Band 7 Senior Engineer - Compute

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Our trust has around 10,000 staff serving 1.6 million patients. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital and more than 30 services in the community. This larger scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients.

Our mission is to deliver world class care and expertise in our clinical services, underpinned by world class teaching and research and we will continue to measure our progress against our five governing objectives: excellent outcomes, excellent patient and staff experience, excellent value for taxpayers' money, being safe and meeting our external duties, and building a strong organisation.

Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We're proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME, gender equality, staff carers and people with disabilities and lived experiences to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.

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Click on the logo below to see the video of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust values

Job overview

There is an excellent opportunity for an experienced and highly motivated digital professional to join the Datacentre team with recent working experience of Microsoft Windows Server versions, VMware vSphere with the role centred around the operational management of the compute requirements, this includes the components in the converged VxBlock platform and the virtual platform hosted by the trust. You will have exceptional working experience of VMware vSphere and its components and exposure to Cisco UCS or similar platforms to provision servers, storage, networks, and virtualisation technologies reporting to the Principal Compute Specialist.

Main duties of the job

The Senior Engineer will be responsible for the operational maintenance, optimisation, and availability of all the infrastructure technologies managed by the Datacentre team either on physical or on the converged VxBlock platform and the virtual platform hosted by the trust. Where required provide guidance for continued service improvements.

The role is centred around you to be a subject matter expert in the compute technologies hosted by the trust reporting and escalating to the Principal Compute Specialist.

The ideal candidate will have expert technical knowledge of the following:

• Experience of Microsoft Windows Server versions and VMware vCentre along with monitoring tools to include VMware vRealize Operations Manager (vROPs) or similar solutions.
• Experience of converged platforms with exposure to Cisco UCS or similar platforms to provision servers, storage access, networks, and virtualization technologies.
• Exceptional experience of Microsoft Windows Server versions and of VMware vSphere and its components; ESXi and vCentre, VMFS, storage vMotion, HA, DRS, Fault Tolerance.
• Having experience of administering cloud-based systems like Azure would be desirable.

Working for our organisation

Datacentre team provides support for three main hospitals that Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust operates in North London: Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital and Royal Free Hospital plus numerous satellite sites. The team manages three Datacentres which host more than 700 virtual servers, secure storage, backup service, and use the latest replication and security technologies. The trust also has both private and public cloud-based storage and compute facilities.

Post holder shall be part of a new team made up of four principle subject matter experts under these specialisms: Compute/Storage/Systems/Databases, they will ensure these areas are operational, optimised, and available. The team will have eight senior engineers and they will be the escalation point for some of the senior infrastructure engineers providing guidance and support through mentoring and coaching to improve knowledge and skillset.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Work towards being a subject matter expert in the compute infrastructure hosted by the trust to ensure that these are optimised for maximum efficiency and in accordance with manufacturers guidance and recommendations for best practice.

Responsible for the management of tickets within the Service Desk system (diagnosing and resolving faults) in accordance with service level agreements and escalating any likely breaches to the Principal Specialists

Will be required to analyse infrastructure problem areas and exercise judgement to resolve technical issues identified through a range of communications methods like IT ServiceDesk, emails, or diagnostic monitoring alerts. This may involve collaboration with personnel from other Digital Services teams and from managed or external system providers.

Provide technical support to other Digital services colleagues, end users; trust and non-trust members: vendors and satellite sites to other NHS organisations.

Proactively monitor the environment by taking necessary interventions indicted by Alerts, Dashboards, and other tools to ensure SLAs, availability and uptime are maximised and align with business RPOs and RTOs.

Provide regular reports on the capacity and performance of the clinical/non-clinical systems and the trusts infrastructure systems to the Principal Systems Specialist for evaluation to ensure these are achieving expectations, identify any constraints or area of improvements.

Ability to organise own workload independently and make autonomous decisions. Must be able to plan, organise and manage complex tasks/projects adjusting priorities when required and be flexible.

Be well practiced in writing detailed technical documentation and ensure that all configuration documentation is maintained and current.

Research and keep up to date with new technologies to improve Digital services.

Be prepared to support planned and unplanned work out of normal working hours as and when necessary. This includes evenings and weekends to cause minimum disruption to the trust.

Will be required to work at any of the three main hospitals on a rota. You may also be required to travel to other office sites for group meetings.

The role will require the post holder to participate in the out of hours on-call rota providing support to key systems.

Person specification

Compute Specialist Skills

Essential criteria

• Understanding and experience of converged systems - VxBlock 1000
• Understanding and experience of VxRail with vSAN
• Experience of virtual volumes (vVols, RDM, VMFS)

Desirable criteria

• Understanding and experience of VxRail with vSAN
• Understanding of Cisco ACI
• Administering Cisco UCS - Service profiles - Fabric interconnects - Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC).
• Working knowledge of RecoverPoint for VM (RP4VM)
• Working knowledge of VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or on other systems.
• Experience of using these or similar monitoring tools : VMware vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS), System Centre Operations Manager (SCOM)
• Experience of cloud -based systems: - Azure - Cloud -hosted applications

Royal Free World Class Values

Essential criteria

• Demonstrable ability to meet the Trust Values

Education & professional Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Educated to master's level or equivalent or experience.

Desirable criteria

• ITIL4 Foundation - IT Service Management Certification
• MSCE accreditation
• VMWARE accreditation
• Project management qualification

Experience

Essential criteria

• Management & facilitation of following ITIL 4 Framework - Availability management - Monitoring and event management - Capacity and performance management - Change control - Incident management - Monitoring and event management - Problem management - Service configuration management - Portfolio management - Supplier and Contracts management - Measurement and reporting - Major Incident Management - Continual improvement - Knowledge management
• Working knowledge of Windows Server Platform for all variants, alongside all essential roles, features and components (PowerShell, File Sharing, IIS, Print, Clustering (Windows, SQL))
• Working knowledge of Active Directory services (DNS, DFRS, GPMC, ADFS, ADCS) and Access Control Managemen t
• Working experience with VMWare vCentre version 6.5 onwards

Desirable criteria

• Advanced PowerShell experience

• Covid-19 Vaccination

  Getting vaccinated, and getting a booster, remains the best defence against COVID-19.
  We encourage and support staff to get COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose as and when they are eligible.

• AT* - Apprenticeship Training. Where AT* is entered next to the job title indicates that this vacancy is for an apprenticeship role.
• By applying for this role, you accept if successful, that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which aims at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers. Therefore we require you to complete your stat and Man e-learning modules prior to joining our organisation.
• If you are an EU/EEA citizen who does not have EU Settlement or Pre-Settled status, you will require a visa to work in the UK.
• Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the UKVI points based system.
• If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a "selfie" using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk
• The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.
• The Trust will request a DBS (CRB) if post involves regulated activities. The Trust is compliant with the Disclosure and Barring Service Codes of practice and the Rehabilitation of offenders act.
• By applying for this post you are agreeing to Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.
• Please be aware of scams - unless specified above, we will only communicate with you via @recruit.trac.jobs or nhs.net e-mails and we will never ask you for any payments.

Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.

Please note:

• Due to the high number of applications that are received for some posts we may close this vacancy before the advertised closing date. Therefore please apply for this post as soon as you can, if you are interested and you meet the requirements of the Person Specification
• Only those candidates who clearly demonstrate how they meet the person specification will be shortlisted for this job.
• Interview arrangements will be communicated via email so please check your email regularly following the closing date.

Please be advised that due to exceptionally high demand, all Royal Free accommodation is at full capacity and waiting lists are being held. Average waiting times are 12 months. Please do not rely on Trust accommodation when you commence your role and ensure you investigate alternative accommodation for your arrival.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• Senior Engineer - compute (PDF, 504.3KB)
• Senior Engineer - compute - personal specification (PDF, 384.6KB)
• FR (PDF, 914.6KB)
• Corporate, Admin & Clerical, Other - benefits, about RFL, values and governing objectives (PDF, 935.8KB)