Specialist Network Senior Infrastructure Engineer - DfE - SEO

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, operate 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 Senior Network Infrastructure Engineer, you will collaborate with other Infrastructure Engineers to manage, operate and maintain the Department for Education’s physical and cloud networking infrastructure. In a user-centred, agile environment you will assist with driving improvements to modernise the deployment and management of network resources. This includes supporting the Lead Network Infrastructure Engineer to phase out outdated practices and implement new initiatives to enhance operation and maintenance. In this highly technical role you will:

• Input into the overall management of the network domain, contributing to plans regarding technology roadmaps, projects, workforce and budgets.
• Build, operate and maintain network resources.
• Respond to incidents and requests to identify and resolve issues preventing delivery.
• Identify patterns and trends within incidents and collaborate with others where required to resolve problems.
• Identify technical improvements to automate the deployment of network resources and management tasks where possible.
• Advocate user-centric, agile approaches which focus on rapid, effective delivery of high-quality services.
• Collaborate with and support third-party suppliers in providing network infrastructure services.
• Share knowledge of tools and techniques with the wider team and community, growing awareness, inclusivity and balance.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

Assessed in the application and both interview stages:

• Experience of building, configuring, operating and maintaining network infrastructure resources including switches, Wi-Fi equipment, DHCP and other connectivity resources.
• Experience of administering boundary and security controls, options and configuration settings to protect cloud computing services, and to mitigate against security threats and vulnerabilities including firewalls, Web Application Firewalls and other access control resources.
• Experience defining integration builds to combine IT infrastructure components to create a consolidated solution, and co-ordinating & testing build activities across systems.

Assessed in the application and the second interview stage:

• Experience of collaborating with and conveying technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• 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 problem management techniques: initiating and monitoring actions to investigate patterns and trends to resolve problems; determining the appropriate remedy; assisting with its implementation; and determining preventative measures.
• Experience of breaking down IT infrastructure problems into component parts to identify and diagnose root causes; troubleshooting; and identifying problems across different technology areas

Desirable Criteria:

• Verified credentials, certification or qualifications in the IT network space an advantage particularly Palo Alto, Cisco/Meraki or Barracuda.
• Understand the benefits of service levels and service frameworks and how to operate within them to deliver, operate and maintain IT infrastructure services,.
• Experience of working with and applying design standards, methods and tools; and developing systems designs for review to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.
• Experience of reviewing 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.