Senior System Administrator Storage

Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation.

Role highlights

• Join one of Australia's leading supercomputing and research infrastructure organisations
• Provide technical leadership across systems support for large-scale storage platforms
• Be part of a highly skilled team delivering critical national research infrastructure

About CSIRO

As Australia's national science agency, CSIRO is solving the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. Many of our iconic innovations were once considered impossible until someone, just like you, joined us and took on the challenge.

Visit CSIRO.au for more information.

The opportunity

Join Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre ’s Scientific Platforms Team and help deliver the storage infrastructure that underpins Australia's national research computing capability.

As a Senior System Administrator Storage you will you will play a key role in maintaining and continuously improving the large-scale storage platforms that support Australia's researchers. Working as part of a highly skilled team, you will provide technical leadership on systems support across complex storage environments designed to deliver reliable, resilient and long-term access to research data.

A key focus of the role will be supporting Pawsey's major storage platforms, including Acacia, one of the world's largest research object storage systems built on Ceph, and Banksia, a large-scale tape archive storing more than 170PB of research data.

This is an exciting opportunity to work with cutting-edge storage and HPC technologies while contributing to research outcomes of national importance.

Your high-level duties will include:

• Leading the operation, maintenance and optimisation of Pawsey's object storage and archive infrastructure.
• Undertaking complex troubleshooting, problem resolution and continuous improvement activities across storage services and supporting systems.
• Providing technical leadership across storage, cloud, HPC, Linux and supporting platform technologies.
• Managing archive workflows, data movement, automation and re-archiving activities.
• Performing hands-on infrastructure tasks including server, storage, tape library and networking hardware maintenance.
• Developing and maintaining technical documentation, operational procedures and knowledge resources.
• Supporting service delivery through effective incident, request and change management processes.
• Collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to ensure research users receive reliable and efficient services.

Role particulars

Location: Kensington, Perth

Salary: AU$118k - AU$127k pa + 15.4% superannuation

Tenure: Specified term of 18 months, Full-time

Reference: 104346

As the successful candidate, you will bring:

• Relevant tertiary or graduate qualification in Science, Computing or Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated experience in the administration of Linux or Unix systems.
• Previous experience operating HSM or a Tape Archive or Tape or Object based backups (TSM, Bacula), as well as Ceph storage infrastructure, or other storage technologies such as SAN.
• Demonstrated ability and commitment to develop and apply knowledge of complex, interconnected systems, including the primary systems under your responsibility, associated services and supporting technologies. This may include network monitoring, centralised system logging, high-performance file systems and related infrastructure.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and the ability to use these skills to engage effectively with colleagues and clients
• The ability to work effectively independently and provide technical guidance to a team
• Demonstrated ability to contribute innovative ideas and approaches that enhance the delivery of computing services to researchers and clients, with a capacity to take ownership of and deliver agreed solutions, outcomes and continuous service improvements.
• A demonstrated commitment to health, safety, and wellbeing of staff, willing to challenge the status quo in pursuit of Zero Harm.

For full details about this role, and other criteria, please review thePosition Description..

Support and workplace adjustments

We offer a range of reasonable supports and workplace adjustments. Please reach out to the contact person in the Position Description if we can help you to equitably participate in our recruitment process or the role itself.

Not sure if you meet all the criteria?

While it is CSIRO policy that the successful candidate must meet all the essential criteria, there are many ways to demonstrate this. Don’t let the list discourage you. If you are unsure about applying, please reach out to the contact person in the Position Description.

Setting you up for success

We are committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible to everyone. We recognise that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. Please reach out to the contact on page 1 of the position description, to let us know how we can support you.

Life at CSIRO and flexible work arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. We can discuss flexible work arrangements with you during the recruitment process.CSIRO also offers a range of leave entitlements, benefits and career development opportunities. To find out more, visit Careers at CSIRO.

Inclusion and belonging

Solving Australia's greatest challenges takes a diversity of minds and lived experiences. We know diverse teams are more effective and deliver more innovative outcomes. As an equal employment opportunity organisation, we are committed to creating diverse and inclusive teams where people feel they belong. We recognise true diversity encompasses all ages, abilities, cultures, faiths, levels of education, genders, sexualities, diversity of thought and much more. We focus on hiring people who share our values of People First, Further Together, Making it Real and Trusted.

CSIRO holds Platinum Status for the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and a Science in Australia Gender Equity Bronze Award.

Eligibility

Applications for this position are open to Australian Citizens, New Zealand Citizens and Australian Permanent Residents.

Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

Child safety

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy.

How to apply

Please apply online by submitting your CV and responses to each of the selection criteria as outlined on the position description (maximum 3 pages). Your application should demonstrate your motivation for the role and your ability to meet the essential requirements.

Applications close

1st November 2026, 8pm (AWST)