Network & Systems Engineer

at  ViaSat Inc

About us:
One team. Global challenges. Infinite opportunities. At Viasat, we’re on a mission to deliver connections with the capacity to change the world. For more than 35 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the globe communicate. We’re looking for people who think big, act fearlessly, and create an inclusive environment that drives positive impact to join our team.
What you’ll do:
The role is part of the Dev and Test Infrastructure Team and is located in Aalesund Norway.
Help maintain, build, and grow a set of satellite communications, maritime, and aircraft systems development and test infrastructure across the Viasat Connectivity Platforms team. These Infrastructures support development projects relating to airborne and seaborne satellite communications. Work hands on with lab hardware and networks, wiring, configuring, planning, scheduling, designing, and executing. Help Viasat as the Connectivity Platforms teams build next generation satellite terminals and connectivity software.
Work closely with the Maritime Platforms teams needs to evolve the lab to support the need of the products they develop.
Work with the lab team members in Viasat’s other lab locations. Help guide junior team members through their learning and upskilling. Assist the Dev and Test Infrastructure Manager in prioritizing and completing work, and delegating appropriately, as well as supporting the lab users.
This is a hands-on role working in the lab, you will need to be in the lab at least two days per week, more if possible. We maintain many systems used by multiple platform engineering teams and need to keep them all running and accessible. This role may require occasional international travel.
The day-to-day:

Reporting to the Senior Dev and Test Infrastructure Manager, your responsibilities will be:

• Engineer and deliver technical test and development infrastructure.
• Maintain Development and QA environments and infrastructure relied upon by Maritime Platforms teams.
• Support the training and growth of junior team members, new joiners, etc.
• Along with the Dev and Test Infrastructure Manager, help schedule, prioritize, and delegate lab tasks and projects based on the needs of the teams which use the labs, the needs of the company, and availability of those on the team with the appropriate skills.
• Schedule and prioritize your own tasks without micromanagement from above.
• Build consistent lab environments across Viasat locations so that they can all be accessible remotely.
• Create and manage documentation of the lab environments, and how the lab users can work in them, modify them, integrate new project hardware, etc.
• Manage a network built of mixed-vendor firewall and switching hardware.
• Working to maintain and unify networks and servers in a mix of configuration control and deployment methods.
• Build a lab infrastructure which supports development teams which is resistant to power outages and avoids single points of failure.
• Close liaison with other Connectivity Platforms teams to meet requirements, support their priorities and comply with deadlines.
• Manage and maintain access between the lab satellite terminals and connectivity servers.
• Manage technical requirements, kit and support – with full consideration for the entire life-cycle of equipment.
• Help source appropriate technical equipment for the engineering test lab requirements.
• Source and manage specialist 3rd party contractors as required.
• Support and trouble-shoot development and test campaigns as required.
• Ensure that reporting is accurate and provided in a timely manner.

Provide technical and engineering support for other projects as required.

What you’ll need:

• This position is a hands-on engineering role and requires practical experience and understanding in the following areas:
• Experience/ability to use various electronic test equipment (example, cable testers)
• A practical, trained engineer with skills including the ability to run, and terminate cables in a lab environment including cable fabrication.
• Mechanically adept with a good working knowledge and understanding of electronics.
• Experience in reading and developing schematics as well as working with detailed technical documentation and specifications.
• Able to effectively work with others to resolve issues and able to suggest and develop practical, rapid solutions for day-to-day issues.
• Problem solving: You know how to apply your skills, and the resources and skills of the team to the problems and tasks we take on.
• Continuous Improvement: You look for opportunities to improve yourself, and our processes as you solve problems, you bring improvement proposals to the Lab Manager and the team.
• Proactive Mindset: As you work, you’re looking out for future problems, flaws in a project, and look for ways to fix them before they cause disruption.
• Able to balance priorities when working with multiple stakeholders from different teams and product groups.
• Experience with JIRA and Confluence for task tracking, reporting, and documentation of systems.
• Quick thinking and delivery focused with meticulous attention to detail.
• Good organisational/project management skills with the ability to multi-task.
• Understanding of software development and integration lifecycles.
• Hands on experience of networking protocols and working with Cisco and Juniper equipment.
• Great knowledge of Linux OS.
• Hands on experience in tools and environments like
• Bash and Python Scripting
• Docker
• Ansible
• KVM (via libvirt, Proxmox, oVirt)
• Git/GitHub
• Grafana
• Prometheus

What will help you on the job:

• PC Hardware setup, configuration, modification experience. Desktop, workstation, server-class hardware.
• Experience of developing / working in an connectivity and/or SATCOM lab environment
• Understanding of radio frequency (RF) systems and components
• Ability to calculate RF cable losses and power budgets
• Prior knowledge of the satellite communication industry
• Prior knowledge of satellite ground networks
• Prior experience in formal technical test campaigns
• Knowledge of satellite & cellular industry

EEO statement:
Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic. If you would like to request an accommodation on the basis of disability for completing this on-line application, please click here.

• Engineer and deliver technical test and development infrastructure.
• Maintain Development and QA environments and infrastructure relied upon by Maritime Platforms teams.
• Support the training and growth of junior team members, new joiners, etc.
• Along with the Dev and Test Infrastructure Manager, help schedule, prioritize, and delegate lab tasks and projects based on the needs of the teams which use the labs, the needs of the company, and availability of those on the team with the appropriate skills.
• Schedule and prioritize your own tasks without micromanagement from above.
• Build consistent lab environments across Viasat locations so that they can all be accessible remotely.
• Create and manage documentation of the lab environments, and how the lab users can work in them, modify them, integrate new project hardware, etc.
• Manage a network built of mixed-vendor firewall and switching hardware.
• Working to maintain and unify networks and servers in a mix of configuration control and deployment methods.
• Build a lab infrastructure which supports development teams which is resistant to power outages and avoids single points of failure.
• Close liaison with other Connectivity Platforms teams to meet requirements, support their priorities and comply with deadlines.
• Manage and maintain access between the lab satellite terminals and connectivity servers.
• Manage technical requirements, kit and support – with full consideration for the entire life-cycle of equipment.
• Help source appropriate technical equipment for the engineering test lab requirements.
• Source and manage specialist 3rd party contractors as required.
• Support and trouble-shoot development and test campaigns as required.
• Ensure that reporting is accurate and provided in a timely manner