EDP Programmer II

University of Massachusetts - Amherst, MA

Full-time

Amherst, MA

Educational Services

About the position

The EDP Programmer II position at UMass Amherst is designed to support the research and teaching missions of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. This department is a large and dynamic environment that serves several hundred computer users and teaches approximately 15,000 students annually. The role involves maintaining the integrity of operating systems, software, and hardware for workstations, desktop computers, and servers within a multi-platform computing environment. The successful candidate will be responsible for the administration of all departmental UNIX/Linux, MacOS, and Windows computer systems, as well as the local area network, ensuring that operations run smoothly and meet high standards. Key responsibilities include installing, maintaining, and configuring hardware components, operating systems, and application software on various computing devices. This includes creating and updating shell scripts to monitor and enhance system performance. The position also requires provisioning department computer systems to comply with security standards and installing, configuring, and maintaining mathematical and statistical software such as Mathematica, SAS, R, MatLab, and LaTeX. In addition to technical support for users, the role involves organizing and conducting computer training seminars, preparing teaching materials, and collaborating closely with faculty, staff, and students to address their computing and networking needs. The candidate will utilize professional judgment to independently research and resolve issues that arise in system and network administration, while also making recommendations for improvements and future growth in the department's computing environment. The position also entails installing, maintaining, and upgrading critical network services, supporting a high-performance Linux cluster, and ensuring compliance with industry and campus security standards. The candidate will be responsible for performing infrastructure security evaluations and audits, implementing intrusion detection systems, and developing recovery plans to minimize outages and improve recovery time. Overall, this role is crucial for maintaining a reliable and secure computing environment for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Responsibilities

• Install, maintain and configure hardware components, operating systems and application software on workstations, desktops, and laptop computers.
• Provision department computer systems and ensure compliance with security standards.
• Install, configure, customize and maintain mathematical/statistical software and editing software on various computing devices.
• Provide technical support to users of the department computing facilities and assist in organizing computer training seminars.
• Research and resolve issues in system and network administration duties independently.
• Install, maintain and upgrade critical network services in a primarily UNIX and Linux-based server environment.
• Monitor network operations and install and maintain electronic system security tools.
• Ensure compliance with existing industry and campus security and privacy standards.
• Develop and implement plans to ensure high reliability and availability of critical systems within the department.

Requirements

• Two (2) years of relevant experience, with an associate degree or above substituting one (1) year of experience.
• Experience supporting mail, web, file, print, identity management, backup, encryption, and network storage services.
• Experience using C, Perl, bash, and Python to customize in-house software.
• Effective interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to work in a cooperative team environment.
• Knowledge of computer network protocols, TCP/IP, NFS, SMTP, HTTP.
• Experience with Windows Server Administration and managing high performance computing clusters.
• Experience with Centos and MacOS X.
• Experience in information security best practices and highly available enterprise network architecture.

Nice-to-haves

• Knowledge of TeX / LaTeX and other mathematical/statistical software.