Operations Engineer FTC

Overview

Reality Mine has been a pioneer in delivering data-driven insights to the media and market research industries for over a decade. Our data capture systems give our customers insight into the online behaviour of opted-in market research participants, collected in a privacy-safe way, enabling them to make strategic, informed decisions.

We are seeking an Operations Engineer FTC (Fixed Term Contract, 12 months) to support the operation, maintenance and controlled evolution of our legacy server-based VPN data capture systems. This role is focused on Linux-based server operations, deployment, scaling, monitoring and proactive maintenance of customer-facing capture infrastructure.

Reality Mine is looking for an Operations Engineer FTC (Fixed Term Contract, 12 months) to help maintain and operate the VPN server data capture systems that underpin customer research projects. The work is operational and hands-on, with a strong emphasis on Linux administration, traditional hosted servers, deployment, capacity management, monitoring and issue resolution. The primary focus is the legacy SVPN platform and its supporting services.

These systems provide hosted VPN-based capture capability for opted-in market research participants and are built from a combination of open-source and bespoke software running on Linux.

The candidate will focus on keeping the server estate reliable, secure and appropriately scaled, including reviewing operational metrics, investigating performance trends, responding to monitoring alerts and addressing security notifications or findings proactively. The environment is Linux-heavy and includes traditional dedicated and virtual servers hosted with third-party providers. Some work will involve capacity reduction as legacy usage declines, while other areas may require short-term scaling, tuning or operational improvement to maintain service quality.

The role will involve working with existing tooling and processes, including exposure to Puppet and supporting applications or scripts written in PHP and Python. Deep development experience is not essential, but the ability to understand, troubleshoot and make safe operational changes in these technologies would be valuable.

You will work closely with the Operations Team Lead, Server Capture technical colleagues and wider engineering stakeholders to plan and carry out maintenance, deployments, capacity changes and incident follow-up in a controlled and well-communicated way. Our offices are in Trafford Park, Manchester, and the role is delivered on a hybrid basis where collaboration, handover and operational planning benefit from time with the team.

• Maintain and administer Linux-based SVPN data capture servers and supporting services
• Plan and execute controlled deployments, configuration updates and operational changes
• Manage capacity across the legacy estate, including reducing unused capacity where appropriate and scaling up where customer demand requires it
• Review metrics, performance indicators, monitoring dashboards, alarms and alerts to identify and address issues early
• Investigate service performance, availability and reliability issues across traditional hosted server environments
• Respond to security notifications, vulnerability findings and operational risks, coordinating remediation through agreed processes
• Work with dedicated server and VPS providers to provision, resize, decommission or troubleshoot infrastructure
• Use existing automation and configuration management, including Puppet, to support repeatable and controlled operations
• Troubleshoot operational issues involving supporting PHP and Python code or scripts where needed
• Document changes, follow established processes and communicate operational status clearly to the team
• Adhere to company policies and procedures with respect to security, quality and health and safety

We are looking for someone who can become productive quickly in an established operational environment, work carefully with legacy systems, and bring a pragmatic approach to keeping critical services stable, secure and observable.

You should be comfortable working with…