Infrastructure Operations Lead - Leeds

Infrastructure Operations Assurance Lead - Leeds, West Yorkshire

ROLE:
Infrastructure Operations Assurance Lead, Infrastructure Manager, Infrastructure and Assurance Lead

SKILL:
Linux, VMware, Storage, Network, Datacentre environment, Team Leadership or Management experience, Automation (Scripting), PCI/Compliance

SALARY:
GBP45,000 - GBP55,000 plus benefits which include annual bonus, 25 days annual leave rising to 30days, private medical insurance, contributed pension, flexi hours, free gym, childcare vouchers, bike to work scheme, subsided car parking, share scheme, training budget + excellent company related benefits!

LOCATION:
Leeds City Centre

COMMUTABLE FROM:
Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Pontefract, Huddersfield, Halifax, York, Selby, Morley,

PLEASE NOTE:
You will be required to work on call 1 in 6/7 weekends (Saturday or Sunday) so you must be local and prepared to be on this rota

The Infrastructure and Assurance Team Lead is a key role in delivering industry leading technical infrastructure compliance. Leading and developing a team of Infrastructure and Assurance Engineers and working hands-on directly, you will ensure that the private cloud platforms operating the customer facing and internal systems are maintained, updated and managed pro-actively, and swiftly act on any issues that are raised during the life cycle of the service. The team will also form part of the live operational service cover in conjunction with the adjacent Infrastructure Operations team, and will be responsible for providing technical and process data for our external audits.

As the successful Infrastructure Operations Assurance Lead you will have a proven track record in managing high profile web and infrastructure platforms, with a focus on Linux and VMware virtualisation technologies in addition to some experience of storage, Servers, networks and datacentre technologies. We are also looking for someone who has a keen eye for detail, able to work rapidly whilst safely on live systems, provide good communications to stakeholders, progress automation across the demands for the team and with an aptitude to continually improve the platform and team performance.

Infrastructure Operations and Assurance Lead Duties:
* Line management of a team of Infrastructure Engineers, including objective setting, administration, recruitment and performance management
* Proactively manage the patching, updates and maintenance of the infrastructure systems, and lead the technical response to any identified security vulnerabilities on the platform
* Lead the technical response for Infrastructure on audit and compliance activities
* Assist with the operational management of the Infrastructure platforms
* Lead the assurance of high quality Infrastructure services through the improvement, optimisation and testing of backup, restore, failover testing and risk reduction, remediating issues where necessary
* Work with 3rd party suppliers to leverage knowledge and request assistance to ensure systems are optimally secure, high performing and highly available
* Identify and drive action to improve areas of weakness or limitation in the infrastructure technologies
* Mentor and up-skill the other members of the team in your areas of expertise, developing and sharing knowledge effectively
* Be visibly self-starting and demonstrate at all times a strong attitude for driving delivery
* Communicate effectively through high quality documentation, face to face interaction and presentation, both at a deep technical level and for senior non-technical audiences
* Mentor and increase the knowledge of other engineering staff
* Provide oversight and governance, ensuring that project-related and operational changes are aligned to the architectural direction, and avoid risk to the platform stability and performance
* Be able to deliver high quality technical solutions on a wide range of technologies in a hands-on manner and in a timely fashion
* Ensure that any changes to existing production platforms are captured in the change management system and released at a time appropriate to the risk involved (which may be out of hours)
* Produce and maintain high quality operational documentation
* Develop and produce key performance indicators to measure the quality and maintenance levels of infrastructure services
* Provide support out of hours in an on call rota basis (approx. 1 in 6/7 weeks require working a Saturday or Sunday)

Infrastructure Team Lead Technical Skills:
* Relevant degree or equivalent in Computing or related subject or relevant commercial experience
* Significant commercial experience of Platform Engineering in a fast paced online business with multi-million revenues and 24x7x365 operation
* Large scale environments; 2000 VMs and 300 Hardware devices
* Experience of driving sustained and significant improvement in service availability, security and performance
* In-depth knowledge of multi-tier, multi-site Web applications, eCommerce and Internet applications
* Broad technical knowledge of Internet and networking technologies and protocols
* Experience of automating infrastructure workflows
* Significant experience of line managing or team leading an infrastructure team function within a high revenue, high presence web environment
* Experience of technically managing operational major incident responses and security responses
* Excellent knowledge of RedHat Linux and Windows operating systems
* In-depth experience of Networking principals and Network support
* Experience of VMware VSphere build, support, monitoring and performance tuning.
* In depth experience of 3 tier web technologies
* Operating enterprise databases
* Experience of clustering and backup technologies
* Experience of common infrastructure and application monitoring platforms
* Experience in Scripting

If you are a proven Infrastructure Operations Lead who is looking for a new role, please apply immediately in Word format for consideration.