Network Support Specialist

Network Support Specialist

Job description

As a Network Support Specialist you will be part of a team of 3rd Line Engineers who work closely together to provide the highest level of technical support to our customers. This will come in the form of queries, changes, or faults. When not working on customer facing issues, there are plenty of internal projects to get stuck in to, which will offer lots of opportunities to branch out.

Working within this team means you will have access to a wealth of technical expertise and knowledge, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues to resolve complex technical challenges. You will also have a key role to play in mentoring and supporting junior engineers, sharing your knowledge and expertise to help them develop their skills and grow within the organisation. This will require excellent communication skills, as well as a patient and supportive approach to training and development.

Continual service improvement (CSI) plays a big part in this role. You aren't expected to fix a fault and move on to the next one, instead you should identify improvements to services, processes, or tools that may have prevented the fault happening in the first place. For the engineers looking to expand their knowledge and start working with programming languages such as Python, there are lots of exciting DevOps opportunities within the team, that are critical achieving their continual service improvement goals.

Key responsibilities:

Communicate with customers on a highly technical level to provide immediate resolution where possible ensuring tickets are managed and progressed correctly within the appropriate SLAs.
Work with customers to scope out, document, and implement proposed changes to network solutions.
Participate in an on-call rota and be an escalation point for service incidents.
Create and maintain tools and platforms that improve operational efficiency.
Develop a deep technical understanding of the business product set, contributing towards the development and continual improvement of new and existing products.
Offer technical leadership to other support teams by providing support and formal training.
Develop and maintain customer facing and internal documentation.
Manage the integrity of configuration information stored on internal systems.
Liaise with suppliers and vendors in relation to customer related issues and internal projects.
Analyse network and security data and recommending, planning, and implementing actions based on the results.
See a problem or opportunity, take ownership and act on it independently.

Person specification

Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate at all levels, both internally and externally.
Professional, positive, confident, and friendly.
Proven technical experience in a service provider, network project role or similar.
Strong technical understanding of network and security.
Customer service skills and proven record of liaising directly with customers, vendors, service providers and Telcos.
Experience in configuring, delivering, and troubleshooting various network equipment and technologies.
Highly self-motivated.
Ability to work well under pressure within a busy environment and prioritise tasks accordingly.
Committed to delivering high quality work.
Excellent attention to detail, accuracy, time management, organisational and administrative skills

Essential Skills/Experience
In-depth knowledge of and experience with major Internet routing protocols BGP, OSPF, etc.
Experience in a service provider environment, specifically with MPLS technologies.
Experience with Cisco hardware and the associated Cisco software (IOS, NX-OS, CatOS, etc.).
Excellent network analysis fundamentals and robust troubleshooting skills.
Excellent IP Networking fundamentals and extensive experience in TCP, UDP, DNS & DHCP.
Experience with protocols and technologies such as STP, First Hop Redundancy Protocols, EtherChannel, QoS, NTP, 802.1x & NetFlow.
Candidates should also possess past experience with IPsec/Remote Access VPN technologies, Firewalls (ASA 55xx), Wireless (802.11x) & IT security best practices.

Advantageous Skills/Experience
A minimum of 3 years technical experience in a 3rd line or senior engineer role.
CCNP or equivalent.
ITILv3 qualified or experience within an ITIL environment.
Experience in a SOC/SIEM environments, specifically Elastic.
Experience with Scripting, specifically Python.
Experience with UNIX.
Experience with cellular technologies - 3G, 4G, etc.
Experience with public service networks - N3, HSCN, Janet, PSN, etc.
Experience with the following vendors, hardware, software:
Cisco ACE
Cisco Firepower
Cisco Meraki
Citrix NetScaler
Draytek
Huawei
Juniper - NetScreen, SRX
Fortinet - FortiGate, FortiPortal, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer
Palo Alto
RANCID

Hours of work
The company's standard hours of work are 9.00 until 5.30pm, Monday to Thursday, and 3:30pm on a Friday, with one hour for lunch. However due to the nature of this role there will be the need for flexibility in relation to working hours.
Overtime and travel for business purposes are generally planned, and notice will be given wherever possible. After training has been completed, the post holder would be on-call 1 in every 3 weeks (an allowance is paid for this) and overtime is often required.

Location
This is a hybrid role, with a minimum of one day a week expected in our Harrogate office. The York office can also be used when there is no requirement to be in Harrogate.