Specialist Network Lead Infrastructure Engineer - DfE - G7

The Department for Education is seeking to recruit Infrastructure Engineers to work across multiple endeavours. We continually seek new innovative opportunities for efficiencies, economies of scale and new value to users across established services to make them better for users, increase value for money and reduce complexity.

Specialist Network Infrastructure Engineers in the Department for Education design, build, manage and support IT network infrastructure resources that underpin internal user services and services to the public.

If you are successful, you will work as part of a team providing specialist IT network capability within the Department’s Infrastructure Engineering Profession, focusing in depth on network topology, connectivity, and boundary controls (firewalls & Web Application Firewalls).

Job description

As a Specialist Network Lead Infrastructure Engineer, you will influence the build of, and oversee the operation and maintenance of, the Department’s physical and cloud networking infrastructure that underpins internal user services and services to the public. In this highly technical role, you will work within a team of multidisciplinary Infrastructure Engineers in a user-centred, agile environment, delivering improvements to modernise how the physical and cloud network is deployed and managed. You will:

• Work with Infrastructure Engineers managing the full lifecycle of existing network infrastructure and assist on delivery projects.
• Provide technical oversight of networking programmes and projects to ensure that the network remains current, scalable, flexible, and fit for purpose.
• Work with Technical Architecture teams, and the Network Management team, to translate architectural designs into operable solutions.
• Identify processes and initiatives to optimise ways of working, and to define and deliver programmes that will mature the Department’s network; implementing against agreed standards to ensure consistency.
• Automate support and maintenance by embedding consolidating consoles/portals where appropriate, and champion the use of automation in the continuous development of the network.
• Work with specialist security teams, to ensure that the appropriate and agreed security controls are in place, monitored and reported upon.
• Collaborate with projects, IT suppliers and commercial teams to ensure contracts are maintained, costs are managed, and opportunities are leveraged to reduce ongoing technical operational costs to achieve best value for money.
• Develop and maintain delivery policies, processes and standards.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

Assessed in the application and both interview stages:

• Experience of providing technical leadership to guide a team towards shared goals to develop, operate and maintain network infrastructure resources including switches, Wi-Fi equipment, DHCP and other connectivity resources.
• Experience leading and designing system integration builds to combine networking components to create a consolidated solution; co-ordinating test and build activities across infrastructure services.
• Experience of designing, implementing and assuring boundary and security controls, options and configuration settings to protect Departmental IT services, and to mitigate against security threats and vulnerabilities. This includes firewalls, Web Application Firewalls and other access control resources.

Assessed in the application and second interview stage:

• Experience of conveying technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Problem management. Experience identifying incident trends and coordinating actions to investigate, identify and resolve root causes; and organising Infrastructure Engineers to take forward preventive measures.
• Experience of using automation techniques to configure network services, automate processes and extract information. This may include using software, tooling, scripting and other automation techniques such as Python, PowerShell, Bicep or vendor-specific automation tools.
• Experience of providing technical leadership for troubleshooting activities; breaking down network infrastructure incidents, diagnosing and rectifying root cause.

Desirable Criteria:

• Verified credentials, certification or qualifications in the IT network space an advantage particularly Palo Alto, Cisco/Meraki or Barracuda, and experience of 802.1x network protocol.
• Influencing service levels and service frameworks and how to operate within them to deliver, operate and maintain IT infrastructure services.
• Experience of developing and contributing to design standards.
• Experience of developing requirements and specifications, defining test conditions and analysing and reporting test activities and results.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.