Senior Operations Engineer
Who we are?
Armour Communications Limited creates market leading secure communications solutions for voice, video, messaging and data on smart devices, Windows 10 desktops and integrates with landlines. Armour’s product offerings include FIPS, NATO and CPA approved solutions to OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE, with additional security layers to mitigate threats up to SECRET. Supplying government, large enterprises and finance markets around the world, with an easy to use, intuitive app, available in app stores and a highly scalable cloud-based service or an on-premises solution providing customers with complete control and privacy of their communications.
What will you be doing?
We are looking to expand our IT Operations team to cope with increasing customer demand for our products. Working in a hybrid cloud infrastructure environment, the role will be focused on supporting internal and cloud infrastructure, as well as project-based work. The position would suit someone who is passionate all aspects of Infrastructure (predominantly Ubuntu), as you will be installing a variety of applications including the Armour product suite and solving infrastructure problems across multiple projects. You will be working individually, as well as in a small team. You will be interacting with customers both internal and external. Due to the nature of the role, it may be required to undertake out of hours work.
The Senior Operations Engineer is the technical escalation point and has responsibility for managing the workflow of the team; completing and delegating tasks as appropriate and ensuring all team tasks (including their own) are performed to meet business demands. The SOE also ensures good management of the team resources – understanding who is doing what and identifying the training needs of the team. The SOE is responsible for working with technical leads across the organisation, being fully engaged with the strategic direction of the Operations team and taking responsibility for ensuring the team follow current best practice in all situations. An SOE will often be party to incident and process reviews and be responsible for identifying improvements and ensuring they are implemented ‘on the ground’. You are also encouraged to use your initiative and technical skills to plug gaps, or automate processes, or otherwise improve working practices.
Essential skills/experience
- Must be capable of obtaining UK security clearance (e.g. UK resident for at least past 5 years)
- An understanding of modern infrastructure design & administration
- An appreciation for security, both in design & operation
- Networking Skills – TCP/IP, DNS, Network Protocols, etc.
- Good experience with Terraform and Ansible
- Experience with open-source software, like Docker, Kubernetes, OpenStack, Prometheus, and others.
- Experience of Application support of systems like Atlassian, Video Conferencing, LDAP, VPN
- Experience building CI/CD pipelines from scratch and deploying using Jenkins
- Ability to follow process and clearly document tasks.
- Extensive experience of logging and managing incidents/tickets, and the ability to look after the workflow of others.
- Able to create high quality supporting documentation for the Operations team
- Exemplary interpersonal skills as the role requires collaboration and delegation
- A professional and respectful attitude to customers and staff alike
- Strong communication skills to engage stakeholders of a variety of levels internally and externally
- Appreciation of the principles of prioritisation and planning of projects
- A creative approach to BAU – identifying improvements which add value and progressing them – whether individually or at a team level
Nice to have skills/experience
- Customer facing/on-site client support experience
- Experience with Asterisk or similar voice / gateway products.
- Experience of configuration management software.
- Experience of creating high availability and redundant systems.
- Familiarity with using a range of diagnostic and monitoring tools
- Troubleshooting and diagnosing complex defects in software systems
Operations duties and responsibilities of the job Duties will include:
- Supporting Armour’s internal and cloud Infrastructure
- Designing new IT systems
- Developing and maintaining the CI/CD system
- Installing and configuring computer hardware, software, systems, networks, printers and scanners
- Monitoring and maintaining systems and networks
- Responding in a timely manner to service issues and requests
- Providing technical support across the company (in person, by email, or over the phone)
- Setting up accounts for new users
- Repairing and replacing equipment as necessary
- Learning about and testing new technology
- Training staff members
- Planning and organising the delivery of projects