Specialist – System Administrator Infrastructure

ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT

This selection procedure is intended to fill one (1) currently available post.

Europol retains the right to make use of the reserve list to select candidates for similar posts within the organisation, should business needs require so.

Organisational setting:
The post of Specialist – System Administrator Infrastructure (Identity & Access Management) is located in the Infrastructure Services Team, ICT Operations Unit, ICT Department, Capabilities Directorate.

The C1 ICT Department has the responsibility for devising, delivering and operating critical technology capabilities and solutions supporting the core mission and support processes of Europol. Over 150 internal staff members and a significant number of domain-specific consultants are responsible for devising, developing, delivering and operating information management and communication technology capabilities that ensure enhanced criminal information analysis and exchange among Europol, Member States and third parties.

The ICT Operations Unit is responsible for the operations and management of the Europol ICT Infrastructure. This includes Workplace services, Service Management, Deployment services, Platform Services, Application Services, Infrastructure Services and ICT Security.

Purpose of the post:
The role of Specialist – System Administrator Infrastructure (Identity & Access Management) is critical for the design, implementation, administration and management of Europol’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, ensuring their availability, reliability, and performance. In addition, the incumbent is responsible for coordinating IAM-related projects, developing and updating IAM policies, procedures, and formulating guidelines in accordance with industry standards and regulatory requirements. The Specialist - System Administrator Infrastructure (Identity & Access Management) is also tasked with identification and rectification of security vulnerabilities and compliance issues.

Reporting lines:
The incumbent reports to the Senior Specialist - Head of Team - Infrastructure Services.

Job environment:
This post will require participation in a shift system including weekends and nights as well as on-call duty.

FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES

With a specific focus on IAM Solutions, the successful candidate will have to carry out the following main duties:

• Specify technical standards, aligned with the overall Europol Architecture guidelines;
• Actively review and consider Architecture guidelines to ensure manageability and full understanding of technical consequences;
• Specify technical requirements for ICT infrastructure solutions including relevant security controls;
• Facilitate installation and configuration activities by ICT operations teams in accordance with engineering designs and specifications, performing trial installation and configuration activities in testing and pre-production environments;
• Develop, implement and maintain sufficient knowledge about the interdependencies of all infrastructure components deployed in the production environment in order to prevent incidents and problems;
• Participate in multi-disciplinary project teams and ICT development initiatives providing technical advice and support and specifying technical designs of ICT infrastructure solutions in alignment with software application designs, ensuring end-to-end operability and supportability by design, in accordance with ICT operational standards;
• Acting as a third level support, perform technical analysis, investigation, troubleshooting and resolution of incidents or problems affecting the Europol ICT infrastructure;
• Provide support to capacity management activities, recommending changes in ICT infrastructure in order to address capacity demands;
• Contribute to ICT-wide technical knowledge management, maintaining up-to-date technical documentation and contributing to the ICT knowledge base;
• Provide technical advice and engineering support to other teams in the Department;
• Monitor technology developments maintaining up-to-date knowledge of state-of-the-art solutions;
• Perform any other tasks as assigned by line management.

REQUIREMENTS - ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION CRITERIA

REQUIREMENTS - ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

a. Candidates must
• Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union and enjoy full rights as a citizen;
• Have fulfilled any obligations imposed by the applicable laws on military service;
• Produce appropriate character references as to his or her suitability for the performance of the duties;
• Be physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the post as further specified in Article 13 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (CEOS);
• Produce evidence of a thorough knowledge of one of the languages of the Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another language of the Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties.

b. Candidates must have
• A level of education that corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of university education is three years or more;

OR

• Professional training of an equivalent level in a relevant area and after having completed the training, at least the number of years of relevant professional experience as indicated below:

Duration of professional training Additional professional experience required for equivalency
More than 6 months and up to 1 year 3 years
More than 1 year and up to 2 years 2 years
More than 2 years 1 year

• In addition to the above at least 3 years of total professional work experience gained after the award of the diploma.

REQUIREMENTS - SELECTION CRITERIA

a. Professional experience: Essential:
• Experience with designing, implementing and managing IAM solutions in a large IT environment (indicative 500 users or more);
• Experience on Microsoft ADFS technologies, Microsoft Active directory and LDAP directory technologies on premises;
• Experience with leading client, server and application troubleshooting within IAM technologies;
• Experience with installation, deployment and configuration of IAM solutions on multi-user environments;
• Experience with server-based computing technologies and of recent operating systems and their security aspects.

Desirable:
• Experience on Microsoft Active Directory technologies and ADFS technologies on cloud environments;
• Experience with virtualisation of Windows clients, servers and applications;
• Experience with deploying automation, automation frameworks, specific scripting language;
• Experience with Public Key Infrastructure technologies and managing certificates;
• Experience with Communication Protocols, Security and System Policies.

b. Professional knowledge
Essential:
• Sound knowledge of Microsoft ADFS technologies on premises, OAUTH and SAML;
• Sound knowledge of Microsoft Active Directory technologies on premises;
• Sound knowledge on LDAP directory technologies, including LDAP query language and LDAP specific configurations;
• Sound knowledge of recent Microsoft Operating systems and their security aspects;
• Sound knowledge of applications integration with aspects of Identity Management solutions.

c. General competencies:
Essential:

Communicating:
• Very good communication skills in English, both orally and in writing;
• Ability to draft clear and concise documents on complex matters for various audiences.

Analysing & problem solving:
• Keen eye for detail with the ability to maintain standards of accuracy under pressure of tight deadlines;
• Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills;
• Competent user of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the internet.

Delivering quality and results:
• High degree of commitment and flexibility;
• High level of customer and service-orientation.

Prioritising and organising:
• Good administrative and organisational skills.

Resilience:
• Very good interpersonal skills, with the ability to work well, both independently and in a team;
• Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and demonstrate resistance to stress.

Living diversity:
• Ability to work effectively in an international and multi-cultural environment.

d. Additional conditions:
Fulfil the condition stipulated in Article 5 of the Decision of the Executive Director on the Duration of contracts of employment for Temporary Agents, on the start date of the possible contract of employment which may be offered.