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Reference number: RF-15972

About CSE

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is Canada’s agency responsible for foreign signals intelligence, cyber operations and cyber security. Learn more about our mission.

CSE is committed to fostering a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion. This isn’t just an ideal, it’s crucial to our mission. Find out about our workplace culture, including our diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Become part of our team and you’ll understand why CSE is the most important organization you’ve never heard of (YouTube).

Job summary

CSE is currently looking for cloud administrators and engineers from a diverse range of technical backgrounds who will thrive working on unique problems in an open minded and innovative environment, and who value the different perspectives of others. The ideal candidate will work alongside people who constantly strive for better solutions to keep our country safe, while you learn more about the cyber challenges that impact us. In this role, you will collaborate with partners, colleagues, and various teams on complex problems. You should be someone who seeks a stimulating career that will allow you to expand and evolve your expertise in the latest cloud technologies.

Key deliverables of the role require the design, implementation, ongoing support, and management of CSE enterprise public and private cloud environments. You’ll play a crucial role in introducing new solutions and capabilities into CSE’s existing infrastructure, as well as support the development and deployment of innovative solutions across the organization. You may work with many common enterprise services including but not limited to Linux, OpenStack, Kubernetes, Docker, Rancher, M365, Azure, AWS, OCI, or GCP. You may also be exposed to AI, cryptography, PKI, DevOps, CI/CD, financial operations (FinOps) engineering and automation, the system development lifecycle, automation technologies, and more.

The intent of this selection process is to staff various entry-level, intermediate and senior positions across different activity areas of CSE.

Salary

To find out more about our salary scale, vacation allowances and benefits (health, dental and pension plans, etc.) visit the Compensation page on our website.

Area of selection

Open to Canadian citizens.

Location

Ottawa, Ontario in one of our two accessible facilities. Flexible work arrangements, including telework for a portion of the work week, may be possible.

Conditions of employment

A valid Enhanced Top Secret security clearance is a condition of employment that must be met before an offer can be made.

More information about our hiring and security processes can be found on our website.

Essential qualifications

In order to be considered, your cover letter must clearly explain how you meet the following education and experience requirements.

Education

You must have either one of the following:

• A post-secondary education in a field related to the position, such as (but not limited to) Computer Science or Computer/Software Engineering
• An acceptable combination of education (professional certification) in a field related to the position (as above), and relevant experience.

Note: The educational program must be recognized in Canada, and you must be able to provide proof of education credentials. Students graduating within the next twelve months are eligible to apply.

Experience

You must have experience in designing, building, implementing, testing, integrating, troubleshooting, managing, or monitoring for enterprise environments. Your experience is required to be in one or more of the following:

• Enterprise public cloud platforms including M365, Azure, AWS, OCI, GCP or other
• Containerized applications, infrastructure and deployment (Kubernetes, Docker, Rancher)
• OpenStack including networking (Neutron/OVN), compute (Nova), storage (Cinder, CEPH), or other
• Linux-based environments including Ubuntu and RHEL
• Private and Public Cloud Networking including compute, virtual networks, firewalls, network security groups, on-prem connections, CLI and automation
• Scripting/Automation such as Terraform, Bash, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, JavaScript, REST API, Git/GitHub/Bitbucket
• Financial Operations (FinOps) concepts and technologies.

Official language requirements

Various language requirements – English Essential (EE) or Bilingual (BBB and/or CBC)

• English essential means that the position is unilingual English.
• Bilingual means that knowledge of both official languages (English and French) is required for the position.
• The profile (BBB or CBC) represents the proficiency level you must demonstrate in each of the language skills (reading, writing and oral interaction) for the bilingual position.

For bilingual positions, second language evaluations will be offered for candidates who don’t have valid language test results issued by the Government of Canada.

Find out more about the language requirements of positions.

Competencies

The following technical, behavioural and leadership competencies will be assessed at a later date. You do not need to include information about them in your application.

Technical competencies

• 1. Infrastructure and platforms
  • Knowledge and ability to support the enterprise computing infrastructure (e.g. enterprise servers, client server, storage devices and systems, hardware and software) in the provision, management, storage, operation, scheduling, support and maintenance of the infrastructure.
• 2. Knowledge of IT
  • Possesses a generalist’s knowledge of all areas in IT, including but not limited to: Software application development, data storage systems, IT security, IT architecture, system administration, networking, and telecommunications.
• 3. Systems administration
  • Possesses the knowledge, skills and ability to design, construct, and operate systems hosted in various cloud platforms. Works to support critical cloud infrastructure with unique challenges using the latest technologies.

The following behavioural and leadership competencies may be assessed at a later date. You do not need to include information about them in your application.

Behavioural competencies

1. Cognitive thinking skills
2. Interactive communication
3. Working in a team

Leadership competencies

1. Achieving results
2. Change and innovation
3. Collaboration

Assets

Assets are “nice-to-have” expertise and skills we’re interested in. Your application will not be discontinued if you do not meet or possess these qualifications. However, if you do have them, they may be used to identify which team you could best complement.

Please demonstrate on your application if you meet or possess the asset education or asset experience listed below:

Asset education

A vendor certification such as AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect, Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect, Google Professional Cloud Architect for Google Cloud Platform, OCI Foundations or Architect Certification, CISSP, CCSP, CompTIA Cloud+.

Asset experience

Experience working with/in:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) or Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Diverse query languages such as SQL / KQL / etc

Operational requirements

Overtime and standby duty may be required.

How to apply

You can submit your application only through our online system. To start your application, select “Apply Here” at the bottom of this page. If you are unable to apply online, please let us know by email at careers-carrieres@cse-cst.gc.ca before the closing date of this hiring process. We will be happy to assist you.

To help us review your application smoothly and efficiently, we ask that you provide a chronological résumé covering the past ten (10) years of work experience or education. For each position you have held (including volunteering), please include the following information:

• Occupation or job title (and level, if it was within the federal public service)
• Start and end dates
• Employer (organization name, city, province/state, and country)
• Work location, if different from the employer’s (city, province/state, and country)
• Work arrangement (in person, remote, or hybrid)

Note: For each period of leave or unemployment, please indicate the dates and your location, as this information is needed for our global assessment process.

Example 1: Senior Policy Analyst (EC 05) - May 2019 to August 2023 - Transport Canada, Ottawa (ON, Canada), Work arrangement: Hybrid

Example 2: Software Engineer - June 2020 to Present - Shopify, Toronto (ON, Canada) - Work location: Montréal (QC, Canada) - Work arrangement: Remote

Example 3: Parental leave – May 2024 to May 2025 – Location: Ottawa (ON, Canada)

Important information

We ask you to not discuss your application with others (including on social media) besides your partner, or close family members - who should also be reminded about the need to be discreet.

Assessments of candidates are conducted in the official language of their choice.

To address CSE’s current representation gaps, priority may be given to persons who self-declare as belonging to one, or more, designated employment equity groups: women; Indigenous peoples, including First Nations who are status, or registered and non-status, or non-registered, Inuit and Métis; persons with disabilities, including people with a mental health condition and neurodivergent people; and persons from racial or ethnic groups.

Please note the Employment Equity Act, which is under review, uses the terminology Aboriginal peoples and visible minorities.

CSE offers an assessment process that will accommodate any reasonable measures you require to be assessed in a fair and equitable manner. Those measures are available to all candidates during our processes. Information you provide will be addressed confidentially.

The level of competence demonstrated in the various assessments will be used to determine your qualifications for the UNMA-06, UNMA-07, UNMA-08 or UNMA-09 level.

All communications with CSE relating to this process, including email messages and telephone conversations, may be used in the assessment of qualifications.

The intent of this process is to fill vacant positions at CSE. The process may also be used to establish a pool of qualified candidates which could be used to staff similar or identical positions with various tenures.

Due to the nature of CSE’s mandate certain roles may expose employees to content that is difficult to process. Mental health is a priority at CSE and if any personnel feel they require assistance to preserve their mental wellbeing, they have access to services, tools and other resources to help them in both their personal and professional lives.

Please note that in an effort to maintain balance between employee development and business needs, candidates who are hired at CSE should remain in their substantive position for a minimum of twelve (12) months subject to operational requirements.

We thank you for your interest in CSE. However, only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.