Berkshire Scouts supports Scouting in more than a hundred communities across Berkshire providing fun, challenge and adventure for more than 8,500 young people aged 6 to 25.
We have an established and well-used infrastructure providing hosting platforms and email services for over 50 domains – from basic websites to bespoke applications, and are looking for volunteer Operations Engineers/System Administrators to help us maintain our environments. Work will be a combination of pro-actively monitoring and resolving faults and security incidents on our handful of virtual servers, routine maintenance, and supporting other team members. Particular contacts will be the support team – handling escalated requests of a system administration nature, and the development team – ensuring they have a suitable platform for their applications. There will be support if you need it – you won’t be on your own!
This is a very flexible volunteering opportunity. You’ll be home-based with just a few meetings here and there. You won’t have set hours. You will work on projects as and when they are happening.
What skills are we looking for?
• Be familiar with at least one flavour of Linux – Debian/Ubuntu preferable, but not mandatory.
• Some experience managing at least one of: Apache (ideally with PHP), MySQL, Postfix.
• A solid foundation in the use of both console-based (over SSH) and web-based tools for system administration.
• A basic understanding of DNS, and the ability to use third party websites to manage it.
• A basic understanding of secure system engineering principles.
• The ability to debug problems, working both on their own and with other members of the team.
• Experience with scripting (in Bash, Perl, or Python) is beneficial.
• Knowledge of general sysadmin tools is useful, e.g. iptables, netstat, telnet, tcpdump.
• Some experience responding to availability/security alerts is valuable, but not a requirement.
Don’t worry if you don’t have all of these skills! We’d still like to hear from you. We are very happy to train people up, as long as you’re committed to supporting us.
Why volunteer for us? Well, we can train you, advance your IT and system administration skills, and give you hands-on project experience with tangible results. You’ll have the chance to get involved with Scouting at a county level, if you so wish, and meet people from all different walks of life. Plus, a study found that over 90% of our volunteers believe that the skills and experiences they have gained through Scouting have been of relevance to their working or personal lives. Want to find out more? Just contact us for a chat!