Linux System Administrator for bidorbuy

[KBram]

bidorbuy.co.za is Africa's largest online marketplace, bringing buyers and sellers together to trade almost anything through fixed price sales and online auctions.
bidorbuy operates bidorbuy.co.za and bidorbuy.co.ke and owns ubuntudeal.co.za.

Quick Facts
• Over 1.3 million unique visitors visit bidorbuy each month
• bidorbuy.co.za is ranked the amongst the 10 most popular site in the world visited by South Africans and the top South African site visited by South Africans (source: Alexa Top Sites).
• We are located in Bryanston (next to Dimension Data) - with plenty of shops and pubs around
• We have flexible working hours and never work overtime (unless we break stuff - which hardly ever happens)
• We are agile, have no red tape or politics. No formal SDLC with change control meetings or rigid project plans

Job description

As one of our Linux engineers you will be responsible for supporting the bidorbuy systems. You will be responsible for the design, implementation, and support of a high availability Linux Enterprise environment.
Duties will involve design documentation, hands-on hardware installation, enhancing existing systems, and replacing and restructuring legacy systems. This environment will rely on virtualization technologies (XEN on CentOS) and Open Source technologies (Apache, Tomcat, Varnish, nginx).
The candidate is expected to be effective as an individual contributor, team player, and a champion for results and incremental improvement.

We are interested in candidates with 3+ years of demonstrable experience and who have had a background of working on large-scale web initiatives.

Responsibilities
• Configure and build new Linux images (Application Servers) for production and development use.
• Develop and maintain procedures to comply with security policies and IT best practices.
• Develop and maintain documentation of systems configurations and procedures.
• Work with other systems administration and network staff regarding configuration, backup/recovery and security issues.
• Monitor systems via applications, log files and sanity checks.
• Maintain DNS services and domain names.
• Database maintenance and implementations.
• Administer multiple Linux servers running in high availability environment
• Perl and shell scripting to automate aspects of systems maintenance
• Serve as an escalation point to resolve problems in Linux servers and users environment
• Work closely with Software Engineers, Database Analysts, and Q/A personnel
• Must be able to troubleshoot complex issues quickly and effectively
•
Core competencies & Qualifications
Along with your outstanding drive for excellence, the successful candidate will bring with them:
• 4+ years of experience administering Red Hat, CentOS and Ubuntu
• Linux certifications preferred
• Enterprise level Linux or CentOS/Redhat Administration experience
• Strong working knowledge of virtualization technologies (XEN)
• Strong knowledge of DNS and network tools (ping, trace route, etc.)
• Strong scripting knowledge: Perl scripting, shell scripting and command line utilities
• Knowledge of database systems (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres) is a plus
• Knowledge of basic TCP/IP and internet protocols required
• Knowledge of NIS, LDAP, NFS, SMTP, IMAP, and X11R7 is required
• Knowledge of SAN/NAS and/or shared storage technologies (Gluster, GPFS, GFS) is a plus
• Knowledge of application- and web-servers (Apache, Varnish, Tomcat, nginx) is a plus
• Knowledge of mail-servers (management, bounce-handling and monitoring) is a plus
• Off-hour and weekend work will be sometimes required

Personality traits
• Analytical thinking
• Strong networking and communication ability
• Goal and delivery focused
• Creative and display high energy levels
• Consistent performer
• Work well under pressure

Please submit your CV to karin.bramhill@bidorbuy.co.za

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

If you are on LinkedIn, you can also apply via this link - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/26990265 - salary is up to 28K based on experience.

 

[mister]

Are you offering a salary?

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Are you offering a salary?

It is hard to get people to work for free, that's why we typically offer in the range of 20-28K based on your experience.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

It is hard to get people to work for free, that's why we typically offer in the range of 20-28K based on your experience.

I'll accept magic beans too.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I am just going to necro this one again, as I am really struggling to find someone decent (all candidates so far lacked the skill or enthusiasm).

 

[rorz0r]

(all candidates so far lacked the skill or enthusiasm).

That's not bad going. I'd expect a large percentage of candidates to have lacked skill AND enthusiasm...

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

That's not bad going. I'd expect a large percentage of candidates to have lacked skill AND enthusiasm...

No, some had the enthusiasm to come to the interview but lacked the skill and others..... uh well... almost had one hire, but he resigned on day 3, because he did not want to work on CentOS as he prefers RHEL and hoped that we would just reinstall all servers to his liking...

 

[rorz0r]

Lol... Because he would totally have to relearn everything moving from RHEL to CentOS...

 

[mister]

CentOS as he prefers RHEL

*facepalm*

just as well you let him go

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

*facepalm*

just as well you let him go

Bizarre part is that he passed all the Linux questions with flying colours. Note to self: Add new question "What is the difference between CentOS and RHEL?"

 

[retromodcoza]

No, some had the enthusiasm to come to the interview but lacked the skill and others..... uh well... almost had one hire, but he resigned on day 3, because he did not want to work on CentOS as he prefers RHEL and hoped that we would just reinstall all servers to his liking...

LOL This is not the reason he left. This is just what he told you.
The real reason you are battling to find someone for 4 months is because the salary band is a bit low. A more realistic figure is R30,000 - R35,000 for this job.

Linux skills are rare (as you have found out) and you need to sweeten the pot to get anyone worthwhile. BidorBuy is a nice company to work for , but not at 25% off.

The price comes more from you having to compete with other companies for skills than the skills themselves.

 

[SauRoNZA]

LOL This is not the reason he left. This is just what he told you.
The real reason you are battling to find someone for 4 months is because the salary band is a bit low. A more realistic figure is R30,000 - R35,000 for this job.

Linux skills are rare (as you have found out) and you need to sweeten the pot to get anyone worthwhile. BidorBuy is a nice company to work for , but not at 25% off.

The price comes more from you having to compete with other companies for skills than the skills themselves.

I strongly agree with your statement above.

Either that or I'm highly overpaid and I don't even have a lot of the stuff listed on the requirements.

That being said...


• We have flexible working hours and never work overtime (unless we break stuff - which hardly ever happens)

Is a massive statement to make in an IT field and almost worth working for less money. I wouldn't be surprised if you find your per hourly rate is higher even though the overall salary is less which might appeal to some people.

• We are located in Bryanston (next to Dimension Data) - with plenty of shops and pubs around

Also sounds like they don't mind if you have a lunchtime dop.


It is strange though how I always hear that Johannesburg is the place to be if you want to make money...yet that doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

No, some had the enthusiasm to come to the interview but lacked the skill and others..... uh well... almost had one hire, but he resigned on day 3, because he did not want to work on CentOS as he prefers RHEL and hoped that we would just reinstall all servers to his liking...

Errr, so he was missing the RHEL config stuff then?
Did he really know what he was doing?

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Bizarre part is that he passed all the Linux questions with flying colours. Note to self: Add new question "What is the difference between CentOS and RHEL?"

I think you need to get hold of him and ask him, I would *love* to hear that answer.

 

[Necuno]

I am just going to necro this one again, as I am really struggling to find someone decent (all candidates so far lacked the skill or enthusiasm).

I have 2 days worth of archlinux

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

LOL This is not the reason he left. This is just what he told you.
The real reason you are battling to find someone for 4 months is because the salary band is a bit low. A more realistic figure is R30,000 - R35,000 for this job.

Linux skills are rare (as you have found out) and you need to sweeten the pot to get anyone worthwhile. BidorBuy is a nice company to work for , but not at 25% off.

The price comes more from you having to compete with other companies for skills than the skills themselves.

This is not a senior position but rather a mid-level position. Our seniors will be in the bracket of up to 60K (depending of skill/experience). The candidates I interviewed in the 25-30K bracket lacked the skill for a mid-level role and even my mediocre Linux skills are more substantial than their day-to-day skillset (when someone does not know the existence of egrep and can't explain the difference between awk/sed or is incapable of constructing a basic rc.d-startup script, you are really junior). I am quite surprised that no mid-level candidate had any certifications (not even a basic LPIC-1).

....
• We have flexible working hours and never work overtime (unless we break stuff - which hardly ever happens)
Is a massive statement to make in an IT field and almost worth working for less money. I wouldn't be surprised if you find your per hourly rate is higher even though the overall salary is less which might appeal to some people.

Nope. No overtime. Guys have flexi-time, and leave work after 8 hours. Some come to work at 6:30 and knock off at 3:30, others get to work at 9am and leave at 5pm. The only time we really do overtime is unscheduled maintenance (that Neotel disaster migration and blown up UPS issue we had to face) or in rare cases where we can not do maintenance during the day (mostly when we do DR-switchover tests or big upgrades which would result extended outage). Obviously if there are unforeseen issues (touch wood, hardly ever happens), then it's all hands on deck.

I have 2 days worth of archlinux

As in a full 16 hours? Now, if I where to ask you the question "What is Pacman?" and your answer is anything but "A game where a yellow ball eats fruits and noms away at dots" you are more than welcome to PM me your CV

 

[etienne_marais]

Now, if I where to ask you the question "What is Pacman?" and your answer is anything but "A game where a yellow ball eats fruits and noms away at dots" you are more than welcome to PM me your CV

O sh*t, what the hell is Pacman then ?

EDIT: Haha, as I thought, yet another package manager

 

[SauRoNZA]

This is not a senior position but rather a mid-level position. Our seniors will be in the bracket of up to 60K (depending of skill/experience). The candidates I interviewed in the 25-30K bracket lacked the skill for a mid-level role and even my mediocre Linux skills are more substantial than their day-to-day skillset (when someone does not know the existence of egrep and can't explain the difference between awk/sed or is incapable of constructing a basic rc.d-startup script, you are really junior). I am quite surprised that no mid-level candidate had any certifications (not even a basic LPIC-1).











Nope. No overtime. Guys have flexi-time, and leave work after 8 hours. Some come to work at 6:30 and knock off at 3:30, others get to work at 9am and leave at 5pm. The only time we really do overtime is unscheduled maintenance (that Neotel disaster migration and blown up UPS issue we had to face) or in rare cases where we can not do maintenance during the day (mostly when we do DR-switchover tests or big upgrades which would result extended outage). Obviously if there are unforeseen issues (touch wood, hardly ever happens), then it's all hands on deck.








As in a full 16 hours? Now, if I where to ask you the question "What is Pacman?" and your answer is anything but "A game where a yellow ball eats fruits and noms away at dots" you are more than welcome to PM me your CV

To be fair I couldn't pass an LPIC-1 exam myself, mostly because the exam is too rigid and doesn't really represent the real world.



Put me at the terminal though and its a whole different story, still not a wizard but cab find my way around and do what I need to.



The best people I know in different fields don't have papers for what they are doing. It's normally the ones with the paperwork who think they know it all but fail miserably.



Interviewed a CCNA the other day who couldn't explain to me what NAT is or how it works.



Ended up hiring a young guy almost fresh out of school who had a passion to learn (the enthusiasm you speak of) and knew more purely based on his own exposure to building his home network and Linux media centre etc.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

when someone does not know the existence of egrep and can't explain the difference between awk/sed or is incapable of constructing a basic rc.d-startup script, you are really junior. I am quite surprised that no mid-level candidate had any certifications (not even a basic LPIC-1).

Interesting questions, I always thought I would ask about sed and awk when I interviewed someone. Unfortunately most of the people I have had come in have been at such a junior level that I didnt expect them to know.
Next time throw in the curveball of asking about the various rc. levels and runtime, that should be all kinds of fun.