Tech Hub Manager at Natural State

About the role

• The Tech Hub is Natural State’s centre for applied technology and innovation for the nature economy, combining on-site data and technology infrastructure, field capability, the Makers Lab and practical learning. The Tech Hub is is built to operate off-grid, with two owned data servers connected via fibre and solar power capacity currently being commissioned — making it one of the few nature monitoring infrastructure facilities designed to run independently of grid power at this scale.
• The Makers Lab is the Tech Hub’s collaborative space for developing, adapting and testing solutions to real-world nature economy challenges, including hardware and software prototyping. Challenges can come from across Natural State, as well as from practitioners, communities, partners, researchers and other collaborators. The Lab brings together technical and scientific expertise from the Applied Science Division with participants coming through Leadership and Learning courses, residencies and other programmes to develop and test practical solutions.
• As Tech Hub Manager, you will be the on-site steward of this facility. You will keep its physical and technical infrastructure running reliably, support the migration of NS Analytics’ data storage onto the Hub’s own servers, and make the space work well for the people who use it day to day: the Makers Lab’s hardware and software prototyping, and the training and demonstration programme run with the Leadership and Learning department. You will work closely with the Technical Delivery team on infrastructure and storage decisions, with the Applied Science Division on Makers Lab needs, and with Leadership and Learning on scheduling and running the Hub’s training and demonstration activity.
• Beyond the Hub itself, you will provide on-the-ground support for the NS Analytics IoT service platform. You will deploy, configure and maintain the sensors and field networks that feed data into the platform across client project sites, and be the person who keeps that data flowing reliably from the field to the Hub.

This role is for you if...

• You’re hands-on and just as comfortable being responsible for physical infrastructure — servers, solar power, fibre connectivity — as for digital systems, in a working field environment.
• You like being the person who keeps things running: you notice problems before they become outages and you fix them methodically.
• You enjoy fieldwork and get real satisfaction from getting a sensor network working reliably in difficult conditions.
• You’re comfortable being the go-to contact both for people using a shared space (Makers Lab, training) and for the Technical Delivery team relying on the servers you manage.
• You’re energised by an off-grid, resource-constrained setting rather than deterred by it.
• You enjoy working in a small, high-performance team and pitching in where you’re needed.

What you’ll work on

Hub infrastructure and on-premise services

• Day-to-day operation of the Hub’s infrastructure: the two data servers, fibre connectivity, UPS and (once commissioned) solar power, including uptime monitoring and troubleshooting.
• Running the on-premise service stack with Technical Delivery: host and container platform, storage volumes, user and access management, patching and basic hardening.
• Backup and recovery: maintaining backups on the 3-2-1 principle with an off-site copy, and testing restores on a fixed schedule so that we know recovery works before we need it.
• Migrating NS Analytics data storage onto the Hub’s servers with Technical Delivery, and keeping that storage service running as project volume grows.
• Monitoring and alerting: keeping health checks, capacity and alerting in working order, and acting on what they report.

Network across the centre

• Owning the network across the Center for the Nature Economy — offices, Tech Hub, residential and guest areas: LAN and Wi-Fi coverage, switching and VLAN segmentation, firewall rules, VPN access, DNS and DHCP.
• Managing the internet links (fibre and any backup path), including the vendor relationships behind them.
• Keeping network documentation current: topology, addressing, credentials handling and change history.

Field devices and IoT

• Providing on-the-ground support for the NS Analytics IoT service platform, as the field-side counterpart to Technical Delivery so that client deployments run reliably from sensor to platform.
• Deploying, configuring and maintaining IoT sensors and monitoring devices: acoustic sensors, camera traps, soil moisture sensors, weather stations and water monitoring equipment.
• Setting up and maintaining the field networks that connect these devices to the Hub, including LoRaWAN gateways, cellular or satellite backhaul, and the solar and battery systems that keep remote nodes powered.
• Configuring IoT communication protocols such as LoRaWAN, MQTT, CoAP and NB-IoT, including device provisioning, firmware updates and edge processing where connectivity is limited.
• Keeping deployed systems operational: monitoring device health, battery levels and data flow, running scheduled maintenance visits, and troubleshooting faults.
• Working with the Research and Monitoring team so that data arrives complete and on time, and investigating together when it does not — missing deployments, failed uploads, clock or metadata errors.
• Keeping clear records of every deployment (device locations, configurations, maintenance history) and training field teams and partners to carry out routine checks.

Makers Lab, training and the shared facility

• Managing the physical and technical set-up of the Makers Lab, keeping it stocked, functional and safe, and providing hands-on support to Leadership and Learning and the Applied Science Division in developing, adapting and testing monitoring technologies, hardware and other practical solutions in the Lab and in pilot deployments. 
• Coordinating the Hub’s training and demonstration programme with Leadership and Learning: scheduling, host logistics, and keeping the technology stack demo-ready for visiting practitioners and partners.
• Maintaining the equipment inventory and managing procurement, servicing and vendor relationships for hardware, power and connectivity.
• Writing and maintaining the Hub’s operating procedures: server maintenance, power management, network changes, and onboarding for Makers Lab and training users.

Requirements

• Must have: Experience managing physical technical infrastructure (servers, networking, power systems) in a hands-on, on-site capacity.
• Must have: Comfortable troubleshooting server and network issues independently, including in a low-connectivity or off-grid environment.
• Must have: Linux server administration: users and permissions, system services, storage and filesystems, logs, scheduled jobs, and backups.
• Must have: Practical network administration — LAN and Wi-Fi, VLANs, routing, firewall   rules, VPN, DNS and DHCP — on equipment such as MikroTik, Ubiquiti or similar.
• Must have: Strong organisational skills — able to manage inventory, procurement, and scheduling for a shared facility with multiple user groups.
• Strongly desired: Backup and recovery practice, and monitoring/alerting tools (for example Prometheus, Grafana).
• Strongly desired: Virtualisation or containers (Proxmox, WMware, Docker or similar) and network-attached or object storage.
• Strongly desired: Experience with solar power systems or other off-grid power infrastructure.
• Strongly desired: Working knowledge of IoT communication protocols and networks (LoRaWAN, MQTT, CoAP, NB-IoT) and of managing low-power devices in remote locations.
• Strongly desired: Experience supporting a maker space, lab, or prototyping environment (hardware and/or software).
• Strongly desired: Experience coordinating training, demonstration, or visitor programmes.
• Strongly desired: Familiarity with the field data collection and monitoring technology NS Analytics supports (ODK, camera traps, acoustic sensors), and experience with embedded hardware such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino or ESP32.