Geoscience Australia | Senior Platform Engineer

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Geoscience Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities.
We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Cultures: and to elders past and present.

About us
Geoscience Australia is Australia's pre-eminent public sector geoscience organisation.
We are the nation's trusted advisor on the geology and geography of Australia.
We apply science and technology to describe and understand the Earth for the benefit of Australia.
We apply our diverse professional expertise, our deep and trusted knowledge, our national-scale Earth observation infrastructure and our strong partnerships, to the opportunities and challenges that face our nation.

Our culture
Our strength lies in our people, including our diversity in backgrounds, skills and experiences, and the way we work together to respond to the emerging needs of our work.
We value diversity in gender, backgrounds, culture, and experiences of our employees and are committed to providing an inclusive workplace culture that ensures everyone has equal opportunity to contribute, participate and progress.
Applications from people who reflect this diversity are encouraged.

Our workplace is committed to the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and offer a variety of flexible working arrangements to enhance flexibility, including remote working arrangements.

What we can offer you
When you work at Geoscience Australia you will have access to a range of benefits and the opportunity to experience a workplace culture that truly values and promotes diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging.
To learn more about our competitive salary, free onsite parking, generous flexible working arrangements and the role you can play in growing our culture click here.

Our team
Digital Earth is a program that creates free and open satellite data products for the benefit of Australia.
It's our mission to embed satellite imagery and data into decisions that support a sustainable Australian environment, a resilient society and a strong economy.

The Digital Earth team is fuelled by diversity and deep expertise.
We are a team of Earth observation and data scientists, system engineers, developers, and geospatial analysts.

We share our work through open access code repositories and scientific journals and have a strong track record of well-cited publications in the Earth observation domain.
We embrace a culture of exploration, of continual learning and development, and of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The Services and Support Section within Digital manages the ongoing operations and maintenance of all production products and services for the Branch.
We are additionally accountable for the Data and Digital services and strategy of the Branch, in alignment with corporate ICT practices.

The role
Digital Earth Australia (DEA) leverages Earth observation data to provide critical insights for sustainable land and water management, agriculture, urban planning, and environmental monitoring.
As a Senior Cloud Engineer, you will play a key role in advancing DEA's mission by architecting and maintaining cloud infrastructure that supports the large-scale storage, processing, and analysis of Earth observation data.
This infrastructure enables researchers, government agencies, and industry partners to access and use DEA's powerful tools and datasets to drive informed decision-making.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Cloud Engineer to oversee and enhance the cloud infrastructure supporting DEA's Earth observation platforms and services.
In this role, you will lead efforts to design, optimize, and secure cloud-based data pipelines and storage solutions for the vast Earth observation data DEA processes.
You will apply your expertise in cloud architecture, data engineering, and DevOps practices to ensure high availability, scalability, and efficiency of DEA's systems, enabling users to access real-time, high-quality geospatial insights.

In this role you will:
Architect and deploy cloud solutions for large-scale geospatial data storage and processing, ensuring infrastructure supports DEA's high performance and availability requirements.
Develop and maintain data pipelines for ingesting, processing, and archiving large Earth observation datasets, including those from satellite sources such as Landsat and Sentinel.
Implement best practices in security and compliance, ensuring that DEA's cloud infrastructure meets regulatory and operational standards for data protection and privacy.
Monitor cloud resource usage, optimize configurations, and implement cost-saving strategies to maximize DEA's cloud budget without compromising performance.
Work closely with data scientists, software engineers, and Earth observation experts to support DEA's data and analytics goals, providing infrastructure solutions that align with their technical needs.
Establish and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and robust monitoring frameworks to ensure the reliability and scalability of cloud services.
As part of DEA's commitment to open-source development, contribute to related projects and engage with the wider Earth observation community, fostering collaboration and shared innovation.
Essential qualifications, skills and experience
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Cloud Computing, Information Systems, or a related field.
Minimum of 5+ years in cloud engineering or infrastructure roles, with experience overseeing cloud environments at scale.
Deep understanding of cloud platforms, especially AWS, with experience in designing and optimizing large-scale infrastructure for data-heavy applications.
Proficiency with data processing tools (e.g., Apache Spark, Dask) and geospatial data libraries.
Strong knowledge of containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and orchestration for scalable, distributed computing.
Experience with Kubernetes and knowledge of Kubernetes cluster administration are highly desirable.
Expertise in infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tools, such as Terraform, for automated provisioning and management.
Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices.
To Apply
Please visit the careers page of our website to submit your application via our e-Recruit system.
Your application should include:
Your resume (no more than 3 pages) A brief statement (no more than 700 words) outlining your transferable skills, experience and capabilities related to the role and the value you would bring to Geoscience Australia.
To be eligible to apply for this position you must meet the below eligibility criteria.

Be an Australian Citizen at the closing date of application.
The successful applicant must be able to obtain, hold and maintain a security clearance of an appropriate level relevant to this role.
Commencement of employment is subject to the successful applicant undergoing and satisfying pre-employment screening, which includes a police history check.
Recruitability
RecruitAbility applies to this vacancy.
Under the RecruitAbility scheme you will be invited to participate in further assessment activity for the vacancy if you choose to apply under the scheme; declare you have a disability; and meet the minimum requirements for the position.
For more information please visit the Australian Public Service Commission website.

A merit list/pool may be created from this process.
If you are successful for the merit pool, your details may be shared with other Australian Public Service agencies unless you choose not to have your details shared.

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