Systems Support Engineer

Spektrum have a wide range of exciting opportunities in several global locations. We are always looking to add great new talent to our team and look forward to hearing from you.

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO UN EU and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services specialised aerospace and defence sales delivery and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATOs member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATOs communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATOs military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATOs mission to detect deny and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATOs information technology infrastructure including its databases applications and servers.

Overall the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATOs communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATOs principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV and when required stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorises: NATO International Civilians (NIC)s Military (Mil) and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role ID C004981

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• The scope of the assignment will be limited to providing Level2 and Service Management Support according to the submitted Incidents Service Requests Change Requests Task Requests for Information or Internal activities traceable through the NCIA ITSM and/or Azure DevOPS NATO Software Factory ticketing system.
• The Chief Technician will be required to respond document categorize and solve all the assigned tickets according to the internal processes and procedures. The work will be executed mainly onsite but some activities might require offsite presence at other NATO locations. Generally remote work cannot be performed offsite since the nature and classification of the work requires the incumbent to be present in the office with access to classified networks. Nevertheless incidental requests will be reviewed on a case by case basis.
• The Chief Technician will participate in the daily reporting and planning activities (daily meetings) as well as the required participation in workshops events and conferences related to the supported services as requested by the Service Delivery Manager(s).
• The Chief Technician will have to resolve tickets covering a wide range of Level2 activities for example:
• Install maintain monitor and support the JSSC services (Intel- FS ANB Release Server CoreGIS HMART CSD IPL/IWS ICMT AOSS NAMIS NABIS REACT) mainly in support of Operations Missions and NATO exercises.
• Provide timely response and resolution to all support tickets (incidents service requests changes internal activities) following the internal processes
• Escalate issues to Level3 support team as appropriate support in the troubleshooting and debugging of found issues (document and escalate trouble tickets from ITSM into Azure DevOps work items as well as support in their resolution and testing)
• Offer Subject Matter Expertise for the JSSC applications to the user community and to COIs (supporting the Requests For Information)
• Get involved in User Acceptance Testing for new software releases in both organizing and test execution (supporting the Change Requests)-Apply patches and install ISR software updates coordinate outages (according to agreed Approved Service Interruptions Security Audit Findings regular software updates)
• Participate in NRF/ARF/Enterprise CABs as needed to support new software releases in the validation and verification process (support to Change Requests)
• Provide support in maintaining the NATO Software Factory infrastructure user and rights management software updates and internal activities
• Interface between JSSC applications and inter-operable FASes from other Business Areas
• Participates in on-call support. He/she also adheres to flexible 8 hrs/5 days a week shifts which may be scheduled on-demand based on operational needs. This scheduling flexibility ensures that the duty activities can start earlier or later in a day providing consistent and adaptable support in alignment with the organizations requirements.

Essential Skills Experience and Certifications

• Experienced system engineering knowledge with proven Level2 support experience in multinational and/or military organisations with at least 5 years of experience in Windows Server and Client Administration Active Directory Administration IIS web hosting Linux administration virtualization and containerization technologies.
• Experience with automation and modern platform technologies including Ansible REST APIs/JSON PostgreSQL/SQL microservices architectures Podman/Docker Apache Kafka (or similar messaging platforms) and monitoring/logging solutions such as Prometheus Grafana Logstash and Elastic Search.
• Microsoft SQL Server Administration knowledge (installation configuration maintenance backup policies).
• SQL scripting knowledge data consistency and data clean-up based on consultation with the user community and development team.
• Knowledge of networking infrastructure and security services including DNS DHCP WSUS GPOs networking fundamentals load balancing PKI/certificates and authentication concepts such as ADFS.
• Azure Devops and/or AWS experience.
• Hardware and software configuration of Server hosting platforms custom disk configurations with specific storage controllers RAID configuration redundancy and safety approach in all levels of designing in implementing of the solutions.
• Very good virtualization skills preferably on VMware with System Centre integration.
• Good knowledge of automation and scripting technologies including PowerShell Bash and/or Python scripting.
• Experience with XML file manipulation XSD validation and maintenance and automation through PowerShell and scripting technologies.
• Extensive remote server administration experience.
• Must have proficiency in the office Suite Reporting tools.
• Must have excellent understanding and experience of network communication protocols TCP/IP OSI layers Firewalls and Security principles.
• Must demonstrate the ability and self-motivation to work on his/her own but must also work well within groups as part of a team.
• Must demonstrate an ability and keen sense for problem-solving.
• Motivated good communication skills team player.
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization.

Language

• Must have excellent spoken and written English communication and presentation skills as demonstrated by recent experience (within the past 5 years).

Desirable

• Desirable skills: previous knowledge of NATO FASs constitute and advantage NATO software lifecycle support knowledge of NATO policies and process.
• Desirable experience in various areas of Software Engineering including:
  • Software design implementation and testing
  • Programming languages techniques and methodologies associated with the duties described above
  • Very good knowledge of commonly used standards and best practices for software engineering including design patterns.
• Desirable knowledge/Exposure to technologies like WSO2 Kafka Apache Camel Redis Neo4J Angular XSLT.
  • Java development
  • Agile software development methodologies.
• Desirable: knowledge and experience in:
  • Application server technologies
  • Multi-tiered distributed systems
  • Service-Oriented Architectures
  • Relational data base management systems
  • Web authoring design and administration tools
• Desirable: knowledge and experience in: C# HTML5 and modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks Web Services OData.

Working Location

• Mons Belgium

Working Policy

• Onsite

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance

We never know what new opportunities might be just over the horizon. If this opportunity isnt for you please feel free to send us your resume anyway and be the first to know if something suitable for your skills and experience comes up.