Data Storage Technical lead

Acknowledgement of Country 

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation. 

Role highlights

• Lead critical enterprise and scientific storage and data protection platforms
• Set technical direction and mentor a high‑performing engineering team
• Influence future platform strategy within a complex, innovative environment

About CSIRO

As Australia's national science agency, CSIRO is solving the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. Many of our iconic innovations were once considered impossible until someone, just like you, joined us and took on the challenge.

Visit CSIRO.au for more information.

The opportunity 

The Storage & Data Protection Technical Leader is a senior role within CSIRO’s Information Management & Technology (IMT) function, responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, security and evolution of CSIRO’s enterprise and scientific storage platforms.

You will provide senior technical leadership across core storage and data protection services, working collaboratively to evolve platform capabilities, supporting complex incidents, mentoring team members and contributing to strategic planning and multi-year service roadmaps. Your expertise will ensure platforms remain highly available, robust and aligned with the needs of Australia’s largest scientific research organisation.

Your high-level duties will include: 

• Provide senior technical leadership across storage and data protection services, including development of roadmaps, service maturity uplift, capability development and technical resource coordination; support the Team Leader and assume leadership responsibilities when required.
• Maintain and oversee the full lifecycle of storage infrastructure and data protection platforms, including hardware/software sustainment, lifecycle refresh planning, licence compliance, and monitoring of performance, availability and reliability.
• Evaluate and enhance storage and data protection platforms to ensure alignment with service delivery needs; contribute to remediation initiatives and assess emerging technologies to guide future capability development.
• Collaborate effectively within a multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed team to deliver IMT services that meet CSIRO’s operational and research priorities.
• Build strong, respectful working relationships with colleagues, clients and suppliers to support effective service delivery and uphold CSIRO’s reputation.
• Partner with Research Services’ Research Technology Solutions team to support scientific objectives and technical delivery across data‑intensive research environments.

Role particulars

Location and office and hybrid arrangements: Melbourne (Clayton), Perth (Kensington), Sydney (Marsfield) Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra (Black Mountain)

Salary: AU$135,571– AU$158,863 per annum (pro rata for part-time), plus 15.4% superannuation

Tenure & work schedule: Indefinite                    

Reference: 102313

As the successful candidate, you will bring:

Essential criteria

• A tertiary qualification in Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related experience. A current NetApp certification (e.g., NCDA) is highly desirable, reflecting demonstrated expertise in enterprise storage systems
• Demonstrated experience in managing large-scale, geographically distributed storage systems at the petabyte scale, including comprehensive responsibility for data availability, protection, and retention.
• Extensive hands-on experience with enterprise storage platforms including NetApp, Pure Storage, and Dell Technologies, with proven capability in the design, implementation, and support of high-availability storage environments. Strong working knowledge of Fibre Channel SAN technologies, including zoning, provisioning, and performance tuning. Demonstrated expertise in data protection strategies, backup and recovery operations, and the sustainment of storage services that support both scientific computing and enterprise workloads.
• Proven experience in designing and implementing service monitoring, metrics collection, and incident response frameworks to support service reliability and operational awareness.
• Ability to generate novel ideas and solutions, and to work both independently and collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary, regionally dispersed team in support of scientific research and enterprise IT operations.
• Experience in developing and documenting infrastructure designs, system architectures, and multi-year service roadmaps (3–5 years), aligned with organisational strategy and technological evolution.
• Proven experience as a technical leader managing and mentoring teams.

Desirable

• Familiarity with geographically distributed object storage platforms for archival and active archive use cases, and a good understanding of single namespace technologies and their application in a distributed organisational context.
• Demonstrative experience administering Linux-based systems, in the context of storage infrastructure. Proven ability to configure, secure, and optimise Linux platforms that underpin enterprise and scientific storage services. Familiarity with storage-related automation and scripting in Linux environments is highly regarded.
• A cloud certification from a leading provider such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform would be beneficial. Experience working with cloud-based or hybrid storage and data protection solutions is also desirable.
• Previous experience managing IT systems in a scientific research environment, with a focus on supporting computational science workflows and research data management.

 
For full details about this role, and other criteria, please review the Position Description. 

Setting you up for success

We are committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible to everyone. We recognise that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. Please contact Careers.online@csiro.au and let us know how we can support you.  

Life at CSIRO and flexible work arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. We can discuss flexible work arrangements with you during the recruitment process. CSIRO also offers a range of leave entitlements, benefits and career development opportunities. To find out more, visit Careers at CSIRO.

Inclusion and belonging

Solving Australia's greatest challenges takes a diversity of minds and lived experiences. We know diverse teams are more effective and deliver more innovative outcomes. As an equal employment opportunity organisation, we are committed to creating diverse and inclusive teams where people feel they belong. We recognise true diversity encompasses all ages, abilities, cultures, faiths, levels of education, genders, sexualities, diversity of thought and much more. We focus on hiring people who share our values of People First, Further Together, Making it Real and Trusted.

CSIRO holds Gold Status for the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and a Science in Australia Gender Equity Bronze Award.

Eligibility 

This is a security assessed position; applicants must be an Australian citizen; the successful candidate will be required to obtain and maintain a security clearance at the Negative Vetting 1 level. Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

For Internal Applicants: You must be a CSIRO indefinite or specified term employee who has been previously appointed to an advertised vacancy via a competitive process.

Child safety 

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy. 

How to apply 

Please apply online and submit a cover letter (maximum 2 pages) and CV that demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the essential requirements of this role.

Applications close 

2 February 2026, 11:00pm AEDT