Distributed Systems Architect: Bare-Metal and High-Scale

Analog; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 400,000 - 760,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site role

Full-time employment

Job summary

Analog seeks a senior architect to own the on-premises open-source infrastructure design, spanning Kafka/Redpanda, Patroni-based PostgreSQL, and Ceph/MinIO storage. You will craft multi-node, rack-aware topologies, validate hardware for air-gap security, and produce precise blueprints for automation by a DevOps team.

You will tune Linux kernel networking and storage subsystems to sustain petabyte-scale workloads, while delivering reproducible runbooks and reference architectures for single and

Qualifications

• 10+ years architecting and operating distributed infra in production
• Deep Linux kernel networking and storage experience
• Experience deploying HA databases without cloud load balancers

Responsibilities

• Design multi-node, rack-aware topologies for Kafka/Redpanda and PostgreSQL (Patroni) clusters
• Tune RocksDB state backend and write-ahead log configurations for large workloads
• Define CPU affinity, NUMA bindings and I/O schedulers for latency-sensitive services
• Create implementation-ready blueprints and runbooks for Terraform and Ansible automation
• Assess air-gapped security requirements and pre-deployment hardware reviews

Skills

Kafka/Redpanda clustering

Linux systems engineering

HA database clustering

Ceph/MinIO storage

DevOps blueprints

Benchmarks & tuning

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Patroni

Pacemaker

Ceph

Job description

You will own the architectural blueprints for Analog’s on-premises open-source infrastructure, designing the clustering, replication, and failover topologies across messaging, streaming, and database layers that our DevOps team then automates at scale across client deployments. This is a hands-on, implementation-grade architecture role where the quality of your output directly determines whether a physically isolated or air-gapped client environment survives hardware failure at petabyte scale.

What You’ll Do

• Map Analog’s Azure PaaS components to open-source equivalents: Event Hub to Kafka/Redpanda, IoT Hub to EMQX, ADX to ClickHouse or Apache Druid, and Blob Storage to Ceph/MinIO
• Produce side-by-side equivalence assessments documenting feature gaps, operational differences, and migration risk for each component transition
• Validate client hardware specifications and assess compliance with air-gap security requirements prior to each deployment

Cluster and Topology Design

• Design multi-node clustering, rack-aware replication, and quorum topologies for bare-metal Kafka/Redpanda and PostgreSQL (Patroni) clusters
• Design resilience protocols for hardware and network switch failures in physically isolated or air-gapped client environments
• Architect RocksDB state backend tuning for stateful Apache Flink workloads, including compaction strategy, block cache sizing, and write-ahead log configuration

Linux and Hardware Optimization

• Tune Linux kernel parameters, NUMA bindings, network ring buffers, and NVMe I/O scheduler configurations to eliminate hardware bottlenecks under petabyte-scale write workloads
• Define CPU affinity, IRQ balancing, and huge page configurations for latency-sensitive broker and database processes
• Author reproducible benchmark harnesses to validate configuration changes against client hardware before production rollout

Blueprints and DevOps Enablement

• Deliver precise, implementation-ready configuration blueprints and runbooks for Terraform and Ansible automation, documents the DevOps team can execute without architectural interpretation
• Maintain a library of parameterized reference architectures covering single-rack, multi-rack, and geographically distributed bare-metal topologies
• Conduct pre-deployment reviews of client hardware specs and provide go/no-go assessments with remediation guidance

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years architecting and operating distributed infrastructure at TB to PB scale in production environments
• Expert-level Kafka or Redpanda clustering: partitioning strategy, ISR tuning, consumer group management, compaction policies, and operational lifecycle at scale
• Deep Linux systems engineering: kernel networking subsystems (TCP buffer tuning, interrupt coalescing), storage fabrics, and NUMA-aware process binding
• Proven track record deploying HA database clusters without cloud load balancers: Patroni, Pacemaker, or equivalent in production
• Experience deploying software-defined storage (Ceph, MinIO) on physical hardware in production, including CRUSH maps, erasure coding, and performance tuning
• Ability to produce implementation-ready blueprints and runbooks; your output must be directly actionable by a DevOps automation team without architectural interpretation

About Analog

Analog builds industrial intelligence infrastructure for the physical world. We deliver high-throughput data pipelines, real-time analytics, and edge-to-cloud connectivity for mission-critical environments where cloud dependency is not an option. Our clients operate in regulated, air-gapped, and physically demanding settings and they depend on us to get the infrastructure right from day one.

This is a full-time, on-site role.