Data Storage Technical Advisor

Discover the possible

Anything is possible at the NRC named in 2025 one of Canadas Top Employers for Young People Top Employer in the National Capital Region and Forbes Canadas Best Employers!

As Canadas largest research and innovation organization our world-renowned research pushes the boundaries of science and engineering to make the impossible possible. Every day we explore new ideas through innovative research and help companies discover possibilities that impact Canadas future and the world.

At the NRC youll also discover new possibilities. Our supportive workplace fosters a culture of creativity welcoming fresh perspectives and innovation at all levels. We value teamwork. Youll collaborate across multiple fields and with the brightest minds to find creative solutions. Most importantly youll discover whats possible within you as you grow make valuable contributions and progress in your professional journey. From ground-breaking discoveries to a life-changing career discover your possible at the NRC.

The role

We are looking for a vibrant and dynamic storage technical advisor to join the Chief Information Officer Branch (CIOB) to support manage storage solutions. The technical advisor would be someone who shares our core values of impact accountability leadership integrity and collaboration.

Working closely with CIOB IT personnel the chosen candidate will be responsible for the deployment and ongoing operations storage solutions. These deployments will be done following strict departmental rules and regulations. The day-to-day duties will include but not limited to:

• Management of storage appliances:
  • Recommendations
    • Based on the requirements provided by the research centers provide technical recommendations for storage appliances deployment.
  • Deployment
    • Setup units in racks or on desks.
    • Configure the storage appliance as per the requirements of the research center and the deployment standards of CIOB Shared Services Canada (SSC) and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS).
      • Such as but not limited to:
        • Flash the firmware configure access control (e.g. roles) build file system enable access points (e.g. Samba NFS) implement storage allocations setup an anti-malware agent.
        • Collaborate with Shared Services Canada (SSC) to enable the required network configurations.
        • Setup backup services (open source or vendor solution)

The role (continued)

• Operations
• • • Updates
      • Ensure that the units are up to date with respect to their operating system.
    • Health Monitoring
      • Action hardware failures monitor storage allocations.
      • Ensure that backup jobs are running properly.
      • Setup alarms for all items mentioned in this category.
      • Logs
      • Review logs to ensure the appliances health.
      • Setup automated appliance performance evaluations.
    • User and access management
      • Work with the research center to ensure compliancy with respect to access control.
    • Manage storage quotas and plan for upgrades if the storage requirements exceed the capacity of deployed infrastructure.

• Collaborating with SSC service lines ensure the NRC operations with respect to storage allocations provided by SSC on the enterprise storage services.
  • Operations include:
    • Performance monitoring.
    • Manage Research Center allocation requests to align with the organisations allocation.

• Collaborating with the team members of the Research Platform Support team manage the storage appliances that are coupled with some of the NRCs High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters. The appliances currently in production include file systems such as General Parallel File System (GPFS) and Lustre.

Screening criteria

Applicants must demonstrate within the content of their application that they meet the following screening criteria in order to be given further consideration as candidates:

Education

Degree from a recognized college or university specializing in Computer Science or Engineering with computational emphasis.

Significant IT experience in the industry may be also considered.

For information oncertificates and diplomas issued abroad please see Degree equivalency

Experience

• Significant and recent experience in enterprise data storage appliance deployment and management (Network Attached Storage NAS and/or Storage Area Network SAN). This includes:
  • Management of storage appliance
    • Provided storage solution recommendation to management and/or client(s)
    • Deployment of storage solutions
    • Operations

• Significant and recent experience in writing technical documentation.
• Network administration
  • Switch management
  • Firewall management
  • Network security

Asset:

• Linux and/or Windows Operating System administration.
• CEPH file system administration
• General Parallel File System (GPFS) and/or Lustre file system administration
• High speed storage network administration

* Significant is defined as at least 3 years of experience.
* Recent is defined as within the last 5 years.

Condition of employment

Secret clearance

A thorough security clearance process will be applied.

For a Secret Clearance verification of background information over a period of 10 years is required. Individuals must have lived in Canada for a sufficient period of time to enable the security screening process.

Language requirements

English or French Essential

Information on language requirements and self-assessment tests

Assessment criteria

Candidates will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

Technical competencies

• Knowledge of storage appliance hardware such as disk arrays network interfaces and operating principles (e.g. RAID SAS iSCSI Fibre Channel)
• Knowledge of file systems distributed storage (e.g. ZFS CephFS NTFS vSAN)
• Knowledge of network file sharing protocols (SMB NFS CIFS tuning/performance)
• Knowledge of storage backup solutions and architecture (Backups snapshots replication)
• Knowledge of High Availability in distributed systems
• Business continuity planning disaster recovery (DR) recovery time objective (RTO) recovery point objective (RPO)
• Data encryption at rest/in transit methods
• Data user access policies and principles

Assets:

• Principles of Linux Operating System
• Shell scripting (e.g. PowerShell BASH).
• Strong documentation skills.
• Strong teamwork and customer service skills.

Behavioural competencies

Competency Profile(s)

For this position the NRC will evaluate candidates using the following competency profile:Technology Support

View all competency profiles

Compensation

From $103911to $130061per annum.

NRC employees enjoy a wide-range of competitive benefits including a robust pension plan comprehensive health and dental coverage disability and life insurance office closure at the end of December and additional supports to enhance your well-being throughout your career and beyond.

Notes

• In 2025 the NRC was chosen as one of Canadas Top Employers for Young People a National Capital Region Top Employerand Forbes Canadas Best Employer.
• To ensure a prompt and efficient processing of applications candidates must provide along with their résumé a detailed covering letter explaining how they meet each of the requirements of this position (education experience language requirements) by providing concrete addition the candidate is encouraged to describe in detail when where and how he/she gained the experience.
• Candidates who have Second Language Evaluation (SLE) test results with the Public Service Commission should include these results with their application.
• Relocation assistance will be determined in accordance with the NRCs directives.
• A pre-qualified listmay be established for similar positions for a one year period.
• Preference will be given to Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents of Canada. Please include citizenship information in your application.
• The incumbent must adhere to safe workplace practices at all times.
• We thank all those who apply however only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.