Support Technician
The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (South Africa) is a residential graduate mathematics institute in Muizenberg. We have around 90 taught Master’s students, as well as research-based Master’s and PhD students. Our research centre hosts postdoctoral fellows and other research staff. Our students are drawn from across Africa. AIMS is unique in that the courses are taught by international lecturers, who are leaders in their field, and who stay on site with our students in an immersive teaching experience for 3-4 weeks at a time
We are searching for an IT Support Technician to take care of our on-site support and hardware, which comprises over a hundred desktop/laptops, associated networking equipment and AV equipment for lecture rooms.
Responsibilities
- Troubleshoot and repair basic desktop/laptop hardware issues
- Troubleshoot networking problems, eg. finding loops, poor connectivity, broken links
- Assist users with networking issues, eg. joining the WiFi network
- Provide first level support to lecturers, staff and tutors
- Provide second level support to students (tutors provide first-level support to students)
- Be available for events hosted by AIMS, which hosts around a dozen workshops or public events annually, which need some hand holding on technical issues (eg. setting up a projector, turning on microphones, etc)
- Be available as remote-hands on-site for emergencies relating to server infrastructure
- Learn new technologies as implemented by the institution
Qualifications Required
- CompTIA A+, or equivalent experience in the field
- Linux Professionals Institute or CompTIA Linux+ certification would be highly beneficial
- CompTIA Network+ would be beneficial
Attributes Required
- Honesty – we expect you to work with integrity and conduct yourself well
- Professionalism – we often host leaders in the field, who are often funders
- Self-assured – you’ll have to say no to people sometimes
- Reliability – be able to occasionally work after hours or weekends
- Team worker – you’ll have to work with all kinds of people with varying skill levels
- Self-motivated – we don’t micro-manage, so you need to be able to manage your day
Terms of Employment
- This is a full-time, 2-year contract position, with the possibility of extension depending on performance and availability of external funding.
Applications
To apply, please submit the following as ONE PDF document to vacancies@aims.ac.za.
- A cover letter
- Your CV
- Your salary expectation
Applications will be accepted until 21 February 2025 or until the position is filled. If you do not hear from us in 4 weeks please consider your application as unsuccessful. AIMS South Africa reserves the right not to make an appointment at its sole discretion.
Systems Administrator
The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (South Africa) is a residential graduate mathematics institute in Muizenberg. We have around 90 taught Master’s students, as well as research-based Master’s and PhD students. Our research centre hosts postdoctoral fellows and other research staff. Our students are drawn from across Africa. AIMS is unique in that the courses are taught by international lecturers, who are leaders in their field, and who stay on site with our students in an immersive teaching experience for 3-4 weeks at a time.
We are searching for a Systems Administrator to take care of our physical infrastructure, both on-site and remote, which consists of servers, access points, routers and other equipment, as well as system accounts and server software.
Responsibilities
- Research, formulate and implement networking solutions as required by the institution
- Monitor servers and networking equipment for faults
- Troubleshoot and repair server/networking hardware and software issues
- Set up virtual machines in the form of KVM virtual machines and LXC/LXD containers
- Learn our configuration management stack and maintain software on both physical servers and virtual machines
- Set up and maintain networking switches, access points, virtual private networks, VLANs, etc
- Provide first level support to lecturers, staff and tutors in terms of networking and server software and occasionally in other areas where needed
- Manage Google Workspace (users, groups, e-mail accounts, Google Sites, Google Drive)
- Manage backups and recovery for servers and laptops
- Documentation for network/server infrastructure and software
Qualifications Required
- Solid Linux experience is essential, experience with Debian or Ubuntu is preferred
- Basic networking skills are essential (eg. TCP/IP, OpenVPN, DHCP, DNS, smtp)
- Advanced networking skills are highly advantageous (eg. Radius server/client, Eduroam, VXLAN, NFS)
- Server software knowledge is highly desirable (Apache, LDAP, Samba, CUPS, etc)
- Formal qualifications like CompTIA Network+, Mikrotik training or equivalent experience
- Administration experience of Google Workspace is highly beneficial
- Basic programming skills, such as shell or Python scripting is highly beneficial
- Experience with ZFS and other storage technologies is highly beneficial
Attributes Required
- Honesty – perform with integrity and conduct yourself well
- Professionalism – we often host leaders in the field, who are often funders
- Self-assured – you’ll have to say no to people sometimes
- Reliability – be able to occasionally work after hours or weekends
- Team worker – you’ll have to work with all kinds of people with varying skill levels
- Self-motivated – we don’t micro-manage, so you need to be able to manage your day
Terms of Employment
This is a full-time, 2-year contract position, with the possibility of extension depending on performance and availability of external funding.
Applications
To apply, please submit the following as ONE PDF document to vacancies@aims.ac.za.
- A cover letter
- Your CV
- Your salary expectation
Applications will be accepted until 21 February 2025 or until the position is filled. If you do not hear from us in 4 weeks please consider your application as unsuccessful. AIMS South Africa reserves the right not to make an appointment at its sole discretion.
Resident Researcher in Machine Learning
The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) South Africa is looking to hire a skilled and motivated Machine Learning Researcher to join our team in Cape Town. The successful candidate will play a key role in developing innovative machine learning algorithms and models to analyze satellite imagery, Earth observation and remote sensing data (e.g. acoustic monitoring and camera traps). Use cases could include disease modelling and prediction, and wildlife monitoring tasks. Recent trends in deep learning open up large potential for impactful research by harnessing the vast data volumes related to Earth observation and remote sensing. The researcher will have a flexi-role: work closely with CLIMADE (https://climade.health/africa/) on projects related to climate change and the spread of vector borne disease, and contribute to research in machine learning for ecological tasks.
What we are looking for:
- Ph.D. in machine learning, computer science or related field.
- Experience in collecting and processing satellite data, e.g. Sentinel-2 or Landsat-8.
- A track record of research and scientific discovery, including publications related to deep learning.
- An ability to communicate research to scientific and public audiences.
- Experience in developing, debugging and publishing research code.
What you will do:
- You will lead and pursue a long-term ambitious research agenda related to machine learning using Earth observation data (focusing on arboviral diseases in Africa) or with remote sensing data (audio, camera traps).
- You will share research findings clearly and efficiently both internally at AIMS and externally to the research community and public, verbally and in writing.
- You will enjoy working in a multi-cultural pan-African environment, 50 metres away from Cape Town’s #1 surf spot.
If you love making connections between people and ideas, if you love starting new things, enjoy scientific freedom, and you are excited about the idea of advancing machine learning in Africa, then this job is for you. AIMS has a social mission. There are opportunities to participate in activities related to AIMS and the research centre.
Application process:
To apply, please e-mail the below documents in three pdf files to our recruitment team at: ml-positions@aims.ac.za:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Cover letter detailing your relevant experience and planned research agenda
- Proof of Ph.D. completion
There is no application deadline, and the position will be filled when a suitable candidate is found.
Questions about the position may be addressed to ml-positions@aims.ac.za.
DISCLAIMER: AIMS South Africa reserves the right to disqualify ineligible, incomplete and/or inappropriate applications. AIMS also reserves the right not to make an appointment to the position as advertised. Only successful applicants will be contacted.
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