Senior Software Engineer (Technical Infrastructure)-170446

Do you have experience of designing, architecting, managing and evolving a complex software infrastructure stack? Have you managed large scale acquisition activities spanning software, hardware and infrastructure? Do you know the intricacies of maintaining interoperability and operational compliance? Do you have practical experience in a management function, as a Team or Project Leader?

If the answer is Yes, This position is Ideal for you.

The NCI Agency is currently seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Technical Infrastructure) to work as part of the AirC2 Programme Office and Services branch within the Software Acquisition Engineering Section to ensure technical, architectural, interoperability and operational compliance of projects and acquisition programmes. You will be acting as the focal point for infrastructure, supporting and overseeing technical and architectural acquisition activities for Hardware, Software and technical infrastructure. You will be ensuring that initial requirements are in line with technology road maps; performing validation and verification activities; liaising with the end-user community on the technical and operation impacts of changes proposed and screening the change proposals based on the technology road maps.  You will then participate in project milestone reviews and monitoring the progress of contractors.

Role Requirements

This is a position within the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency), an organization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); The Air C2 Programme Office and Service (AirC2 PO&S), as part of the NCI Agency, ensures the harmonised planning, implementation, deployment, evolution and support of the Air Command and Control System (ACCS) and other AirC2 assigned programmes. The Engineering Branch (ENB) provides estimates of the required effort for each project / task, staff, plan, allocates and manages engineering resources according to agreed priorities.

The Software Acquisition Engineering Section (SoES-Acq) manages, controls, guides and orchestrates all software engineering aspects (requirements, architecture/design, implementation, test support) and software engineering resources allocated to the procurement of all AirC2-related projects. The Senior Software Engineer (Technical Infrastructure) ensures technical, architectural, interoperability and operational compliance and suitability of technical software infrastructure capabilities in the planning for ACCS and ACCS-related acquisition projects.

As the SME for infrastructure, you will oversee and support technical and architectural Acquisition activities related to the development, definition, integration, implementation and evolution of ACCS technical infrastructure and underlying platform. You will be responsible for providing technical expertise and oversight in the areas of hardware/software platforms and operating systems, middleware and communications infrastructure. You will be responsible for eliciting platform requirements, migration roadmaps and design constraints in coordination, ensuring technical compliance and appropriate testing. You will monitor and assess the implementation of these requirements and supporting the different acceptance phases and alignment with Agency imposed and industry-wide technology roadmaps and directives. You will assess feasibility and engineering impact of proposed technology changes.

As the Senior Software Engineer (Technical Infrastructure), and under the direction and supervision of the Chief, SoES-Acq you will be expected to:

• Ensure technical and non-functional requirements are aligned with technology roadmaps and properly and consistently applied, developed and tests throughout ACCS related procurement activities; 
• Liaise with the NATO Military Authorities and representatives of the User Communities to provide guidance on the engineering impact of architectural and operational decisions in ACCS infrastructure and technology components;
• Screen technical change proposals for compliance with established technology roadmaps, and for opportunities for technology and process improvement;
• Review the contract deliverables arising from the LOC1 and TMD contracts, to ensure that the contractor has correctly interpreted the relevant specifications;
• Participate in contract milestone reviews, technical interchange meetings, contract deliverable reviews and other project meetings;
• Monitor the contractor’s progress during the design, implementation, production, integration and verification of the ACCS software/hardware during all programme phases, including the Replication phase;
• Advise on methods of verification and validation with regard to the technological requirements, ensuring that documented requirements are correctly addressed in test plans and procedures, and test results are produced and analysed to support verification and validation;
• Keep abreast of the current and future NATO Air C2 Operational Concepts, technology and software development processes;
• Perform other related duties as required.

As the Senior Software Engineer may be required to travel for business purposes to NATO, national (NATO and non-NATO) and some Operational facilities (Both Inside and Outside of NATO boundaries). As well as this frequent travel between the NCIA offices may also be required.


Person Specification


Qualifications Required

The Successful candidate will hold a university degree, from a nationally recognised/certified University in a technical subject, ideally in software engineering, computer science or another related subject with substantial Information Technology (IT); preferably equivalent to a master's degree and supplemented by substantial relevant Information Technology qualifications.
Exceptionally, the lack of a university/college degree may be compensated by the demonstration of a candidate's particular abilities or experience that is/are of interest to NCI Agency.


Experience Required

The ideal candidate will be required to hold, as a minimum, 5 years of recent experience in the development of complex software-intensive or equivalent Projects. This will include activities related to the management, analysis, design, implementation, test and installation of software-intensive systems projects.

It is also essential that you are able to display:

• Familiarity with current and emergent network, client and server platforms such as virtualized infrastructure, storage and management platforms, and their specific uses and limitations;
• Experience in recent large scale software development effort as a developer, technical manager or solution architect;
• Familiarity with software and system performance engineering processes, methods and tools;
• An understanding of procurement, system integration and deployment management concepts.
• Experience of Management or acting as a Team or Project Leader. 

In addition to the above qualifications and experience it would be highly desirable if you can display:

• Recent experience in commercial large scale infrastructure deployment;
• Experience in public key cryptography, X.509 and/or OCSP;
• Demonstrated successful deployment to hosted and public cloud infrastructure (Azure, AWS);
• Knowledge and/or experience integrating specialized CPU into data centre infrastructure (ARM, OpenCL, FPGU);
• Familiarity with of current and emerging middleware and messaging platforms and frameworks such as JEE, MapReduce, DDS, OData;
• In depth knowledge and practical experience in air C2 automated mission planning and execution systems;
• Knowledge of NATO ACCS design and of the NATO Organization and its procedures;
• Knowledge of current and future web based protocols and virtualization technologies is considered desirable;
• Basic knowledge of ITIL, TOGAF, CMMI and six sigma;
• In-depth knowledge of prevalent and emerging programming languages and execution environments (JVM, CLR);
• Recent experience with software models and meta-models as well as supporting tools;
• Excellent communication skills and demonstrate the ability to work well in a team, and with commercial contractors.

Competencies Required

• Deciding and Initiating Action - Takes responsibility for actions, projects and people; takes initiative and works under own direction; initiates and generates activity and introduces changes into work processes; makes quick, clear decisions which may include tough choices or considered risks.
• Leading and Supervising - Provides others with a clear direction; motivates and empowers others; recruits staff of a high calibre; provides staff with development opportunities and coaching; sets appropriate standards of behavior.
• Working with People - Shows respect for the views and contributions of other team members; shows empathy; listens, supports and cares for others; consults others and shares information and expertise with them; builds team spirit and reconciles conflict; adapts to the team and fits in well.
• Adhering to Principles and Values - Upholds ethics and values; demonstrates integrity; promotes and defends equal opportunities, builds diverse teams; encourages organisational and individual responsibility towards the community and the environment.
• Writing and Reporting - Writes convincingly; writes clearly, succinctly and correctly; avoids the unnecessary use of jargon or complicated language; writes in a well-structured and logical way; structures information to meet the needs and understanding of the intended audience.
• Applying Expertise and Technology - Applies specialist and detailed technical expertise; uses technology to achieve work objectives; develops job knowledge and expertise (theoretical and practical) through continual professional development; demonstrates an understanding of different organisational departments and functions.
• Analysing - Analyses numerical data and all other sources of information, to break them into component parts, patterns and relationships; probes for further information or greater understanding of a problem; makes rational judgements from the available information and analysis; demonstrates an understanding of how one issue may be a part of a much larger system.
• Achieving Personal Work Goals and Objectives - Accepts and tackles demanding goals with enthusiasm; works hard and puts in longer hours when it is necessary; seeks progression to roles of increased responsibility and influence; identifies own development needs and makes use of developmental or training opportunities.

Languages

Most of the work of the NCI Agency is conducted in the English language, and therefore a thorough knowledge of English, both written and spoken, is essential and some knowledge of French is desirable.


What do we offer?

• Excellent (where eligible) expatriation household and children's allowances and additional privileges for expatriate staff.
• Education allowance for children (where appropriate) and an excellent private health insurance scheme;
• Generous annual leave and home leave (if eligible).
• Retirement Pension Plan

To learn more about NCI Agency and our work, please visit our website.