Infrastructure Specialist

Infrastructure Specialist

Location: Didsbury, Manchester

Salary: circa £43,000

As our Infrastructure (Network) Specialist, you will be responsible for monitoring, maintaining and improving IT systems within Great Places Housing Group. Working as part of the Infrastructure team, the role will require strong technical skills with a focus on networks to enable the delivery of new infrastructure projects alongside proven diagnostic skills to enable prompt investigation and resolution of any system issues.

What you'll be doing

• Help drive continuous system improvements across the infrastructure space including continuously improve performance and the delivery of SD-WAN, ZTNA networking , Teams Telephony, and network design and topology.
• Day to day monitoring and administration Cloud based systems such as Azure and Office 365, Intune as well some on premises virtualisation.
• Take ownership of any system issues escalated from the service desk. Help mentor service desk colleagues and document solutions to help improve responses across the support function.
• Work with the internal teams, external partners and the project management team to deliver new applications and system projects.
• Work with colleagues, engineers and consultants to resolve complex on going technical issues and provide input into root cause analysis reports as requested.
• Assist with the development and implementation of disaster recovery (DR) plans including testing and documentation of the network infrastructure.
• Familiarise yourself with GPHG systems and structure to proactively develop system improvements, resiliency and work withing GPHG's security framework to deliver security improvement and mitigation.
• Contribute and develop GPHG's cloud first strategy working towards the delivery of all key business functions via cloud services.

What you'll need

• Strong Understanding and experience of networking, including DNS, DHCP, Network Switches (Cisco preferred), Firewalls (FortiGate preferred) and WAN connectivity using VPN's, SD-WAN, Meraki and ZTNA remote access solutions such as Netskope private access
• Understanding and experience of Azure Services such as Virtual Machines, VNETs/subnets, Route Tables, Virtual network gateways, WAF Application load balancers, NDRs and PaaS services.
• Understanding of Network Security particularly in regards to preventing lateral movement
• A strong diagnostic mindset and the ability to work within the ITL framework.
• Experience of the following or similar, CrowdStrike, Netskope, Mimecast, Veeam,
• Strong diagnostic skills from basic IT principals using tools such as PowerShell and Wireshark.
• A strong security mindset ensuring any delivered solution is fully remediated.
• Professional certifications such as CCNA, AZ-700, AZ-104 or relevant experience

What we need from you

• Educated to degree level or equivalent or work experience demonstrating graduate level ability.
• Driving licence and access to a vehicle.
• A commitment to understand the challenges and opportunities that exist in the communities in which we work. We particularly value lived experience in social housing
• A passion to advocate on behalf of people and communities
• Commitment to work in partnership with others for the benefit of Great Places
• A commitment to continuous learning and improvement
• Ability to work flexibly and when needed outside normal working hours to ensure service continuity

What we give you in return for your hard work and commitment

• Pension
  ¦
  DC scheme (up to 10% contribution from both colleagues and Great Places)

• WPA
  ¦
  Healthcare scheme starts at no contribution level with £1250 of savings available per year (option to increase & add family members)

• Ways of Working¦
  We offer some hybrid and flexible working

• Annual leave ¦
  Start at 26 days annual leave, increasing up to 30 days within 5 years + Bank Holidays

• Reward & Recognition ¦
  You Count Rewards are individual reward's for going 'above & beyond'

• Professional fees ¦
  The business pays the cost of one professional role related membership fee for each colleague

• The Market Place
  ¦
  high street, restaurant & supermarket discounts, gym memberships, cycle to work, smart tech loans and much more

• Wage Stream
  ¦
  You can access savings opportunities and early access to wages

• Health and Wellbeing Initiatives ¦
  Our colleagues enjoy wellbeing campaigns throughout the year, with activities designed around our four pillars of wellbeing, these include career wellbeing, mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing and financial wellbeing

At Great Places we believe the wellbeing of our colleagues is vital to enable them to deliver to great services, all your benefits can be used inside and outside of work.

Closing date: 3rd December

Shortlist date: 4th December

Interview date: TBC