Collaboration Platform Engineering Manager

Spektrum have a wide range of exciting opportunities in several global locations.

We are always looking to add great new talent to our team and look forward to hearing from you.

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.

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.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Provides technical expertise to enable the configuration of system components and equipment for systems testing.
• Collaborates with technical teams to develop and agree system integration plans and report on progress.
• Defines complex/new integration builds.
• Ensures that integration test environments are correctly configured.
• Designs, performs and reports results of tests of the integration build.
• Identifies and documents system integration components for recording in the configuration management system.
• Recommends and implements improvements to processes and tools. Application support
• Maintains application support processes, and checks that all requests for support are dealt with according to agreed procedures.
• Uses application management software and tools to investigate issues, collect performance statistics and create reports. Systems installation and removal
• Undertakes or supervises complex installations and de- installations of systems or components, including handover to the client.
• Develops procedures and standards for installation and handover to maintain and improve the installation service.
• Schedules installation work around client priorities and resource availability.
• Ensures adherence to established safety and quality procedures.
• As the Information and Knowledge Management Tools (IKMT) Section Head, act as line manager and supervise the activities of the section's staff.
• Hire, train and retain the staff of the section.
• Draft job descriptions and supporting the recruitment and selection of staff
• Ensure that the section is resourced at its maximum, making usage of Interim Work Force Capacity for empty positions.
• Create performance based contracts to outsource the work that cannot be fulfilled by the means of the available staff.
• Engage in project delivery to ensure that the Section delivers on their commitments to the Project Managers and Technical Leads.
• Manage the allocation of staff to Projects/Services based on business forecasts and on the team workload, recommending hiring when required.
• Mentor and support the staff in the performance of their duties.
• Monitor and review individual staff performance and recommending training requirements and skills improvements.
• Develop technical part of the contracts for the external contractors augmenting the team.
• Coordinate and monitor the activities performed by the section's staff.
• Participate to Problem Management, in order to identify and remove the root- causes of Incidents.
• Support the Projects Technical Lead and Service Delivery Managers in the transition of "Service changes" into Service operation.
• Drive the Continual Service Improvement Initiatives (CSII) of his/her Section activities and contributes to the CSII of the NDWC Services.
• Support the group head in his/her products owner role in:
  • Developing and maintaining the products strategy roadmap and their associated definition in the Agency service catalogue.
  • Driving the development and maintenance of the products following industry best practices, NATO and agency standards, direction and guidance.
  • Engaging with the products stakeholders to share information and acquire feedback on products status and plans.
• Support the service delivery managers in:
  • The execution of service requests, incident resolutions and other activities related to the services provision.
  • The definition and maintenance of the cost models for the services.

Essential Skills and Experience

• At least 3 years' experience in devising, designing, implementing and deploying collaboration software (such as Information and knowledge management applications, and document sharing platforms).
• Experience in leading teams.
• Excellent knowledge and experience of policies, methodologies,processes, tools and technologies for content-focused collaboration, business process automation and web content management.
• Excellent knowledge and experience in Cloud technologies (Microsoft Azure/Amazon Web Services/Google Cloud Platform) and Microsoft 365 applications (in particular SharePoint).
• Excellent knowledge and experience in of development, administration and troubleshooting of Microsoft SharePoint Server (2019/Online) for large organizations both on premises and in the cloud;

Significant knowledge and experience

• of Agile and DevOps methodologies and in particular of at least one Agile delivery framework (e.g. Scrum, Kanban).
• Practical experience and knowledge of SharePoint replication systems (e.g. iOra).
• Knowledge of M365/SharePoint eco-system third party tools.
• Proven ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing with good briefing skills.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Knowledge and experience in Business Analysis (i.e. requirements elicitation, analysis and specification) of Information and Knowledge Management systems for large organisations.
• Basic knowledge of the Human-Centric Design approach to systems development.
• Basic knowledge of at least one development language (.NET, C#, PowerShell, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery).
• Prior experience of working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.
• Familiarity with security concepts and trends (e.g. Zero-trust architectures, infrastructure and configuration as code, identity access management, access control policies, DevSecOps)
• Familiarity with information and knowledge management concepts and solutions (e.g. CMS, DMS).
• Significant knowledge and experience in Requirements elicitation, analysis and specification, methodologies and environments (e.g. Azure DevOps).
• Significant experience in designing of Microsoft Windows-based information system architectures and implementations (e.g. Active Directory, ADFS, DNS, Group Policy Objects, Databases, Clusters, Availability groups).
• Experience in the support of price proposals, statements of work, service level agreements creation.
• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization, including Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT).
• Training/Certifications:
  • Microsoft SharePoint certification;
  • ITIL V3 or V4 foundation certification;

Education

• A minimum requirement of a Bachelor's degree at a nationally recognised/certified University in a related discipline and 3 years post-related experience. Or exceptionally, the lack of a university degree may be compensated by the demonstration of a candidate's particular abilities or experience that is/are of interest to NCI Agency, that is, at least 10 years extensive and progressive expertise in duties related to the function of the post.

Working Location

• The Hague, Netherlands

Working Policy

• On-Site

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance

We never know what new opportunities might be just over the horizon. If this opportunity isn't for you please feel free to send us your resume anyway and be the first to know if something suitable for your skills and experience comes up.