might take a little while before we react, depending on who’s online and how busy it is.
We’re looking forward to meet you!