Infrastructure and Transformation Lead

​Purpose Summary:

A key member of the IT Change team, the Infrastructure and Transformation Lead will support the IT Change/Portfolio Manager to recommend and implement changes to the IT infrastructure to support and deliver overall business objectives, projects and changes. They will use best practice project and change management techniques and ITIL methodology and processes to promote quality delivery of the IT portfolio of projects and change within their area of the organisation. Key measures for the role include high customer satisfaction, delivery of agreed changes within the technical area, currency of IT systems and services, faster delivery of changes and successful delivery of IT systems/services/applications change overall.

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Principal Accountabilities:

• Contribute to the IT strategy, architectural direction and infrastructure/services roadmaps; keeping up to date with market developments and pro-actively suggesting how best to incorporate such developments into company roadmaps

• Ensure new services and products are transitioned to ongoing operational support effectively and efficiently, leading the weekly Change Review Board.

• Work with stakeholders to identify and understand business drivers or requirements which will benefit from/need IT change, and/or opportunities to apply new or updated technology to deliver wider business benefits. Recommend a plan and schedule of prioritised projects/changes for the relevant technical areas

• Within the technical space (including but not limited to servers, storage, infrastructure, networks, architecture, topology, systems design, security, access, firewalls, proxies, hosting, clients, disaster recovery, business continuity) provide input, guidance and technical support to the Lead BA’s (if front or back office-driven changes) or personally lead technically-driven changes and improvements across client, server and infrastructure technologies.

• For each change, group of changes or project within the relevant technical area:

• Evaluate options and present proposed solutions clearly with supporting analysis for validation and review, to include cost/benefit analysis and business process, application and data impact

• Produce clear and detailed documentation of technical requirements, including functional and non-functional requirements and definition of test plans 

• Work with the IT Services team and business stakeholders to establish service design and service levels for new or changed IT systems/services/applications

• Arrange for provision of training as appropriate in new or updated process, technical or service capability, ensuring that IT Services team are fully aware of changes

• Create and maintain a library of technical/architectural documentation, and actively promote simplification of processes/technology/services landscapes 

• Create and maintain technical roadmaps and architectures to guide forward planning and ensure currency of technical solutions (including point upgrades of hardware and core software/infrastructure), and to introduce best market practices as these emerge. Understand and influence 3rd party roadmaps and designs and provide recommendations to the Change/Portfolio and Services Managers.

• Recommend changes and projects to deliver the roadmaps in an efficient and effective way, leading the changes where appropriate, or working with a Project Manager for larger change initiatives.

• Act as subject matter expert for any incident escalations from the IT Services team which require more detailed understanding of the technical area. Provide guidance and documentation to promote and improve first time fix rates within the IT Services team; and work to document, automate, simplify or remove any recurring incidents/routine working practices.

• Ensure domain names are registered and managed effectively; and advise the IT Services Manager on certificate renewals and best practice.

• Monitor compliance to security standards and web standards and recommend improvements as required.

• Ensure all changes follow best practice security guidelines, such that capabilities and service provided are ‘secure by design’, including any transfer of data between servers or with third parties, integration between systems/applications and file transfer/integration setup/implementation.

• Define network and security management – network access control, remote access control, overall IT security analysis and protection, and web security management across the estate

• Evolve and improve disaster recovery management capabilities, working with input from the IT Services Manager and third parties, and taking account of market developments and best practice.

• Work with the IT Change/Portfolio Manager and Lead Business Analysts to create and update environments in support of application changes

• Lead a small team to provide IT infrastructure change effectively, by:

• Providing appropriate levels of internal staff and 3rd party coverage to introduce new or changed systems/services/applications in 24x7x365 operations

• Appraisal, personal and professional development and line management of staff

• Regular review of marketplace and recommendations on required staffing levels and forthcoming skills/knowledge requirements across IT (spotting trends and likely new skill requirements/shortages/training opportunities)

• Assist the Change/Portfolio Manager to define, implement and ensure continuous improvement of the following ITIL processes:

• Demand Management

• Release and Deployment Management

• Environment management

• Service Transformation

• Information Security Management

• IT Service Continuity Management

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Knowledge, Experience, Qualifications:

• Sound working knowledge of IT infrastructure and related technology, IT infrastructure best practices, industry trends and customer service. Experience of applications architecture/solution design would be an advantage

• Understanding of financial services would be beneficial

• Good understanding of security and compliance standards, business continuity and disaster recovery

• Understanding of IT projects especially as these result in introduction of new services

• Self-motivated with good analytical problem-solving ability

• Excellent organisational skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, especially relating to presentation of complex information clearly, simply and in the wider business context

• Strong interpersonal skills

• Customer focussed, flexible, pragmatic and decisive

• Remains calm under pressure, and balances empathy with assertiveness

• Ideally ITIL Foundation qualified

• Ideally degree educated 

• This is a technical role, so competency with the following technologies is required:

• Sound knowledge of Windows operating systems & Microsoft suite including Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory

• Web technologies including html, XML, IIS, JBOSS

• Virtualisation technologies including VMWare

• Backup and recovery technologies

• Automation software and scripting

• Reasonable understanding of network topologies and technologies including LAN/WAN, firewall, proxy management, security services.

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Salary: £45,000 Per annum + Benefits