Lead Engineer/Team Leader at the University of Derby (UK Sponsorship Available)

The University of Derby is currently looking to hire a Lead Engineer/Team Leader who will join their Digital Solutions and Services department. Applications are welcome from qualified individuals.

The University of Derby is a modern, innovative education provider that achieved its University status in 1992. They have since become a university of first choice for students who want a caring aspirational environment where they can equip themselves for the career they choose.

Over the past 10 years they have made a significant investment in world-class facilities, designed to give our students the very best learning environment. They have more investment planned and continue to develop teaching to be innovative, stimulating and engaging. Their investments include: £12 million STEM Centre – including facilities for mechanical testing, a smart factory, and a hemi-anechoic chamber, State-of-the-art £10.8 million sports centre, Forensic Training, Facility with a dedicated crime scene house and Industry-standard Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab.

Financially strong, the school’s future aspirations are built around the skills, energy and enthusiasm of our academic and professional teams. They work closely together to find creative ways to position Derby as a university of first choice.

The University of Derby is committed to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion. However you identify, they actively celebrate the knowledge, experience and talents each person brings. Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds; therefore they are particularly interested to hear from applicants who will help our leaders and teams be more reflective of our student population.

Position: Lead Engineer/Team Leader

Salary: £41,625 to £44,702 per year

Job Type: Full Time

Location: Derby, UK (Hybrid)

About the Role

Digital Solutions and Services at the University of Derby is a fast paced, challenging but highly rewarding place to work; need highly motivated team players who can communicate across all levels of the business.

As part of an innovative 3rd line team responsible for the delivery of a modern desktop and mobile management infrastructure; the Lead Engineer/Team Leader will have operational day to day responsibility of the various technologies and platforms, ensuring their optimum performance, reliability, and security and managing a modern and efficient endpoint team.

The role is an exciting combination of lead engineer and management of the team.

Supporting the delivery of digital transformation and automation to the team and the wider university; the Lead Engineer/Team leader will assist in ensuring Digital Solutions and Services are able to deliver endpoint services seamlessly, to our userbase as well as promoting a culture of left shift into the Service Delivery teams.

Leading and supporting the delivery of game changing projects to ensure we deliver excellence to our students and staff; the Team Leader will work with the team to continually develop and exploit its potential for the University across an estate of over 7000 endpoint devices whilst maintaining a culture of delivering excellence.

The Team leader will work across the department and wider university, but especially liaising with the Service Delivery function, to address problem management and help deliver a culture of continuous service improvement.

The Endpoint Team Leader will form part of the Service Delivery and Infrastructure management team.

Our infrastructure is future focused; Windows 10/11, OSX, Intune, JAMF, Autopilot, MECM, Office 365, Azure, TrendMicro, we have a cloud first approach to our infrastructure and look to utilise efficient ways of delivering a quality service.

Main Duties

  • Lead, manage, motivate, mentor, develop and empower staff within the team using an effective, managed, and structured approach.
  • Work towards continued improvements in staff engagement within the team.
  • Ensure appropriate HR procedures are followed to manage performance and staff development plans.
  • Devise and agree staff training plans to maintain current awareness and certification of current and future technology to ensure a modern, relevant, and high performing team.
  • Working with the Service Delivery and Infrastructure Management Team to develop and implement innovative projects and services to support the digital strategy and business plans.
  • Devise business cases and justification for capital and revenue spend.
  • Review, approve and allocate work packages to team members and ensure repeatable tasks are carried out and reviewed to continually assess potential automation.
  • Ensure SLAs and KPIs are maintained and reported on, and that work tickets are dealt with in a speedy and effective manner.
  • Ensure effective team meeting are run with appropriate regularity to ensure an informed and updated team.
  • Responsible for leading on key services within the team.
  • Responsible for ensuring a strong customer focussed attitude and always displaying brilliance.
  • Service ownership / service delivery – developing key strategies, roadmaps, designs, developing and then implementing / updating services within the team, ensuring all documentation is in place and Service transition is seamless across the various internal teams.
  • Undertakes sector horizon scanning, benchmarks service against the sector to ensure service is future focussed.
  • Responsible for solution documentation in support of operational readiness, which may include training, process development and explanation of standards.
  • Responsible for setting standards for hardware, software, and configuration management.
  • Responsible for ensuring Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity processes are in place and tested.
  • Working to provide automation and integration to bespoke software solutions that are complex in nature.
  • Work closely with other teams across the business to improve efficiency and adapt existing processes to enable a secure, smooth, and successful migration to a modern hybrid cloud infrastructure.
  • Responsible for leading on key projects which can be across department and high value £500K+.
  • Responsible for ensuring monitoring of all services, including predicative and analytics, is available for all services.
  • Maintain security of complex hybrid systems through implementing secure strategies, policies and controls and automating where possible.
  • Leads or mentors’ others on priority and diagnosis of incidents according to agreed procedures. Investigates causes of incidents and seeks resolution. Escalates unresolved incidents. Facilitates recovery, following resolution of incidents. Documents and closes resolved incidents according to agreed procedures and ensures lessons learned.
  • Serves as an escalation point within the team and for operations (tier 3 support) for highly complex solution resolution, and responsible for root cause analysis.
  • Evaluates the impact of proposed or required changes which may be highly complex in nature (internally and by vendors) especially in the areas of hardware, software, performance, maintenance, and cost; provide recommendations to management with an impact assessment.
  • Works with the Head of Service Delivery and Infrastructure to ensure external vendors and suppliers are delivering on service and providing best value to the University.
  • Working in a team environment to deliver complex solutions to multiple internal and external business units.
  • Leads and mentors across the Infrastructure and Service Delivery area.

Qualifications

  • BSc in Computer Science or equivalent qualification

Experience

  • Experience of mentoring and developing staff
  • Significant experience of implementing innovative solutions that are customer and future focused
  • Significant experience of developing and deploying high level infrastructure and solutions
  • Extensive experience of managing large-scale mixed estates of endpoints (Windows, Mac and Mobile)
  • Extensive experience of Microsoft Active Directory / Entra ID and Group Policy
  • High level of experience and proficiency of PowerShell to script solutions and automations
  • Extensive experience of managing the Modern Desktop (Windows 10/11) and implementing best practice with regard desktop application and patch deployment
  • Experience of developing and migrating to infrastructure as code, and automation of services
  • Proven experience delivering in a high performance multi-disciplinary infrastructure team
  • Understanding of project management lifecycle from conception through implementation
  • Demonstrated proficiency in analytical and problem-solving skills with ability to correlate cross-platform technologies
  • Proven experience of Microsoft Office 365, Exchange Online, and Azure services
  • Proven experience of implementing secure strategies, polices and controls

Skills, knowledge & abilities

  • Configuration / Endpoint management e.g. MECM, Autopilot, Intune, JAMF
  • Security Technologies e.g. TrendMicro Apex One, Cloud One, DDAN
  • Demonstrated proficiency in public (Azure/Office 365) and private cloud platforms
  • Container Technologies (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift)
  • Virtualization
  • Operating Systems
  • Identity and Single Sign On (e.g. Entra ID, AD, ADFS)
  • Orchestration / Automation Experience
  • Ability to deliver within tight deadlines in a demanding environment
  • Attention to detail and determination for excellence
  • Passion, energy, and enthusiasm for continuous improvement and encourages innovation
  • Develops and utilises expertise for the benefit of customers and colleagues. Can apply knowledge quickly to new challenges

Business requirements

  • Work as part of an on call out of hours rota
  • Possess valid driver’s license for travel between sites

Qualifications

  • Relevant professional certifications e.g. MCSA

Experience

  • Integration of cloud services with on-premises infrastructure
  • Proven experience of developing technical strategies and policies in line with business requirements
  • Familiarity with DevOps processes and practices and automation
  • Previous experience within a Higher Education Institution
  • Proven experience of managing support contracts, ensuring vendors are compliant with their SLAs and KPIs

Skills, knowledge and abilities

  • Understanding of Information Security best practices
  • Understanding of procurement regulations, guidelines, and procedures such as tender processes and IT public sector frameworks
  • Network infrastructure (TCP/IP, Switching, Routing)
  • Knowledge and experience of Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS) concepts

Benefits

  • Visa sponsorship: This role is eligible for sponsorship by the University
  • As well as competitive pay scales, they offer generous holiday entitlement. they also offer opportunities for further salary progression based on performance, and the opportunity to join a contributory pension scheme.

Required Documents

  1. CV/Resume
  2. Cover Letter

Application Process

In order to apply for this role and to learn more about it, kindly CLICK HERE

Application Deadline

July 8, 2024