The Organization
CIAT works with local, national and multinational partners across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, and with the public and private sectors. CIAT is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food- secure future, dedicated to transforming food, land and water systems in a climate crisis.
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is part of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. CIAT delivers research- based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives. CIAT solutions address the global crisis of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.
About the position
The Networks, Infrastructure and Security Unit is seeking a Senior DevOps Analyst. This role is responsible for designing, deploying, and supporting scalable, secure cloud and hybrid solutions tailored to research projects. The Senior Analyst will bridge the gap between development/research and operations teams by enhancing automation, monitoring, and deployment processes for both on- premises and cloud- based environments. Key responsibilities include evaluating new technologies, promoting serverless frameworks, and assisting with cloud migration. Additionally, IT will optimize resource usage to improve performance, reduce costs, and support data management, while facilitating collaboration through seamless access to shared data and resources.
Key duties & responsibilities
Develop and maintain documentation of the organization’s cloud architecture and infrastructure while enforcing cloud technology standards for consistent, high- quality implementation;
Implement and configure monitoring solutions (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios) to ensure high availability and performance of applications and services;
Research about emerging cloud technologies and recommend solutions that enhance infrastructure flexibility and cost- effectiveness;
Develop and manage a comprehensive capacity plan for cloud infrastructure, ensuring optimal resource allocation and document investment plans identifying cost- reduction opportunities;
Support security best practices, including role- based access control (RBAC), encryption, and compliance policies;
Work closely with developers teams to troubleshoot and resolve issues during deployment and ensure smooth integration, to automate repetitive tasks, reduce manual interventions, and enhance system reliability;
Implement Infrastructure as Code IaC tools (e.g., Terraform, Puppet, CloudFormation, ETC.) to automate the provisioning of cloud and on- premises infrastructure;
Provide guidance to systems analysts, IT engineers, and architects to facilitate effective architectural decisions;
Manage incident responses and root cause analysis for infrastructure- related issues;
Provide training and support team members on new tools, processes, or architectural changes.
Collaborate with research teams to ensure the long- term cloud strategy remains aligned with platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure developments;
Maintain a deep understanding of the Alliance’s vision and strategic plan to ensure that cloud and hybrid initiatives align with organizational goals;
Provide technical support across cloud applications and services, managing complex technical tasks and troubleshooting;
Continuously monitor cloud performance, develop and execute test plans, and recommend improvements to ensure system reliability and efficiency;
Design, develop and implement integrated cloud/on- premises systems that meet operational, security and scalability requirements;
Ensure that security measures are implemented within cloud operations and collaborate with security specialists as needed;
Ensure the Alliance applications are always in a deployable state by designing and managing continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, using Jenkins, GitLab, or similar tools;
Manage relationships with cloud service providers, ensuring their offerings meet operational needs, and guide cloud cost management to optimize resource usage;