Research Cloud Services Lead Engineer

Description:

As a Research Cloud Services Lead Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in supporting and leading the day-to-day running and development of the university’s Research cloud-based services, which are to be delivered to a high standard and in accordance with defined service level agreements.
You will utilise your expertise in DevOps practices and Microsoft Azure technologies to lead the design and deployment of Research based services into the Cloud. From there, the role includes proactive management and maintenance of these services and appropriate response to operational incidents and service requests.
You will look for opportunities to continually improve services, standards, and processes, ensuring the university has appropriate and available Research Cloud Services to support its ongoing needs.
You will also support the Research Cloud Services Manager with regards to the delivery of new services into the Cloud, as well as continual refinement of deployment processes.
Some travel will be required for meetings to King’s College London, predominantly between King’s Service Centre, Cornwall, and university campuses in London.

Accountabilities -

Key Responsibilities:

Responsible for leading the design, deployment, maintenance and support of Azure based research services within a Service Management framework and in line with the agreed university standards and Service Levels.
Responsible for developing/implementing Azure DevOps best practices.
Responsible for identifying, designing, and building CI/CD pipelines to improve the efficiency of software delivery for Research based services.
Responsible for providing subject matter expert (SME) guidance, technological change, training, and support on Microsoft Cloud technologies, fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous learning and knowledge sharing within the team.
Responsible for creating/reviewing comprehensive technical documentation (high-level designs; architectural statements; standard operating manuals (SOM).
Responsible for leading and complying with the security, resilience, backup, and monitoring standards/policies.
Represent Research Cloud Services in Change Advisory Board meetings, daily and weekly Service Review meetings.
Responsible for identifying and undertaking Service Improvements.
Responsible for working closely with the other teams within IT to provide an excellent IT Service.
Responsible for contributing to proposed solutions to ensure they are fit for purpose and provide optimal value for money.
Responsible for responding to customer improvement activity.

Key Objectives:

To deliver Research Cloud services in line with the agreed service levels.
To ensure all Research Cloud services are maintained to the correct architectural and technical best practice specifications.
Be a stakeholder in determining whether a new release, affecting a service in production, is ready for promotion.
Contribute to the delivery of updates or solutions to the Research Cloud Services environment.
Possess a detailed understanding for all King’s College London’s Research Cloud services and the associated platforms/infrastructure.
To operate in line with the College IT Operating Model and Values and to promote these within the Research Platform Services Team.
To contribute to the Research Cloud Services service/product roadmap.
To assist the Research Cloud Services manager to deliver & prioritise the product backlog for new releases to our customers.
To drive operational excellence across Research Cloud Services.

Communication & networking: 

Develop and maintain collaborative and inclusive relationships with peers, key College stakeholders, management, and colleagues.
Develop and maintain good morale within the Research Cloud Services Team.
Utilise effective communication skills to ensure that opportunities for service improvement, issues and impediments to success are clearly understood by the Research Cloud Services Manager.

Decision making, planning & problem solving: 

To develop and continually improve the college Research Cloud services.
To deliver statistical information about Research Cloud services leading to improved services.
Ensure the root cause of all Research Cloud services P1, P2 and escalated incidents are obtained for the services you support and actively seek to eliminate such root causes through a practice of continuous improvement.
Identify and aid the implementation of service improvements for the Research Cloud services that optimise costs, resources and service delivered.

Architectural and service delivery: 

Adhere to a best practice Service Management and Architectural framework (ITIL)
Ensure that user experience and satisfaction is at the forefront of all activities.
Drive customer satisfaction to over 90% and ensure SLA attainment is consistently above minimum requirements for the Research Platform services.
Keep abreast of changing trends and market developments of current and future technologies.
Identify new Research Cloud service technologies that can provide benefit to the College.