Research Associate - IT Infrastructure Lead

Job Summary

Research Associate – IT Infrastructure Lead;
Department:
Quantitative Biomedicine Institute;
Salary:
Minimum $85,588. The position is located at the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, Piscataway, NJ.

We are seeking a highly technical and experienced individual to lead our team of systems administrators and Dev Ops engineers while actively supporting the design, implementation, and operation of our infrastructure and services. The successful candidate will develop and implement an IT strategy that aligns with our organization’s mission, oversee day‑to‑day IT operations, ensure the security and stability of critical systems, and collaborate with scientific application developers, software developers, and trainers to support key web services for a global scientific community.

• Lead the Dev Ops team and manage daily operations of our IT infrastructure and services, including CI/CD pipelines, networks, security, applications, and hardware.
• Provide support with debugging and troubleshooting complex production issues across application, infrastructure, and data layers; lead incident response, root‑cause analysis, and long‑term remediation efforts.
• Develop and implement a long‑term, multi‑year IT infrastructure strategy, identifying, anticipating, and prioritizing infrastructure needs for the organization.
• Manage budgeting and vendor relationships with hardware and service providers.
• Develop and maintain code for automation and infrastructure, including provisioning, deployment, monitoring, and operational workflows (infrastructure as code).
• Establish project plans and track progress of work to monitor risks and deliverables.
• Serve as one of the technical subject‑matter experts within the organization, providing guidance and answering technical questions to internal and external stakeholders and partners.
• Collaborate closely with software and scientific application developers to ensure systems are observable, operable, and performant in production, and contribute to application code when needed to diagnose or resolve issues.

Other related activities:
The candidate should be comfortable working in a fast‑changing environment, think creatively, demonstrate a deep understanding of modern IT infrastructure, and maintain a willingness to learn new skills and technologies.

A degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related discipline and a minimum of 5 years of equivalent work experience in Information Technology or a related field. Any educational background or experience in bioinformatics or biochemistry will be considered a plus.

• Minimum 5 years of experience in IT.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to address and resolve unprecedented technical issues.
• Strong understanding of IT infrastructures across the entire stack, including hardware and network components, security, and cloud technologies.
• In‑depth experience with Kubernetes and Docker; strong experience working with at least one of NodeJS, Java, or Python. Experience with more than one will be considered a plus.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact and work with stakeholders across various levels and technical backgrounds.
• Experience developing and maintaining modern Dev Ops CI/CD pipelines; prior experience with Git Hub Actions will be considered a plus.
• Experience administering a Linux operating system server environment.
• Experience working in data centers, maintaining service uptime, including hardware installation, equipment moves, networking, power consumption management, and interaction with data center personnel.
• Experience with email services setup and administration, platform migration, and general management of multi‑email systems.

• Hands‑on experience working with Mongo
  
  DB and Elasticsearch clusters.
• Experience with tooling and automation for commercial cloud environments (AWS, GCP).

• Medical, prescription drug, and dental coverage.
• Paid vacation, holidays, and various leave programs.
• Competitive retirement benefits,…