Wanted: Builders for Our Operations Team

Backblaze continues to build an awesome Operations team. If you want to be one of the builders on our team, we currently have three positions open. If either of the positions below fits your skills then follow the instructions at the end to be considered.

All positions require:

• Good attitude and willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
• Strong desire to work for a small, fast-paced company.
• Desire to learn and adapt to rapidly changing technologies and work environment.
• Rigorous adherence to best practices.
• Relentless attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and good oral/written communication.
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem solving skills.

Senior Systems Administrator

Responsibilities:

• Maintain multi-petabyte storage farm including low level RAID rebuilds, file system recovery, and hardware repairs.
• Deploy, configure, and maintain 100s of Linux systems and services using Ansible.
• Supervise routine drive replacements.
• Research new applications as needed and recommend specific packages and configurations.
• Help set up, maintain, and scale Backblaze’s web services including the static/dynamic web servers and monitoring systems.
• Help create, maintain, and improve operational bash shell scripts and manual procedures.
• Help hire and train IT staff as needed, including those in remote (global) locations.
• Participate in the pager rotation, respond to alerts as needed, review system logs and monitor security forums.

Requirements:

• Expert knowledge of Linux system administration; Debian experience preferred.
• 8+ years of experience.
• Experience supporting Apache, Tomcat, and Java services.
• Bash scripting skills desired.
• Ability to lift/move 50-75 lbs and work down near the floor as needed.
• Position based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California requiring 2+ days/week in San Mateo.

Junior Systems Administrator

Responsibilities:

• Help deploy, configure, and maintain systems, networks, and services including Storage Pods and static/dynamic web servers and monitoring systems.
• Available to work 1-2 days a week in a remote data center in the Sacramento area.
• Handle daily operational tasks including racking new servers, replacing drives, reviewing logs, etc.
• Perform basic system setups and configurations.
• Troubleshoot and resolve operational problems with active supervision.
• Follow and improve data center best practices documentation.
• Rebuild failed RAID arrays with supervision.
• Install new software patches, releases, and system upgrades.
• Help maintain monitoring systems to measure system availability and detect issues.
• Assist in effort to automate provisioning and other tasks that need to be run across hundreds of servers.
• Implement security measures required by corporate security policies.
• Receive and install IT Hardware.
• Receive and maintain data center inventory.
• Help train Operations staff as needed.
• Have 24×7 on-call responsibilities that will include occasional trips to data center to resolve issues that can’t be handled remotely.

Requirements:

• Working understanding of Linux system administration; Debian experience preferred.
• Experience supporting Apache, Tomcat, and Java services.
• Ability to lift/move 50-75 lbs and work down near the floor on a weekly basis.
• Working knowledge in shell & system scripting including Bash & Perl.
• Familiarity of system configuration management tools: Chef, Puppet, Ansible desirable.

Data Center Technician for Rancho Cordova Data Center

Responsibilities:

• Perform as Backblaze’s physical presence in the SunGard Rancho Cordova facility.
• Assist in managing SunGard’s 24×7 onsite team to install new equipment, replace drives, and other routine tasks with minimal supervision.
• Manage onsite inventory of hard drives, cables, rails, and other spare parts
• Manage the RMA process for defective components.
• Repair defective equipment with minimal supervision.
• Set up, test, and activate new equipment.
• Help train new data center technicians as needed.
• Help maintain infrastructure including racking equipment, replacing hard drives, and other system components as needed.
• Help with projects to install new systems and services as time allows.
• Follow and improve data center best practices documentation.
• On-call responsibilities include occasional 24×7 trips to data center to resolve issues that can’t be handled remotely.

Requirements:

• Working knowledge of Linux and/or ability to learn quickly.
• Approximately 1-2 years of experience.
• Excellent time management skills.
• Ability to lift/move 50-75 lbs and work down near the floor on a daily basis.
• Position based in Rancho Cordova, California and may require periodic visits to the corporate office in San Mateo.

Interested? Check out this video on our Data Center Operations team.

Want to join our team? Follow these three steps:

1. Send an Email to jobscontact@backblaze.com with one of the positions listed above in the subject line.
2. Include your resume.
3. Include your answers to two of the following three questions:
   • What about working at Backblaze excites you the most?
   • Provide three adjectives that best describe your personal workspace.
   • How would you manage boot images and system configurations on 1,000+ servers (i.e. Backblaze Storage Pods)?

We’ll be interviewing candidates over the next couple of weeks. Join us and help us continue to build a great online backup company.

Note: We added the position of Junior Systems Administrator about four hours after the initial post.

Backblaze is an Equal Opportunity Employer.