ICT System Specialist, Network & Infrastructure (80-100%)

About the BIIE

The Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering is an independent, non-profit research institute dedicated to transforming global child and adolescent health. Operating in strategic partnership with ETH Zurich and the University of Oxford, we are building a research environment of international standing - from the ground up.

What makes this job different?

We're not building "yet another enterprise network". We're building the digital backbone of a research institute taking on some of medicine's hardest problems: immune diseases, global child health, biomedical breakthroughs.

Whether you're ambitious and ready to take real ownership of a network for the first time or you're a seasoned specialist/expert who's tired of polishing the same old infrastructure and wants to build something from scratch. Both belong here.

The Role: Build, Connect, and Grow Together

We are looking for an ambitious, network-savvy IT professional with a bit of a "nerd" heart and a clear "out-of-the-box" mentality. As our ICT System Specialist, you will support the Head of IT in designing, operating, and evolving our entire IT infrastructure.

Whether you are an ambitious IT generalist ready to step up and take ownership of our network, or a seasoned network specialist who is bored of just polishing the same old enterprise network and wants to build something new—you will find your place here. While you will wear multiple hats and handle broad IT operations, your true playground and primary developmental focus will be our network architecture. You will take ownership of our connectivity, managing the LAN, WLAN, VPNs, firewalls, and ISP relations to ensure the data that powers our research flows securely and seamlessly.

This is not a role where you hide in the server room. We are a hands-on team. You must be open to helping users with first-level support and yes, sometimes even sorting the cables under a desk. In return, you will help build a new, state-of-the-art infrastructure for our interim hosting at ETH D-BSSE and our future, purpose-built research facility launching in 2027.

Tasks

What You Will Do

In this role, you will take hands-on control of our wired and wireless network infrastructure. You will act as the mastermind behind our LAN, WAN, and enterprise WLAN, ensuring highly available and lightning-fast connections. Your responsibilities extend to perimeter defense and security, where you will configure and manage firewalls, set up secure VPN access for our global research partners, and implement robust access control lists (ACLs) and endpoint protection to safeguard invaluable biomedical data.

Beyond the network, you will serve as the primary technical contact for our ISPs and play a crucial role in setting up and operating our in-house datacenter, including a planned backup site. You will also provide holistic IT operations support, delivering responsive, high-quality first and second-level assistance for our scientific and administrative teams across Linux, Windows, and macOS environments. You make sure the technology works flawlessly so our scientists can focus entirely on their research. Furthermore, you will actively participate in strategic IT projects, from cloud integrations to system rollouts, bringing fresh ideas and new technologies to the table.

Your playground

• Full ownership of LAN, WLAN, VPN, firewalls, and ISP relationships
• Co-building our in-house datacenter (plus a planned backup site)
• Cloud integrations, system rollouts, and security architecture· First- & second-level support for our international research teams

Requirements

What you bring

• Solid IT foundation: networking is your thing, or it's becoming your thing
• Builder mindset: you want to create, not just maintain
• Curiosity for scientific IT requirements · Communication skills to work with researchers from around the world

Benefits

What you get

Mentorship, room to grow, an international community and the rare opportunity to shape an institute from the ground up.

No "maintain the legacy stack". No "we'll review that internally". No silos. Instead: real ownership, real impact, a team that wants you to grow and regular moments where you look around and think: "We built this."

For questions about the role, please contact Loreno Calisse, Head of IT, at +41 79 457 98 88

The Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering is a newly founded non-profit research organization aiming to become a world leading research institute for the advanced study of immunological systems with a mission to develop translational solutions for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.

The scientific foundation of the BIIE is based on the intersection of three interdisciplinary subdomains: (i) systems immunology, (ii) synthetic immunology and (iii) computational immunology. The BIIE will serve as a hub for multidisciplinary science, by uniting people with diverse expertise in immunology, biomedicine, bioengineering, systems and synthetic biology, computational biology, artificial intelligence and machine learning. As part of the mission of BIIE to make a lasting impact, it will dedicate significant efforts in training early-stage researchers in this unique multidisciplinary environment, thus enabling them to become future leaders in Immune Engineering.