The APO Technical Lead & Deputy Manager is a senior technical and leadership position within the Archive/Pipeline Operations (APO) Group of the ALMA Department of Computing. The role provides technical direction, coordinates operational and project activities, and helps ensure the availability, performance, security, and evolution of the Observatory systems used for scientific data archiving, processing, replication, distribution, and database services.

Working closely with the APO Manager, the position translates operational and strategic priorities into coordinated technical plans, assigns and follows up work, manages technical risks and dependencies, and provides hands-on support for complex incidents and escalations. The role collaborates with ADC Software and IT teams, Science Operations, the Integrated Computing Team, ALMA Regional Centres, and external technical partners in Europe, North America, and East Asia.

As Deputy Manager, the position supports group planning, people management, budget preparation, stakeholder communication, service reporting, and continuous improvement. The role acts on behalf of the APO Manager when delegated or during the Manager’s absence.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Technical Leadership and Service Coordination

- Provide technical leadership for the APO Group and coordinate daily operational, maintenance, project, and improvement activities.
- Translate group priorities into clear work plans, assign technical tasks in consultation with the APO Manager, and monitor progress, dependencies, risks, and deliverables.
- Coordinate the lifecycle, maintenance, and evolution of archive, pipeline-processing, database, storage, replication, monitoring, and supporting infrastructure.
- Lead or coordinate technical activities related to NGAS, Oracle, processing clusters, high-performance storage, networking, and other APO-managed platforms.
- Ensure that technical decisions, architectures, operational procedures, standards, and recovery processes are documented, reviewed, and maintained.
- Promote standardization, automation, observability, cybersecurity, service resilience, and operational efficiency across APO-managed systems.
- Coordinate technical readiness for planned maintenance, upgrades, deployments, disaster-recovery tests, and major operational changes.
- Represent APO in technical working groups, reviews, cross-department initiatives, and projects, and communicate relevant outcomes to the group and management.

Operational Support and Technical Escalation

- Act as a senior escalation point for critical incidents affecting archive, pipeline, database, storage, replication, or processing services.
- Provide hands-on diagnosis and resolution support for complex Linux, Oracle, storage, high-performance computing, and dataflow issues when required.
- Coordinate incident response, service restoration, stakeholder communication, vendor escalation, root-cause analysis, and follow-up corrective actions.
- Support the administration, patching, tuning, recovery, failover, security, and replication of Oracle environments during escalations or critical maintenance activities.
- Provide expert support for high-performance storage and processing platforms, including parallel filesystems, high-speed interconnects, schedulers, and related infrastructure.
- Ensure that lessons learned from incidents and maintenance activities are captured and available in knowledge bases, and improvement plans.
- Participate in scheduled on-call, emergency, or out-of-hours support when required.





Projects, Architecture, and Continuous Improvement

- Coordinate APO contributions to new projects and infrastructure upgrades, ensuring alignment with operational needs, architecture, cybersecurity, budget, and supportability.
- Assess technical requirements, alternatives, risks, resource needs, and lifecycle impacts, and provide clear recommendations to the APO Manager and project stakeholders.
- Contribute to capacity planning and technology roadmaps for data growth, processing demand, storage, databases, replication, and monitoring.
- Encourage proof-of-concept testing, performance evaluation, automation, and adoption of technologies that improve reliability and scalability.
- Coordinate with vendors and partner institutions to resolve technical issues and maintain effective support relationships.

Deputy Management Responsibilities

- Act for the APO Manager when delegated or during the Manager’s absence, maintaining operational continuity and timely decision-making.
- Assist with group planning, prioritization, workload balancing, shift and on-call scheduling, and follow-up of agreed commitments.
- Support the preparation and facilitation of group meetings, technical coordination meetings, reviews, and meetings with ALMA Regional Centers and other stakeholders.
- Help ensure that operational commitments, milestones, service levels, and deadlines are met, and that risks, delays, and issues are communicated promptly and transparently.
- Contribute technical requirements, cost estimates, priorities, and justifications to annual budget preparation and expenditure control.
- Support recruitment, onboarding, knowledge transfer, succession planning, staff development, and performance-management processes.
- Provide constructive input to employee performance reviews and help foster a respectful, collaborative, accountable, and high-performing team culture.
- Promote knowledge sharing, cross-training, documentation, and retention of critical operational expertise within the group.

WORKING CONDITIONS

- Work is typically performed in an administrative environment, mainly indoors in Santiago Central Office (SCO) with periodic visits to the Operations Support Facility facilities (OSF) (2900m elevation) and occasional trips to the Array Operations Site (5000m elevation). Physical health compatible with high altitude conditions. A successful High Altitude Medical Exam is a necessary condition of employment.
- Willingness to travel for both short and extended periods for meetings, training, etc. will be required.
- Emergency off-hours calls can apply.
- Willingness to travel overseas for both short and extended periods for meetings, training, etc. will be required.



Deadline for applications: Monday, October 12th, at 12 pm Chile time

Requirements

Minimum requirements (must have):

- University degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline; equivalent relevant professional experience may be considered.
- At least ten years of progressive hands-on experience in Linux/Unix system administration within production, scientific,



high-availability, or similarly critical environments.
- Demonstrated experience providing senior technical leadership, coordinating multidisciplinary technical work, or acting as a technical lead for operational services or projects.
- At least five years of practical experience with enterprise networking, high-performance computing, storage, or distributed systems.
- Experience supporting geographically distributed services and working with multicultural and cross-organizational teams.
- Previous experience in a deputy-management, team-coordination, mentoring, or supervisory capacity is highly desirable.
- Fluent Spanish and advanced English level

Competencies:

Technical

- Advanced administration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Linux, or comparable enterprise Linux distributions.
- Strong knowledge of shell scripting and automation, particularly Bash; Python experience is highly desirable.
- Strong knowledge of networking fundamentals, troubleshooting, high-speed interconnects, and distributed infrastructure.
- Experience with parallel filesystems and enterprise storage technologies; Lustre and InfiniBand experience is desirable.
- Experience with high-performance computing environments, workload schedulers, processing clusters, and capacity/performance analysis.
- Working knowledge of relational databases and SQL; experience with Oracle RAC, ASM, GoldenGate, backup/recovery, and high-availability technologies is highly desirable.
- Knowledge of monitoring, logging, alerting, configuration management, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and service-continuity practices.
- Experience with scientific data archives, data-processing systems, radio astronomy, or other large-scale scientific facilities would be an advantage.
- Ability to produce clear technical analyses, plans, procedures, risk assessments, status reports, and decision records.

Non Technical

- Strong judgment and the ability to make well-reasoned decisions during complex or time-critical situations.
- Ability to coordinate multiple priorities, delegate effectively, follow up commitments, and maintain focus on operational reliability and strategic objectives.
- Proactive, accountable, and service-oriented approach, with a strong commitment to quality, cybersecurity, documentation, and continuous improvement.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical matters to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Ability to build trust, motivate colleagues, resolve disagreements constructively, and foster collaboration across organizational and cultural boundaries.
- Strong self-learning capability, adaptability, resilience, and willingness to share knowledge and develop others.
- Commitment to ALMA values, workplace safety, respectful conduct, diversity, and inclusion.

ALMA Values An important element in any successful employment relationship is harmony in values between an organization and its people.

The ALMA Values are

Excellence

Respect and Diversity

Collaboration

Care

Applicants to any ALMA role are asked to reflect on their affinity with these values and advised they may be asked about them if called for an interview.

Este aviso se publica dentro del marco de la Ley N° 21.015, que incentiva la inclusión de personas con discapacidad al mundo laboral.

This notice is published within the framework of Law No. 21.015, which encourages the inclusion of people with disabilities in the world of work.

📌 Archive/ Pipeline Operations (APO) Technical Lead & Deputy Manager- Grade 15 (Vitacura)
🏢 ALMA Observatory
📍 Vitacura