For its Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the Open Source Business Alliance - Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. (OSB Alliance) is looking for a

SCS Product Engineer (d/f/m)

(Remote or Berlin city centre)

The position is to be filled as soon as possible.

About the project

The Open Source Business Alliance - Bundesverband für digitale Souveränität e.V. (OSB Alliance) represents more than 200 member companies of the open source economy, which in Germany together generate more than 1.7 billion euros annually. Together with scientific institutions and user organisations, the association works to anchor the central importance of open source software and open standards for a digitally sovereign society in the public consciousness. The OSB Alliance sees open source and open standards as a compelling foundation for digital sovereignty, flexibility and security in the digital transformation and thus as an answer to one of the greatest challenges of our time.

With the Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) project, the OSB Alliance is contributing to the realisation of the goals of the German Federal Government’s “Digital Strategy Germany” and the European Gaia-X project by developing a next-generation open cloud infrastructure.

The project is driven by a small team in the OSB Alliance with multi-year funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). The advertised position is part of this central team. In addition to this team, there are numerous developers from different companies and institutions in Europe who contribute to SCS - some of them are funded by the project, others because their employers are interested in making SCS successful.

The SCS project aims to define and implement a complete, modular, secure and open source software stack and corresponding open standards. The stack includes software-defined storage and networking technology, operational tools for automated provisioning, logging, monitoring, alerting, trending, Identity and Access Management, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service layer and a Container (Platform)-as-a-Service layer. The stack enables users (development teams) to create and control their own Kubernetes cluster via standardised APIs and provides standard building blocks that can be used to build and manage container applications. The stack meets high security standards and comes with tools and documentation that reduce the need for specialised expertise to run complex cloud and container infrastructures. The systematic, collaborative development, documentation and open provision of operational knowledge (“Open Operations”) is an essential building block to simplify the operation of complex cloud infrastructures at the highest level.

SCS can be used by cloud service providers as well as internal IT departments and can be deployed as a whole or in sub-components depending on specific needs. The components can be certified in an automated way, which ensures compatibility with other SCS-based platforms and thus establishes a network of federatable, compatible clouds.

SCS contributes to the European Gaia-X project by serving as a reference for development work and providing implementations that node providers can use as a whole or in parts to create a federated sovereign infrastructure that forms the basis for a sovereign data ecosystem.

About the role

As a Product Engineer, you will

• make a significant contribution to the creation of digital sovereignty by working with us to ensure
  • that the Sovereign Cloud Stack is market-driven,
  • that our standardisation work leads to greater end-user benefits from cloud computing,
• manage partners (cloud service providers, companies that want to use SCS as the basis for their private cloud, SCS integrators, ecosystem) from a product perspective,
• understand the product requirements of our partners,
• in joint work with product owners, identify levers to enable partners to deliver a better product to their customers,
• recognise what lies behind stated solutions and the needs that the partners really have,
• help our partners understand and grasp the Sovereign Cloud Stack in its entirety,
• demonstrate what SCS enables, both on a strategic and technical level,
• offer interested contacts from business, research and the public sector a connection into the SCS community,
• manage contractors of the SCS project.

We expect you to have

• practical experience with cloud computing platforms (virtualised and/or containerised),
• a good understanding of modern concepts related to cloud-native application architecture,
• hands-on experience with open source operating systems and virtualisation,
• experience in not only using such infrastructures, but also planning, deploying and operating them in a responsible position,
• speak and write German fluently, as much of the work will be with German-speaking companies and public sector organisations,
• a sufficient understanding of the English language,
• enjoy exchanges and contact with people. 

It would be great - but not mandatory - if you

• already have experience with OpenStack as well as with standard configuration management and monitoring tools,
• are familiar with the relevant open source communities,
• are used to working openly, sharing your ongoing work with a broad community, accepting constructive criticism, and are willing to work on defining and refining your chosen approach in interaction with the community and to reach (what is known as) „lazy consensus“,
• are familiar with open source development tools and platforms such as Git, GitHub and the associated workflows.

We offer

• a work in an open and inspiring environment where you can collaborate with highly skilled and dedicated people from the project, partners and relevant open source communities worldwide,
• the opportunity to contribute to a project that aims to be instrumental to a vibrant ecosystem of federated infrastructure providers in Europe and beyond,
• a key role in this project of distinction,
• to be able to work on cutting-edge open source infrastructure technology,
• a lot of flexibility in how you can organise your work and contribute to the internationally distributed team. This is a full-time position; however, part-time is not excluded.
• visibility by presenting the project to stakeholders and the public at technology conferences,
• reasonable compensation.

Please contact Kurt Garloff, Dirk Loßack or Manuela Urban via jobs[minus]scs[at]osb[minus]alliance[dot]com if you are interested and want to know more details or send us your application with cover letter, CV and other relevant documents right away!