Senior Application Specialist

Description

Senior Application Specialist, Technology Services, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Illinois is a world leader in research, teaching, and public engagement. We serve the state, the nation, and the world by creating knowledge, preparing students for lives of impact, and addressing critical societal needs through the transfer and application of knowledge.  Illinois is the place where we embrace difference. We embrace it because we value it. Illinois is especially interested in candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching, and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the Illinois community.

The University of Illinois is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. For more information, visit http://go.illinois.edu/EEO. To learn more about the University’s commitment to diversity, please visit http://www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu.

Technology Services at Illinois is the IT partner of the Urbana-Champaign campus which provides world-class, innovative, cost effective technologies and services that help foster discoveries and innovations from our researchers, transform the teaching and learning experiences of faculty and students, and improve the efficiency and security of the university's processes and data. We do this by maintaining careful alignment with the campus vision, mission, and strategic plans; demonstration of operational excellence; offering great customer service and enhancing user experiences in everything we do; and leveling the “digital playing field” for all. 

Technology Services at Illinois is seeking multiple Senior Application Specialists. We are looking specifically for candidates to administer large scale email applications (i.e. Proofpoint, Sympa, Sparkpost); integrate and administer SaaS applications at the enterprise level; and/or install, configure, and administer “open source” applications in AWS (i.e. REDCap). The ideal candidates are going to enjoy working in a collaborative environment, providing excellent customer service, and continually learning new technologies.  These positions report to managers within Application Services.

Primary Position Function: 

Play a significant role in creating, deploying, and maintaining production level IT services that are robust, high-quality, and reliable, meeting the needs of Technology Services’ customers.  Assume primary or secondary responsibilities for one or more services within Technology Services.  Primarily support large scale, complex applications or newly implemented applications that are widely visible and/or have substantial audiences.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

·       Support applications of large scale: greater than 10,000 end users, high risk, or complex infrastructure such as web server clusters, load balancing, and message broker services.

·       Demonstrate effective use of service life cycle management best practices such as change and release management, incident and problem management, testing, and financial management.

·       Implement appropriate monitoring processes for a target service. 

·       Recognize the need for and implements appropriate infrastructure components to support security policies and procedures including but not limited to SSL certifications, privileged accounts, firewalls, etc.

·       Develop scripts in at least one programming language and manage source code with best practice processes and available tools.

·       Adhere to interoperability standards and best practices as adopted by the organization.

·       Administer web applications either locally or in cloud hosted environments. 

·       Understand web application containers, such as Tomcat or jboss, and web services technologies, such as HTTP or SOAP, applicable to service offering.

·       Proactively plan for capacity of the IT service.

·       Plan for disaster recovery and business continuity as deemed appropriate to the visibility, importance, and risk factors of the IT service.

·       Manage day-to-day IT service operations.

·       Mentor and train backup and other staff as necessary.

·       Manage IT service projects of defined scope.

·       Responsible for IT service requirements gathering and analysis.

·       Understand the need for and demonstrate knowledge of data stewardship in areas applicable to position.

·       Be aware of major business cycles that impact service offerings.

·       Create business plans and IT system/architecture designs.

·       Conduct product evaluations.

·       Create and maintain a three month rolling project/activity/task plan for IT services.

·       Incorporate usability and accessibility considerations into IT service planning, development, and operations.

·       Communicate with vendors or other third parties using predefined methods for ticket submission, support, and enhancement requests; escalate issues with those parties in an agreed upon manner.

·       Effectively leverage online resources, user forums, and knowledge bases in support of service, as well as, contribute to these communities.

·       Aggregate and write reports of project or service team work.

·       Generate analysis documents of technical issues.

·       Ensure excellent Customer Service throughout Technology Services.

·       Partner with the Technology Services Help Desk by setting and managing the expectations of customers.

·       Act as an advocate for Technology Services customers in service planning and deployment across the organization.

·       Resolve customer satisfaction issues.

·       Understand the applicable processes and procedures of the organization and make recommendations in the continuous improvement of those processes and procedures, providing for management analysis and recommendations on improvements.  

·       Work non-traditional hours and respond to on-call requests to provide 24 x 7 service availability.

Position Requirements and Qualifications 

Education Required

Bachelor's degree.

Education Preferred 

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, including Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or other relevant field. 

Experience

·       Minimum three to five years of experience in an information technology field

·       Programming experience in at least one relevant language.

·       Proven creative problem solving skills.

·       Demonstrated experience supporting large scale applications with limited supervision.

·       Demonstrated ability in effective communication and collaborating in a high performance team environment.

·       Demonstrated commitment to customer service.

·       Experience in participating in diverse workgroups.

Knowledge Required

·       Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of service life cycle management processes including but not limited to change management, monitoring, testing, release management, security, capacity planning, business continuity, and disaster recovery.

·       Demonstrated knowledge of accessibility and usability standards.

·       Basic project management skills and knowledge.

Knowledge Preferred 

·       Knowledge of IT environments in University settings.

Appointment Status and Salary

This position is a regular, full-time, twelve-month academic professional appointment and includes salary and a benefits package (24 vacation days, 12 sick days, health, dental, vision, SURS retirement).   For other University provided benefits, please go to: https://nessie.uihr.uillinois.edu.  Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience.  There will be no relocation costs included in this package.  The start date will be as soon as possible after the close date.

To Apply

For full consideration, applications should be received by November 19, 2018.   Please create a candidate profile at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload in one file a letter of application and resume.  The online application will require names and contact information for three professional references.  The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer. 

For further information about this position, please contact Rhonda Miller at techsvc-hr@illinois.edu or call (217) 333-4222.