Senior Solaris Systems Engineer — Flexible Working

Fusion Energy Base; Abingdon; On-site; GBP 51,000 - 63,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Excellent pension

Job summary

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) seeks a UNIX Solaris Specialist to provide expert direction for Solaris platforms, ensuring legacy systems are secure, stable and aligned with scientific and operational needs. The role balances operational continuity with technical debt and transition priorities.

The role is based at Culham, Oxfordshire, onsite with some flexibility. It involves hands-on scripting and tooling, Solaris administration, and collaboration with engineers and scientists to sustain

Qualifications

• A degree in a relevant STEM discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Extensive experience administering and supporting Solaris 10 and/or Solaris 11 environments.
• Strong experience with Solaris Zones and system virtualisation.
• Proven experience developing and maintaining legacy code and scripts using Bash, C, Fortran, AWK, Perl or Python.
• Experience supporting in-house or tightly coupled applications within UNIX environments.
• Deep technical knowledge of ZFS, NFS and Solaris storage systems.
• Advanced troubleshooting and system-level diagnostic capability.
• Experience contributing to platform migration, modernisation or decommissioning programmes.
• Experience supporting audits, assurance activities and complex risk-based security decisions.

Responsibilities

• Act as a technical subject matter expert for Solaris platforms, providing guidance on lifecycle, performance and resilience.
• Administer, support and troubleshoot Solaris 10/11 environments including Solaris Zones and NFS storage.
• Design, develop and maintain system-level tooling and scripts in Bash, C, Fortran, AWK, Perl and Python.
• Maintain and adapt in-house applications within UNIX and Solaris environments.
• Investigate incidents across OS, filesystem and application layers and implement long-term fixes.
• Identify and manage risks related to legacy infrastructure and debt.
• Support service continuity, recovery and resilience planning for critical systems.
• Contribute to platform migrations and decommissioning activities.

Skills

Solaris administration

Shell scripting

ZFS

NFS

Platform migration

Education

STEM degree

Equivalent professional experience

Tools

Bash

C

Fortran

AWK

Perl

Python

Job description

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) seeks a UNIX Solaris Specialist to provide expert direction for Solaris platforms, ensuring legacy systems are secure, stable and aligned with scientific and operational needs. The role balances operational continuity with technical debt and transition priorities.

The role is based at Culham, Oxfordshire, onsite with some flexibility. It involves hands-on scripting and tooling, Solaris administration, and collaboration with engineers and scientists to sustain