Senior Server Specialist

Job responsibilities

Detailed job description and responsibilities

Communication and Working Relationships

• Build productive working relationships with stakeholders such as clinicians, customer organisations, other technical or non-technical teams, other NHS organisations and suppliers.
• Maintain effective communication within and between teams, reinforced by timely and professional documentation.

Planning and Organisation

• Plan work tasks efficiently and employ effective time management.
• Organise conflicting priorities within own workload.
• Ensure effective scheduling and deployment of resources including scheduling the teams activities.

Responsibility and Accountability

• Responsible for development, operation, maintenance and troubleshooting of the server and datacentre infrastructure.
• Accountable to Server & Cloud Infrastructure Lead, IT Section Managers, IT Operations Manager and HIS Director.
• Take accountability to external parties where necessary, for example project stakeholders, external customers such as the CCG/GP practices and be accountable for the service quality delivered by the Server Team.

Policy and Service Responsibility

• The development and review of policies relevant to server and datacentre operations, with input from other stakeholders where appropriate (e.g. Information Governance).
• Take responsibility for delivering services to contractual SLAs.
• Ensure services are delivered in compliance with established standards such as ITIL Service Management.

Responsibility for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources

• Responsible for maintaining the security and integrity of the datacentre environment.
• Contribute to the design and purchasing of IT systems including full lifecycle procurement activities for hardware, software and service contracts where necessary.

Responsibility for Supervision, Leadership and Management

• Supervise the activities of the Server Specialists including performing regular performance and development reviews.
• To provide support and training to Server Specialists and other HIS staff in order to develop their infrastructure support skills and knowledge.
• Required to act as champion for certain systems/technologies, develop detailed knowledge and cascade to wider team.

Information Technology and Administrative Duties

• Extensive use of common IT products & technologies for office productivity tasks.
• Display the highest levels of technical proficiency in server and datacentre operations.
• Organise and manage meetings, producing appropriate documentation to professional standards.
• Maintain documentation and systems within the department.

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to a minimum of degree level or relevant equivalent experience
• To have or be working towards a relevant technical certification e.g. Microsoft Certified Software Administrator or VMware Certified Professional
• Full UK driving licence

Desirable

• Prince II / Agile Foundation
• ITIL v4 Foundation
• ILM Level 3
• VMware Datacentre & Virtualisation Professional 2024 (VCP-DCV)

Knowledge

Essential

• In-depth knowledge of all aspects of server hardware and software, including layered products and networking
• In-depth knowledge of the Windows Server Operating System (Windows 2016+)
• In-depth knowledge of VMware vSphere 7 environment
• In-depth knowledge of Active Directory
• Experience of working with fibre channel networks (including NVMe over fabric) and connected systems
• Experience of working with iSCSI storage networks
• Working within a highly technical secure network
• Ability to interpret infrastructure plans and customers' needs in order to identify appropriate technological solutions and contribute to strategic planning
• Ability to monitor the performance and capacity of the server infrastructure and undertake activities to secure and enhance the availability of services
• Ability to apply effective backup and security procedures
• Ability to use diagnostic tools to undertake fault finding on infrastructure services
• Ability to carry out modifications to correct faults
• Ability to identify risks to services or opportunities to improve service performance
• Ability to maintain documentation in accordance with established procedures
• Ability to build and configure infrastructure components

Desirable

• Knowledge of Brocade FC switches
• Proven experience in line managing and developing technical personnel
• Experience of managing Linux servers

Skills

Essential

• Experience managing complex computing environments across multi-protocol networks within a multi-disciplinary team
• Excellent organisational ability and good interpersonal and motivational skills
• Presentation skills
• Good reporting skills

Desirable

• Substantial, proven experience working in an IT infrastructure / operations role
• Substantial, proven experience within ICT service delivery
• Proven experience of NHS systems, organisational structures and culture

Requirements due to work environment/conditions

Essential

• Extended periods of concentration
• Ability to deal with frequent interruptions
• Required to travel both within and outside of the South Devon Health Community
• Must be able to work out of normal hours at short notice to resolve problems

Physical skills/effort

Essential

• Advanced keyboard/mouse skills
• Use of small tools, assembly/disassembly of equipment, removal and installation of field-replaceable components
• Racking and cabling of equipment
• Frequent light physical effort lifting and carrying equipment
• Car driving
• Frequently working in small confined spaces (e.g. Cabinets and Floor spaces)
• Occasional requirement to work in noisy/dusty environments

Mental/Emotional effort

Essential

• Requirement to deal with situations arising from the failure of critical systems which impact on the delivery of healthcare services to individual patients
• Dealing with and resolving staff conflicts and managing disciplinary matters
• Ability to analyse data, write reports and cope with frequent interruptions to provide technical leadership and to resolve issues arising from critical business systems failures and issues
• Planning of complex upgrades/installations
• Extended periods of concentration

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).