Research Cloud Services Lead Engineer

£45k + Bonus

Mid Cornwall

Permanent

Tech, Technical

Overview of role

This role exists to support and lead the day-to-day running and development of the university’s Research cloud-based platforms and services, which are to be delivered to a high standard and in accordance with defined service level agreements. It includes proactive management and maintenance of all aspects of the university’s Research cloud services; adoption of new Research services in the cloud; and responding to operational incidents and service requests. The role also includes continual service improvement, ensuring the university has appropriate and available Research Cloud Services to support its ongoing needs.

Some travel will be required for meetings to King’s College London, predominately between King’s Service Centre, Cornwall, and university campuses in London.

Accountabilities

Key responsibilities:

• Responsible for leading the design, deployment and maintenance of Azure/AWS based research services.
• Responsible for developing/implementing Azure DevOps best practices.
• Responsible for quality assessing Research services technical documentation.
• Responsible for leading the successful delivery of Research Cloud services within a Service Management framework and in line with the agreed college standards and Service Levels.
• Responsible for leading the resolution of incidents and service requests.
• Responsible for leading the delivery of technological change across Research Cloud services.
• Responsible for leading the security, resilience, backup, and monitoring of Research Cloud services.
• Represent Research Cloud Services in Change Advisory Board meetings, daily and weekly Service Review meetings.
• Responsible for fostering a practice of collaboration and continuous improvement within the Research Cloud Services team.
• Responsible for identifying and undertaking Service Improvements.
• Responsible for identifying opportunities to reduce environmental impact and implementing improvements.
• Responsible for working closely with the other teams within IT to provide an excellent IT Service.
• Responsible for contributing to proposed solutions to ensure they are fit for purpose and provide optimal value for money.
• Responsible for the adoption into service of new solutions ensuring operational suitability.
• Responsible for responding to customer improvement activity.

Key objectives:

• To deliver Research Cloud services in line with the agreed service levels.
• To ensure all Research Cloud services are maintained to the correct architectural and technical best practice specifications.
• Be a stakeholder in determining whether a new release, affecting a service in production, is ready for promotion.
• Contribute to the delivery of updates or solutions to the Research Cloud Services environment.
• Possess a detailed understanding for all King’s College London’s Research Cloud services and the associated platforms/infrastructure.
• To operate in line with the College IT Operating Model and Values and to promote these within the Research Platform Services Team.
• To contribute to the Research Cloud Services service/product roadmap.
• To assist the Research Cloud Services manager to prioritise the product backlog for new releases to customers.
• To drive operational excellence across Research Cloud Services.

Communication & networking:

• Develop and maintain collaborative and inclusive relationships with peers, key College stakeholders, management, and colleagues.
• Develop and maintain good morale within the Research Cloud Services Team.
• Utilise effective communication skills to ensure that opportunities for service improvement, issues and impediments to success are clearly understood by the Research Cloud Services Manager.

Decision making, planning & problem solving:

• To develop and continually improve the college Research Cloud services.
• To deliver statistical information about Research Cloud services leading to improved services.
• Ensure the root cause of all Research Cloud services P1, P2 and escalated incidents are obtained for the services you support and actively seek to eliminate such root causes through a practice of continuous improvement.
• Identify and aid the implementation of service improvements for the Research Cloud services that optimise costs, resources and service delivered.

Architectural and service delivery:

• Adhere to a best practice Service Management and Architectural framework (ITIL)
• Ensure that user experience and satisfaction is at the forefront of all activities.
• Drive customer satisfaction to over 90% and ensure SLA attainment is consistently above minimum requirements for the Research Platform services.
• Keep abreast of changing trends and market developments of current and future technologies.
• Identify new Research Cloud service technologies that can provide benefit to the College.

Key skills and experience required

(E) – Essential

(D) – Desirable

• Experience of designing, deploying and maintaining Azure/AWS based services (E)
• Experience of deploying/maintaining Azure services via Azure DevOps practices (E)
• Proven ability to write technical documentation (High/Low Level Designs, Runbooks, How to Guides) (E)
• Experience of supporting, maintaining and developing Windows & Linux OS environments & applications (i.e. WAMP/LAMP) (E)
• Experience of managing SQL (MS SQL & MySQL) databases (E)
• Experience of designing and building solutions to meet customer requirements (E)
• Experience of supporting 3rd party applications and maintaining appropriate lifecycle management (E)
• Excellent troubleshooting skills and knowledge of problem resolution methodologies (E)
• Experience of working with ITIL based Service processes and functions including Service Desk and Service Process Managers (E)
• Experience of working with enterprise scale applications, infrastructure, and software (E)
• Knowledge of IT Security protocols, processes, policies, and standards (E)
• Experience of managing small projects (E)
• Willingness to update professional knowledge and a commitment to continuous improvement (E)
• Ability to identify and manage priorities (E)
• Excellent written and oral communication skills (E)
• Excellent relationship and interpersonal skills (E)
• Demonstrated flexibility and positive attitude towards the support of technical services in a fast-paced environment with inherent risks and several stakeholders with differing views of success (E)
• Experience with Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services and associated components such as DFS, Group Policy & DNS (D)
• Experience in operational IT planning and execution (D)
• Experience and knowledge of supporting technical solutions in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment (D)
• Good knowledge of industry technical standards (D)
• Experience working in an Agile environment to deliver service improvement (D)
• Good knowledge of PowerShell scripting, JSON and ARM templating. (D)
• Knowledge and experience of PHP and other query-based languages (D)
• Experience of supporting University faculties & schools in all aspects of IT support (D)
• Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate (D)
• Microsoft MCSA: Microsoft Server 2016/2019 (D)
• ITIL Qualification (Foundation Minimum) (D)
• Education to degree standard and/or equivalent qualifications/experience (D)

Equality, diversity and inclusion

KSC are an inclusive and welcoming employer that encourages a wide range of applicants. They embrace diversity and want everyone to be able to bring their whole selves to work and succeed.

This is in line with KCL.