Senior Linux Specialist – SUSE Linux & Pacemaker Clustering

Job Title: Senior Linux Specialist – SUSE Linux & Pacemaker Clustering
Experience: 13+ Years
Location: USA | Remote

Job Summary

We are looking for a highly experienced Senior Linux Specialist with strong hands-on expertise in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and Pacemaker cluster installation, configuration, administration, and troubleshooting. The ideal candidate must have extensive experience implementing and managing Linux high-availability (HA) clustering solutions at the operating system and infrastructure levels.

This role requires a true Linux clustering specialist who has independently installed, configured, maintained, and troubleshot Pacemaker and Corosync clusters. Candidates whose experience is primarily limited to SAP HANA administration or SAP HANA system replication, with only a working knowledge of Pacemaker from the SAP application perspective, will not be a fit.

Key Responsibilities

• Install, configure, administer, and maintain SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) environments across enterprise infrastructure.
• Design, build, and implement high-availability clusters using Pacemaker and Corosync, including cluster setup from scratch.
• Configure and manage cluster resources, resource agents, constraints, resource groups, fencing mechanisms, and quorum policies.
• Implement and troubleshoot STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) fencing, watchdogs, and cluster node isolation.
• Configure and manage shared storage, multipath I/O, LVM, filesystems, and storage integration with HA clusters.
• Perform cluster node onboarding, cluster expansion, failover testing, failback validation, and planned maintenance activities.
• Diagnose complex cluster issues involving resource failures, split-brain scenarios, quorum loss, fencing failures, and communication problems between nodes.
• Analyze Pacemaker, Corosync, and Linux system logs to identify root causes and implement permanent resolutions.
• Manage SUSE system patching, kernel updates, security hardening, performance tuning, and OS-level troubleshooting.
• Execute cluster upgrades, configuration changes, disaster recovery exercises, and high-availability validation.
• Develop automation scripts and operational procedures to improve system reliability and reduce manual intervention.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, storage, networking, database, and application teams to ensure platform stability.
• Prepare technical documentation, implementation plans, troubleshooting guides, and operational runbooks.
• Provide advanced production support and participate in incident management and root-cause analysis.

Required Technical Skills

• 13+ years of overall experience in Linux system administration, engineering, and infrastructure support.
• Strong hands-on experience with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) installation, configuration, administration, and troubleshooting.
• Extensive practical experience with Pacemaker and Corosync cluster installation and configuration.
• Proven ability to build and configure HA clusters independently, rather than only supporting preconfigured environments.
• Strong knowledge of cluster resource agents, resource management, ordering and colocation constraints, quorum, fencing, and STONITH.
• Experience with cluster failover, failback, node failure recovery, split-brain prevention, and high-availability testing.
• Strong understanding of Linux internals, systemd, networking, storage, filesystems, multipathing, LVM, and kernel-level troubleshooting.
• Experience with cluster diagnostics, log analysis, performance monitoring, and root-cause analysis.
• Knowledge of shell scripting (Bash) and automation for Linux administration.
• Experience managing enterprise production environments and critical infrastructure.