Computer and Network Engineer (H/F)

Reporting to the Scientific Manager of the project, your role will be to ensure the operation and evolution of the nxthdr platform, the experimental infrastructure of the HIJ-IX project.

The position is offered on a part-time basis (50%).

You will have to guarantee the availability, reliability and safety of use of the platform, extend its coverage (new IXPs, new peers, federation with PEERING) and provide HIJ-IX researchers (PhD student, postdoc, academic partners) with the engineering support they need to conduct BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) experiments and measurements in real IXPs.

As such, you will carry out the following main missions:

Platform operation and availability:

• Operate and maintain in production the nxthdr platform (AS215011);
• Configure routers, servers, and virtual machines in IXPs, processing chains, and databases;
• Supervise and alert on possible breakdowns;
• Ensure security updates, backups, incident management;
• Maintain documentation

Extension of platform coverage:

• Select, with the research team, and deploy new points of presence in other IXPs, in Europe and on other continents, taking care of the technical and administrative procedures.

Federation with PEERING:

• Design and implement nxthdr federation with the peering platform, so that experiments can combine the measurement points and connectivity of both platforms.

Peering:

• Establish and maintain peering sessions with more ASs (Autonomous System), via IXP route servers and bilateral sessions, especially with large content and cloud networks like Cloudflare and Fastly, to improve the diversity and realism of platform connectivity.

New features:

• Propose, design and develop new functionalities for the platform (e.g. new types of experiments, API and CLI enhancements, new open datasets, self-service access for external researchers), based on the needs of the research team and the user community;
• Contribute to the opening of the platform to the entire scientific community.

User support:

• Assist researchers and students in using the platform, and review and integrate contributions into open source code.

Complementary activities:

Contribute to research artifacts (open datasets, code) and publications related to the platform, responsible disclosure of results to IXP operators, as well as technical presentations (e.g. at network operator forums like RIPE or FRnOG).

• Special constraints : Occasional travel (IXP sites and data centers, project meetings, conferences) and occasional interventions outside working hours in the event of a critical incident on the platform.

You have a master’s degree (Bac+5), an engineering degree or a doctorate in computer science, and ideally have at least 2 years of experience in the operation of network infrastructures (access provider, IXP, hosting provider).

We encourage you to highlight your strong personal or open source projects in this area.

Fluent level of French and English required.