Senior Infrastructure Engineer Endpoints

This role will be based on site, primarily in the named location. We have one simple promise – to make a positive impact. Through our ground-breaking research, teaching excellence and commitment to sustainable living, we are changing lives for the better. The University of Derby is a modern university with a modern outlook. Everything we do is driven by delivering excellence and opportunities for our students, our staff and our region.

We have some of the best university facilities in the UK and achieve outstanding results for our teaching and research and have been awarded Gold in the prestigious Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 – making it one of the top universities in the country recognised for its outstanding student experience and student outcomes. Financially strong and seriously ambitious we offer our employees an inclusive culture that centres itself around staff wellbeing, where you can be confident you will receive all the help and encouragement you need to build a rewarding career with lots of opportunities to enhance your skills.

Digital Solutions & Services are responsible for providing the digital platform to enable the best possible service to staff, students and stakeholders across the University and beyond. We take a collaborative approach to developing strategic goals to provide a diverse range of information technology and business services designed to support learning, teaching and research at the University of Derby.

We are responsible for ensuring that the University’s IT capability is fit for purpose, future focused and able to protect, support and enhance the full breadth of services that will be delivered either on campus or digitally online with contributions across the department. We aim to assist students, teaching staff, support departments and collaborative partners to ensure we are making an impact on the University’s current and future digital landscape.

The Endpoint development team are a small team who are responsible for the development and running of a modern desktop and mobile management hybrid infrastructure to manage and secure the student and staff estate of Windows and Apple Mac across the university. The Senior Engineer will have operational day to day responsibility of the various technologies and platforms required to develop and run the endpoint estate, ensuring their optimum performance, reliability and security. This includes imaging from bare metal, application packaging and deployment, updating, security and endpoint health, reporting and analytics across the estate.

The Senior Engineer will work closely with the second line operations team to ensure the endpoint estate is functioning as needed and work on operational handover as required or work is identified for left shift. Key responsibilities are, but not limited to:

• Ensure the Endpoint estate is well managed and secure and provides the appropriate customer experience.
• Co-developing key strategies, roadmaps, designs, developing and then implementing / updating services within the team, having key accountability for services.
• Document all work.
• Assist with sector horizon scanning, benchmarks service against the sector to ensure service is future focussed.
• Maintain security of complex hybrid systems through implementing secure strategies, policies and controls and automation where possible.
• Own priority and diagnosis of incidents according to agreed procedures.
• Serve as an escalation point within the team and for operations.

The ideal candidate will have experience of implementing innovative solutions that are customer and future focused, along with significant experience of managing large-scale mixed estates of endpoints. This will include:

• Extensive experience of application packaging and deployment.
• Proven experience of Microsoft Office 365, Exchange Online, and Azure services e.g. Azure AD Connect, Azure LogicApps, Virtual Machines, Microsoft Lab Services.
• Extensive knowledge of configuration / Endpoint management e.g. Intune, Autopilot, Microsoft Configuration Manager, JAMF, Active Directory, Group Policy.
• Extensive knowledge of security technologies such as Defender for Endpoint and security baselines.
• Excellent knowledge of Windows, MacOS.
• 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.

Work with the Team Leader to achieve the strategic objectives of the team:

• Ensure the Endpoint estate is well managed and secure and provides the appropriate customer experience.
• Service ownership / service delivery – co-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.
• Work with the endpoint team leader to ensure an excellent student and staff experience across the estate.
• Assist with sector horizon scanning, benchmarks service against the sector to ensure service is future focussed.
• Responsible for solution documentation, 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 where appropriate for the endpoint service.
• Identifying existing processes for development of either new or improved automation or document handover of process to the second line team.
• Responsible for assisting with key projects which can be across department.
• Responsible for ensuring monitoring of all services, including predictive and analytics, is available for all services and reporting to the management team.
• Maintain security of complex hybrid systems through implementing secure strategies, policies and controls and automation where possible, with understanding of the principles of least privilege, remediation strategies and knowledge of the threat landscape.
• Own priority and diagnosis of incidents according to agreed procedures and helps mentor others in this process. 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.
• Initiates and monitors actions to investigate and resolve problems in systems, processes and services. Determines problem fixes / remedies. Assists with the implementation of agreed remedies and preventative measures.
• 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.
• Assists in evaluating 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.
• Work with the Infrastructure Team Managers and Lead Engineers on managing external vendors and suppliers, or escalating where necessary, ensuring vendors 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.
• Mentors across the Infrastructure and Service Delivery area.

BSc in Computer Science (or equivalent qualification) or equivalent industry experience.

Experience:

• Experience of implementing innovative solutions that are customer and future focused.
• Significant experience of managing large-scale mixed estates of endpoints (Windows, MacOS and iOS devices).
• Experience of developing and deploying high level infrastructure and solutions.
• Extensive experience of application packaging and deployment.
• Extensive experience of application licensing, including configuration of license servers.
• Extensive experience of device imaging, bare metal deployments and provisioning, e.g. Autopilot and task sequences.
• Extensive experience of Microsoft Active Directory / Entra ID, Intune and Configuration Profiles / Group Policy.
• High level of experience and proficiency of PowerShell to script solutions and automations.
• Extensive experience of managing the Modern Desktop (Windows 11) and implementing best practice with regard desktop application and patch deployment.
• Experience delivering in a high performance multi-disciplinary infrastructure team.
• Understanding of project management lifecycle from conception through implementation.
• Demonstrated proficiency and technical knowledge of infrastructure technology communications / protocols – TCP/IP and other relevant protocols.
• 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 e.g. Azure AD Connect, Azure LogicApps, Virtual Machines, Microsoft Lab Services.
• Proven experience with Microsoft Virtual Desktop or other virtual desktop environments.
• Experience of Firewalls, Backup/DR solutions, DHCP, DNS etc.

Skills, knowledge & abilities:

• Configuration / Endpoint management e.g. Intune, Autopilot, Microsoft Configuration Manager, JAMF, Active Directory, Group Policy, EntraID.
• Security Technologies e.g. Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Sentinel (SIEM), Security Baselines, Windows Update for Business, Qualys, BeyondTrust.
• Demonstrated proficiency in public Azure/Office 365 and private cloud platforms.
• Understanding of Container Technologies (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes).
• Identity and Single Sign On (e.g. Azure AD/AD Connect, ADFS) and Conditional Access.
• 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.
• Help with the development of staff across Infrastructure and Service Delivery.
• Engagement with Students to ensure Service is fit for purpose, and to assist with Student employability.

Qualifications:

• Experience integration of cloud services with on-premises infrastructure.
• Familiarity with DevOps processes and practices and automation, and Git source control.
• Previous experience within a Higher Education Institution.
• Proven experience of managing support contracts, ensuring vendors are compliant with their SLAs and KPIs.
• Experience of developing and migrating to infrastructure as code, and automation of services, using technologies such as Terraform, Packer, Ansible and YAML.

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.
• Server infrastructure (Load Balancers, DNS, DHCP, VMWare).
• Network infrastructure (TCP/IP, Switching, Routing).
• Knowledge and experience of Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS) concept.

Generous annual leave entitlement of 38 days inclusive of bank holidays and concessionary days (pro rata). Suite of holistic wellbeing benefits and support including family-friendly policies, generous sick pay provision and comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme. Access to a variety of staff discounts at high street retailers. Discounted onsite gym. Holiday purchase. Cycle to Work scheme. A flexible working environment. A commitment to personal and professional development.

For further information and informal enquiries regarding the role, please contact Jamie Oliver, Lead Infrastructure Engineer Endpoints/Team Leader via J.Oliver1@derby.ac.uk. For enquiries regarding your application and for sponsorship eligibility, please contact the recruitment team via recruitment@derby.ac.uk.

The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers under the Skilled Worker route for this role; however, applications are welcome from candidates who are able to demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.

The University of Derby is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, regardless of age, disability, trans status, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief (or none), sex and sexual orientation. We are Disability Confident Employers, demonstrating our commitment to disability inclusion, and invite applicants to highlight adjustments they may require to ensure equitable participation in our recruitment processes.

Further, we are committed to ensuring an environment which is trans and non-binary-inclusive for all our staff, students, partners, and visitors, and continuously review our policies, guidance and training. When applying to join the University, you can choose your preferred title, including the gender-neutral title 'Mx'. We also ask our candidates if they would like to share their preferred pronouns. This is voluntary but demonstrates our commitment to inclusivity for trans and non-binary candidates. Once employed, you can add pronouns and preferred names onto our system.

The University of Derby undertakes anonymised shortlisting during the staff recruitment process. This means that, when shortlisting, panel members will not be able to see an applicant’s name and will see an applicant number instead. This demonstrates the practical steps we are taking to remove barriers to recruitment by minimising the possible impact of our unconscious bias. However you identify, we actively celebrate the knowledge, experience and talents each person brings. Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds; therefore we are particularly interested to hear from applicants who will help our leaders and teams be more reflective of our student population.

At the University of Derby, we are passionate about embedding sustainability into everything that we do. We aim to bring environmental sustainability into all aspects of the University, including teaching, research and operational activities. In line with the University’s strategic framework, we expect all our staff to embed sustainability into their working practices and support the University’s objective to reach net zero carbon by 2050.

Be part of something extraordinary, apply now.

You can apply by submitting an online application. Once you have signed in or registered with us you will be able to begin your application. If you are creating an account for the first time, please ensure you provide an email address that you access regularly as this will be our main means of contacting you regarding your application. The University reserves the right to close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

If you require any assistance, including the provision of any documentation in an alternative format, please contact the Recruitment team at recruitment@derby.ac.uk. Please note all applications must be submitted online by Midnight GMT on the closing date of the vacancy. The University of Derby is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our staff, students and children. At the University of Derby, safeguarding is everybody's concern.