Application Support Engineer

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

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Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

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Role ID – C004982

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• The scope of the assignment will be limited to providing Level2/3 and Service Management Support according to the submitted Incidents, Service Requests, Change Requests, Task, Requests for Information or Internal activities, traceable through the relevant ticketing toolset and/or Azure DevOPS ticketing system.
• The Chief Technician will be required to respond, document, categorize and solve all the assigned tickets according to the internal processes and procedures. The work will be executed mainly onsite, but some activities might require offsite presence at other NATO locations. Generally, remote work cannot be performed offsite since the nature and classification of the work requires the incumbent to be present in the office with access to classified networks. Nevertheless, incidental requests will be reviewed on a case by case basis.
• The Chief Technician will participate in the daily reporting and planning activities (daily meetings) as well as the required participation in workshops, events and conferences related to the supported services, as requested by the Service Delivery Manager(s).
• The Chief Technician will have to resolve tickets covering a wide range of Level2/3 activities, for example:
• Install, maintain, monitor and support the ISC components including in support of Operations, Missions and NATO exercises.
• Provide timely response and resolution to all support tickets (incidents, service requests, changes, internal activities) following the internal processes
• Offer Subject Matter Expertise for the ISC ecosystem to the user community and to COIs (supporting the Requests For Information)
• Get involved in User Acceptance Testing for new software releases in both organizing and test execution (supporting the Change Requests)
• Apply patches and install software updates, coordinate outages (according to agreed Approved Service Interruptions, Security Audit Findings, regular software updates)
• Participate in SIGINT Change Advisory Board (CAB) as needed to support new software releases in the validation and verification process (support to Change Requests)
• Interface between ISC and inter-operable services
• Participates in on-call support. He/she also adheres to flexible 8 hrs/5 days a week shifts, which may be scheduled on-demand based on operational needs. This scheduling flexibility ensures that the duty activities can start earlier or later in a day, providing consistent and adaptable support in alignment with the organization's requirements.

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Experienced system engineering knowledge with proven Level2/3 support experience in multinational and/or military organisations, with at least 5 years of experience in C# development, IIS web hosting, Linux administration, virtualization, and containerization technologies.
• Experience with automation and modern platform technologies, including Ansible, REST APIs/JSON, PostgreSQL/SQL, microservices architectures, Podman/Docker, Apache Kafka (or similar messaging platforms), and monitoring/logging solutions such as Prometheus, Grafana, Logstash, and Elastic Search.
• Microsoft SQL Server Administration knowledge (installation, configuration, maintenance, backup policies).
• SQL scripting knowledge, data consistency and data clean-up based on consultation with the user community and development team.
• Knowledge of networking, infrastructure, and security services, including DNS, DHCP, WSUS, GPOs, networking fundamentals, load balancing, PKI/certificates, and authentication concepts such as ADFS.
• Azure Devops and/or AWS experience.
• Good knowledge of automation and scripting technologies, including PowerShell, Bash, and/or Python scripting.
• Experience with XML file manipulation, XSD validation and maintenance, and automation through PowerShell and scripting technologies.
• Must have excellent spoken and written English communication and presentation skills, as demonstrated by recent experience (within the past 5 years).
• Must have proficiency in the office Suite, Reporting tools.
• Must have excellent understanding and experience of network communication protocols TCP/IP, OSI layers, Firewalls and Security principles.
• Must demonstrate the ability and self-motivation to work on his/her own but must also work well within groups as part of a team.
• Must demonstrate an ability and keen sense for problem-solving.
• Motivated, good communication skills, team player.
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization.

Desirable

• Desirable skills: previous knowledge of NATO FASs constitute and advantage, NATO software lifecycle support, knowledge of NATO policies and process.
• Desirable experience in various areas of Software Engineering including:
  • Windows Server administration
  • Virtualization technologies
  • Very good knowledge of commonly used standards and best practices for software engineering, including design patterns.
• Desirable knowledge/Exposure to technologies like WSO2, Kafka, Apache Camel, Redis, Neo4J, Angular, XSLT.
  • Java development,
  • Agile software development methodologies.
• Desirable: knowledge and experience in:
  • Application server technologies,
  • Multi-tiered, distributed systems,
  • Service-Oriented Architectures,
  • Relational data base management systems,
  • Web authoring, design and administration tools,
• Desirable: knowledge and experience in: HTML5 and modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks, Web Services, OData.
• Familiar with AI technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), and their application in operational support, monitoring, automation

Working Location

• Mons, Belgium

Working Policy

• Onsite

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance