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 
[email protected] or call (217) 333-4222.


----
Brought to you by code4lib jobs: 
https://jobs.code4lib.org/jobs/31347-senior-application-specialist

Reply via email to