Specialist – Infrastructure Engineer – Applications, ICT Operations Unit (AD6)
ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT
This selection procedure is intended to fill 1 currently available post.
Europol retains the right to make use of the reserve list to select candidates for similar posts within the organisation, should business needs require so.
Organisational setting:
The post of Specialist – Infrastructure Engineer – Applications is located in the Application Services Team, ICT Operations Unit, ICT Department, Capabilities Directorate.
The C1 ICT Department has the responsibility for devising, delivering and operating critical technology capabilities and solutions supporting the core mission and support processes of Europol. Over 150 internal staff members and a significant number of domain-specific consultants are responsible for the Information and Communication Technologies and Systems that ensure enhanced criminal information analysis and exchange among Europol, Member States and third parties.
The ICT Operations Unit is responsible for the operations, management, availability and security of the Europol ICT Infrastructure and Applications. This includes teams responsible for Workplace Services, Service Management, Platform Services, Deployment Services, Application Services, Infrastructure Services and ICT Security.
Purpose of the post:
The Specialist – Infrastructure Engineer – Applications will be in charge of the engineering for Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) and bespoke solutions, ensuring the creation and maintenance of low-level designs and their alignment with infrastructure and security best practices. The incumbent will work with other infrastructure, platform and security engineers to foster standardisation, best practices, and ensure automation and alignment between environments. In addition, the incumbent will also be working with Software Engineers and development teams to facilitate the operation of bespoke solutions.
Reporting lines:
The incumbent reports to the Head of Team – Application Services.
Job environment:
This post might require participation in a shift system including weekends and nights as well as on-call duty.
FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES
The successful candidate will have to carry out the following main duties:
• In coordination with the application administrators within the team, create and maintain applications designs, ensuring alignment with architectural blueprints, defining the integrations with Europol infrastructure and platform, and the alignment with Europol best practices, naming conventions, security regulations and technical standards;
• Ensure the technical standardisation and alignment of Europol applications in multiple environments by identifying, designing, planning and proposing changes and procedures to assure reproducible deployments across the different environments;
• Design, implement and maintain operational procedures, propose and implement tools, automation and working practices for the continuous improvement of the efficiency and quality of service;
• Contribute to the structuring, development and maintenance of the technical knowledge base supporting the ICT Infrastructure Operations activities;
• Closely work and collaborate with the Platform, Infrastructure and Security teams to increase automation, align ways of working and ensure best practices are followed;
• Closely work with the Software Engineers and development team leads to facilitate the operation of bespoke solutions by ensuring alignment with the IT Operations guidelines and best practices;
• Coordinate work of consultants delivering solutions within the area of responsibility;
• Perform any other duties in the area of competence as assigned by line management.
REQUIREMENTS - ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION CRITERIA
Requirements - Eligibility criteria
a. Candidates must
• Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union and enjoy full rights as a citizen;
• Have fulfilled any obligations imposed by the applicable laws on military service;
• Produce appropriate character references as to his or her suitability for the performance of the duties;
• Be physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the post as further specified in Article 13 of the Conditions of
Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (CEOS);
• Produce evidence of a thorough knowledge of one of the languages of the Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another
language of the Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties.
b. Candidates must have
• A level of education that corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of
university education is three years or more;
OR
• Professional training of an equivalent level in a relevant area and after having completed the training, at least the
number of years of relevant professional experience as indicated below:
Duration of professional training Additional professional experience required
for equivalency
More than 6 months and up to 1 year 3 years
More than 1 year and up to 2 years 2 years
More than 2 years 1 year
• In addition to the above at least 3 years of total professional work experience gained after the award of the diploma.
Requirements - Selection criteria
a. Professional experience:
Essential:
• Experience collaborating with a diverse team of engineers responsible for deploying, maintaining and supporting
applications in production;
• Experience creating applications architecture and designs;
• Experience with configuration management tools and desired state configuration, such as Puppet;
• Experience, with CI/CD tools, such as Azure DevOps server;
• Experience, with container runtimes and container orchestration technologies and configurations, such as Kubernetes
and Rancher;
• Experience, in system administration on Microsoft and Linux operating systems;
• Experience working with agile teams and frameworks.
Desirable:
• Experience with infrastructure as code tools and methodologies, such as terraform;
• Experience with java and dotnet technologies, in particular applications configuration and maintenance;
• Experience in contributing in designs and ensuring proper documentation of solutions;
• Experience with server virtualization technologies, cloud environments and technologies.
b. Professional knowledge:
Essential:
• Knowledge of containers and container orchestration technologies, preferably Kubernetes and Rancher;
• Knowledge of packaging solutions for applications/libraries, like helm, rpm, nugget, maven etc.;
• Knowledge of automation of application delivery lifecycle using CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices;
• Knowledge of shell and PowerShell scripting for automation of tasks;
• General knowledge of configuration, administration and support of Linux, and Microsoft Windows operating systems,
preferably using Puppet and Chocolatey.
Desirable:
• Knowledge in the configuration and administration of collaborative software development tools like Azure DevOps server;
• General knowledge of agile methodologies.
c. General competencies:
Essential:
Communicating:
• Very good communication skills in English, both orally and in writing;
• Ability to draft clear and concise documents on complex matters for various audiences.
Analysing & problem solving:
• Keen eye for detail with the ability to maintain standards of accuracy under pressure of tight deadlines;
• Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills;
• Competent user of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the internet.
Delivering quality and results:
• High degree of commitment and flexibility;
• High level of customer and service-orientation.
Prioritising and organising:
• Good administrative and organisational skills.
Resilience:
• Very good interpersonal skills, with the ability to work well, both independently and in a team;
• Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and demonstrate resistance to stress.
Living diversity:
• Ability to work effectively in an international and multi-cultural environment.
d. Additional conditions:
Fulfil the condition stipulated in Article 5 of the Decision of the Executive Director on the Duration of contracts of employment for Temporary Agents, on the start date of the possible contract of employment which may be offered.
