Platform Engineer

To be a part a part of something meaningful: We are a biomedical research centre that tirelessly works to achieve a society free of diseases. Our mission is to carry out research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing.

Good Working conditions: Permanent contract (Contrato de actividades científico-técnicas) linked to the project Molecular Dynamics for Structure-based Biology (MD4SB), a Horizon Europe project (id: 101292906).

Employed in compliance with Spanish legislation and regulations under a full-time contract. Employees receive the benefits of the Spanish Social Security system covering sickness, maternity/paternity leave and injuries at work.

Competitive salary: commensurate with experience and qualifications.

International Environment: we are home to nearly 500 researchers, technical and support staff from 45 countries.

Multidisciplinary Research: Research of excellence at the unique interface between biology, chemistry, and structural and computational biology.

Continuous Training: Transversal and general training is offered to our community (examples include research seminars, conferences, training in time management, scientific integrity, gender equality, health and safety, languages courses and emotional wellbeing).

Relocation & Visa Assistance: Trained staff provides support on visa paperwork, administrative requirements, and practical information on living and working in Barcelona, etc.

Social Life: We like to have fun. We promote several activities, like a Football League, an annual skiing trip, a Mountaineering Club, a Running Club and "Cool-off sessions", where members meet informally for drinks, snacks and scientific discussions.

Fairness: Our recruitment is open, transparent and merit-based, and all applicants compete on the same terms. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnic origin or disability.

We are looking for a hands-on Platform Engineer to support the technical foundation of the MD4SB project, with responsibility for infrastructure, security, reliability, and distributed data services.

The selected candidate will help design, deploy, operate, and maintain secure, scalable, and highly available environments, with a strong focus on distributed database infrastructure and platform operations.

The ideal candidate combines strong operational skills with architectural thinking. We are looking for someone able to build and maintain reliable infrastructure, anticipate technical risks, automate recurring tasks, document procedures, and establish good practices for security, scalability, monitoring, and long-term maintainability.

This role is especially suited for a hands-on engineer who enjoys working close to the platform layer, understands the importance of resilient data services, and can help MD4SB grow on top of a solid, secure, and well-documented technical foundation.

This position is funded by the Molecular Dynamics for Structure-based Biology (MD4SB), a Horizon Europe project (id: 101292906).

• Strong experience in Linux systems administration, including installation, configuration, troubleshooting, patching, monitoring, and service management.

• Interest in helping define long-term platform architecture, operational practices, automation standards, and security-by-design principles.

• Solid understanding of infrastructure, networking, and systems architecture, including:

  • DNS

  • TLS certificates

  • Firewalls

  • Load balancing

  • Routing basics

  • VPNs or secure remote access

  • Storage fundamentals

• Experience with virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Proxmox, OpenStack, Hyper-V, or similar technologies.

• Security awareness and experience applying infrastructure security best practices, including:

  • System hardening

  • Access control

  • Privilege management

  • Patch management

  • Logging and auditability

  • Backup validation

  • Secure configuration of services

• Experience administering MongoDB in production environments, including:

  • Multi-node deployments, Replica sets, Sharding, Redundancy and high availability,

• Backup and restore procedures, Performance tuning, Monitoring and alerting, Capacity

• planning, Disaster recovery procedures

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools

• Experience with container technologies

• Experience or interest in Kubernetes and cloud-native platforms

• Experience with complementary data and backend technologies, such as:

  • PostgreSQL

  • Redis

  • MinIO or S3-compatible object storage

  • RabbitMQ

  • Kafka

• Experience with monitoring and observability, including metrics, logs, alerts, dashboards, and operational documentation.

• Experience working in on-premise, hybrid, or research infrastructure environments.

• Experience supporting scientific, biomedical, or data-intensive platforms.

Created in 2005 by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) and the University of Barcelona, IRB Barcelona, a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since the first call in 2011, has received the accreditation four consecutive times.

The institute is devoted to conducting research of excellence in biomedicine and to transferring results to clinical practice, thus improving people's quality of life, while simultaneously promoting the training of outstanding researchers, technology transfer, and public communication of science. Its 27 laboratories and 9 core facilities address basic questions in biology and are oriented towards diseases such as cancer, metastasis, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and rare conditions.

IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 500 members from 45 nationalities. It is located in the Barcelona Science Park. IRB Barcelona forms part of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and the "Xarxa de Centres de Recerca de Catalunya" (CERCA).