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Organisation - Customers, Communication and Technology Job - Technology Service Operations Position Type - Full Time

Location: Pier Walk, North Greenwich/ Hybrid Contract Type: Permanent Salary: £62,000 - £70,000 plus fantastic benefits
UK Sponsorship available however, candidates are responsible for their own application fees

Hybrid working within this role enables a balance of 50 per cent of time split between the office and home over a 4-week period. Hybrid working arrangements can evolve subject to business requirements.

Key Technologies: Routing and Switching (WAN/LAN/Datacentre), Network Security (Firewalls), SDN, Wi-Fi and Cloud Networks.

About Us
The Networks and Hosting Team, which sits within Tech and Data is responsible for
maintaining existing infrastructure, which underpins the majority of our services across TfL.

It is an exciting time to join the Network team, as you’ll be working on large scale network improvement projects such as: network security (firewall) upgrades, network consolidation and integration, widescale WAN refresh, data centre network refresh.

About the Role
The Senior IT Network Assurance Engineer reports to the Network Assurance Manager and provides specialist technical knowledge, experience and leadership to assure, support and optimise our IT Access, WAN, data centre and Cloud network infrastructure.

Working within a 24/7 operational environment the Senior IT Assurance Engineer will be maintaining technologies, assuring deployments, and looking for continuous improvement and automation of repeatable tasks. You will have an in depth knowledge of networking technologies including routing and switching across campus and datacentre, and network security (inc. firewalls), and will be leading Network Assurance team members, and collaborating with our Network Transformation Portfolio, Infrastructure teams, Network Architects and our Application Support and Development Management teams to provide expertise to support our business-critical services and deliver high profile projects in line with our organisation priorities and vision.

Main Duties

• Ensure the operability of TfL's information technology networks including management, investigation and resolution of incidents to maximise system availability for critical business services in accordance with the agreed service levels.
• Accountable for the technical ownership and assurance of all operational network activities, including change, request and network design architectures, ensuring networks are in line with approved designs, and implementations are fit for purpose.
• Provide guidance and technically lead and mentor the Network team in the delivery of: BAU Services, Project work activities, Continual improvements to both processes and service.
• Lead on the accurate and timely reporting of the state of the technical environment using monitoring and reporting tools, rectifying any operations that are running outside of their normal state. Ensure all HW, SW and service configuration elements are recorded correctly.
• Capacity Management: Identify and drive activities to mitigate risks in the Network environment.
• Service and Process Improvements; Identify, shape and drive the delivery of potential areas of improvement to technology or processes, with particular focus on, standardising and automation to reduce manual effort. Provide recommendations for innovative solutions.
• Collaborate & engage with other technology colleagues and teams to deliver project outcomes. Provide SME input and contribute to the design process, as required.
• Identify technical dependencies, risks, and issues to maintain vendor, statutory and T&D compliance levels.
  Responsible for identifying trends and forecasting activity, proactively carrying out improvements to assist TfL in maintaining up to date, stable and secure technologies.
• Supplier Management: Handle suppliers’ adherence to Service Level Agreements, and work with vendors to minimise service disruption and achieve the minimum service according to the business requirements, and ensure value is realised.
• Assure network activities meet TfL policies and standards, and best practices.
• Ensure all Capex networks spend is in line with business priorities and is cost efficient.
• Maintain knowledge of industry developments and trends in Network and Network Security technologies.
• Responsible for effective time management to develop skills, and provide technical leadership and role model behaviour to junior members of the team wishing to progress.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• The successful candidate will have a demonstrable very high level of knowledge of networking technologies including:
  
  • Switching technologies (VLANs, trunks, STP, vPC, VDC, VXLAN, multi-layer switching and EtherChannel)
  • Routing technologies (EIGRP/OSPF/iBGP/eBGP) and router redundancy (HSRP, VRRP, GLBP)
  • QoS in a LAN/WAN environment
• Strong troubleshooting skills, the ability and desire to learn new things and a willingness to work both autonomously and using their own initiative are essential.
• Demonstrable strong knowledge and experience supporting firewalls including policy and VPN is required, as is the use of the CLI to manage devices.
• Knowledge of supporting Cisco and major firewall vendors’ software and hardware.
• Highly skilled at analysing data to determine trends and patterns to proactively mitigate service affecting issues, as well as solving complex challenges.
• Able to communicate coherently throughout, adapting the communication style to meet the varying audience, such as relating technical terms to non-technical people.
• Proficient in risk identification and mitigation planning to reduce service impacting issues.
• Proven ability to work with suppliers, internal teams and customers as necessary to reliably deliver component technologies that combine to form business services.
• Mentoring & coaching skills to support Engineers with development of their technical skills.

Desirable

• Knowledge of SDN, cloud networking technologies, Wi-Fi and network automation techniques such as python are also desirable.
• Knowledge of supporting software and hardware from other major networking vendors.
• The relevant national and international legislation pertaining to the Government/Public Sector IT – e.g. Data Protection Act, EU Procurement Directives and Freedom of Information Act is desirable.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of supporting large scale, high performance, high availability network architectures
• Experience working with and understanding complex network architecture designs, and implementing updated versions of technology in line with approved designs.
• Experience of Cisco network technologies and network security in complex enterprise sized environments.
• Experience of working as a senior member of a technical team, with an ability to technically lead and mentor a team of Engineers, acting as a technical authority and supporting technical development & progression within the team.
• Highly experienced in planning own activities.
• Fluent in English and be fully conversant with technical language relating to network design and hardware
• A Degree in a relevant subject, or equivalent qualifications/5 years+ work experience are essential
• Knowledge of ITIL and its practical implementation in large organisations.

Desirable

• In depth knowledge of the latest and emerging technologies and methodologies likely to be employed in designing and delivering enterprise wide networking solutions is highly desirable.
• Commercial and Financial awareness, to enable strategic thinking in problem solving and the right solutions.
• Knowledge of agile methodologies, such as Scrum.

Equality, diversity and inclusion We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to represent the city we serve, which will help us become a more innovative and efficient organisation. Our goal is to make our recruitment as inclusive as possible. We are a disability confident employer who guarantee an interview to any disabled candidate who meets all of the essential criteria. We also use anonymising software that removes identifying information from CVs and cover letters to make the process fair.

Application Process

Please apply using your CV and maximum two-page covering letter.
Think carefully about the skills, knowledge and experience in the advert and cover this in your CV and cover letter. PDF format preferred and do not include any photographs or images

The closing date for applications is Monday 2nd December @ 23:59
Please note we may close the advert early if we receive a high volume of applicants.

Benefits Include:

• Final salary pension scheme
• Free travel for you on the TfL network
• Reimbursement of 75% of the cost of a standard class Ticket for National Rail travel from home or 75% reimbursement on a 28-day flexi ticket
• 30 days annual leave plus public and bank holidays
• TfL is committed to work-life balance, operating a hybrid working approach where business and role requirements allow
• Private healthcare discounted scheme (optional)
• Tax-efficient cycle-to-work programme
• Retail, health, leisure and travel offers
• Discounted Eurostar travel