60% Web Developer 30% Linux Sysadmin 10% Tech Support
Lightup Network Solutions

Hi!

Lightup Network Solutions GmbH & Co. KG is a small ISP and telecommunications service provider (VoIP) based in Frankfurt, Germany. Lightup's team is 100% remote, distributed worldwide (Germany, Portugal, Serbia, Morocco, Brazil, Colombia) and consists currently of just 7 mostly non-tech people. Now we need a hybrid Web Dev / Sys Admin tech pro to join our small team. Lightup was established in 1998 as a ISP focused on webhosting and dedicated servers. Since 2011 Lightup has shifted its core business towards internet-based telecommunication services, primarily so-called DIDs a.k.a. virtual telephone numbers along with international retail and wholesale call termination (VoIP, SIP). In 2022 Lightup became a licensed telecom operator in Switzerland and the wholesale business has been booming since then.

Your tasks would be:

• Short-term (now - 6 months): Create multiple new commercial telecom-oriented web-based services from scratch based on the team's ideas (PHP + MySQL preferred, but really up to you)
• In the mid-term (6 - 12 months), create, re-design & code from scratch successor sites for outdated Joomla-based sites
  
• Create Linux console-based or web-based scripts and tools to support the team, such as customer accounting scripts / accounting & billing automation or VoIP buy- and sell-rates output automation (Bash, Perl, Python, PHP - your choice)
• Take care of 30+ KVM-based VMs and the 20+ underlaying physical servers running CentOS
• Keep CentOS installations updated, migrate those which are too old to new installations
• Set up new VoIP customers in our VoIP system / cluster (Asterisk, Kamailio)
• Analyze, troubleshoot and fix SIP and DID call issues / Work & communicate with vendors and customers alike
• Provide technical customer & order support for our 2 Joomla-based retail telecom services
  
• Create a new API from scratch for lawful interception compatibility / requests
  
• Constantly communicate with the team (WhatsApp, Slack) and help them to make their non-tech jobs easier by the creation of cool & useful new tools
  

Some commands / tools that should be familiar:

• vim and vi
• ssh, rsync
• sort, cut, tail, head
• awk, sed, tr, wc
• grep, uniq, paste, join, shuf
• top (and understand what you're seeing)
• ps (and understand what you're seeing)
• ifconfig, netstat, tcpdump, ping, traceroute, mtr, whois
  
• ls, cd, cp, mv, rm, cat, echo, mkdir, find, date, df
• screen, less, more
• yum
  
• (Bonus: sngrep, kamctl, sipsak)

If you're not typing most of these commands multiple times on a daily basis into your SSH client or into your local console then you can stop reading at this point and skip to the next job offer. Else, since you are a Linux console person, please read on...

Some server daemons, binaries and tech that you'll be dealing with:

• Apache / httpd
  
• MySQL / MariaDB / mysqld / mysql
  
• sshd
• KVM / qemu / vncserver
• cron
• iptables
• Bash
• ProFTPD
• Asterisk
• pssh
• Kamailio
  
• X / GNOME
• tinydns / dnscache
• Nagios
  
• Sendmail, postfix, exim, SpamAssassin, Dovecot (via DirectAdmin)
  
• MRTG
• IPMI / KVM-over-IP
• BackupPC
  
• (Optional network admin bonus: Juniper M- and SRX-series routers, HP ProCurve switches, vrrp, BGP, RIPE)

Minimum languages that you'll need, software and protocols that you'll have to either already know or learn:

• Bash Shellscript
• PHP
• Joomla (from scratch, heavily modified, forget click-to-install modules/add-ons)
• MySQL / MariaDB
• Apache Webserver
  
• SIP
  
• Asterisk

This is a freelancer position, meaning you'll be responsible for taking care of paying taxes, health insurance, social insurance, pension fund etc. by yourself.

You'll be working just 6 hours per day, not 8 hours. But since Lightup's team is global and so are our customers those 6 hours will be spread over the course of a day European time (CET, Berlin) between 10:00 and 22:00. Imagine it like 12 hours standby per day (WhatsApp, Slack, E-Mail) but effectively 6 hours will be dedicated to Web Development, Sys Admin and Tech Support tasks.

Your profile:

• Highly self-motivated & independent, but still a team player
• Good communicator, friendly attitude
  
• Flexible, curious to learn & try new
• Very accurate, with tendency to perfectionism
• You're working careful and exact, and you re-read your changes multiple times before you actually save the file
• Multiple years Linux experience & created multiple web-based services (PHP + MySQL or comparable) from scratch
• You are a real coder, you don't drag & drop buttons and menus and call that coding
• You can edit / read / write code with a text editor on your Linux console and you actually understand what you're reading and writing
  

Education, age, gender not important. Yes, we're looking for a Linux / Web Dev geek / pro. If you're living in your mothers basement for the last 10 years that's OK. If you're never leaving your appartment that's OK too. If you're happily married and have 4 children that's fine too. Coding on laptop is inefficient and slow, so if you are a nomad you need at least a real keyboard + mouse or you'll be too slow.

Thank you for reading until this point and looking forward to read from you via E-Mail! :-) -> [email protected]