Senior Microsoft Engineer

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting  

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role ID -C005306

Role Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direction of the DICE Team Lead the contractor shall:

• Design, implement, configure, operate, maintain and troubleshoot complex Microsoft enterprise infrastructure and associated services in secure enterprise environments.
• Provide senior-level technical expertise for Microsoft Windows Server platforms and associated infrastructure services throughout their complete lifecycle, including architecture, deployment, configuration, hardening, patching, upgrade, migration, monitoring and decommissioning.
• Design, administer and troubleshoot Microsoft Active Directory environments, including domains, forests, trusts, Group Policy, authentication services, DNS integration and associated identity infrastructure.
• Provide subject matter expertise in Identity and Access Management (IAM), authentication, authorization and federation technologies, including Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), Microsoft Entra ID and related Microsoft identity technologies but also open source technologies such as Keykloak.
• Design, implement, maintain and troubleshoot Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), certificates and certificate-dependent services used within Microsoft enterprise environments, including certificate lifecycle management, trust relationships and integration with applications and authentication services.
• Design, deploy, configure, operate and maintain on-premise Microsoft SharePoint SE environments & related informationmanagement capabilities including site architecture, permissions, metadata, taxonomies, search, content management, collaborative services and integration with enterprise applications.
• Design and maintain secure integrations between Microsoft platforms and other enterprise services and applications, including, where applicable, Atlassian Data Center Technology Stack (Jira, Confluence), Power BI, Splunk, SQL Server and other data or collaboration platforms
• Provide engineering support for Microsoft Azure DevOps cloud services architecture in support of maintaining reference dev environment (Nato Software Factory) for DICE team. Support cloud and DevOps practices using Microsoft Azure and Azure DevOps or equivalent enterprise DevOps technologies, including source control, automated deployment, CI/CD processes and infrastructure configuration management.
• Develop and maintain automation solutions using PowerShell and, where appropriate, other scripting or automation technologies to improve repeatability, reliability and efficiency of Microsoft infrastructure operations. Participate in the design and implementation of infrastructure-as-code, automated configuration and deployment approaches where applicable to Microsoft Azure and hybrid infrastructure.
• Ensure Microsoft infrastructure and services comply with applicable NATO security requirements, security hardening standards and Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) processes.
• Perform security hardening and technical security reviews of Microsoft infrastructure, operating systems, identity services and applications and remediate identified vulnerabilities or configuration weaknesses.
• Provide advanced troubleshooting and root-cause analysis for complex incidents and problems involving Microsoft infrastructure, authentication, federation, certificates, networking, applications and dependent services.
• Support Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration and Release Management activities in accordance with applicable
• ITSM processes.
• Provide architecture support and technical recommendations concerning Microsoft infrastructure evolution, technology selection, lifecycle management, resilience, availability, scalability and security.

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Minimum 6 years of relevant professional experience in designing, implementing, administering and supporting Microsoft enterprise infrastructure in medium-to-large environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, AD FS and Microsoft Entra ID, including authentication, federation and Single Sign-On.
• Strong experience with PKI, certificates, TLS and certificate lifecycle management.
• Demonstrable experience with Microsoft SharePoint, including installation, administration, security, integration and lifecycle management; knowledge of Microsoft 365 and hybrid SharePoint environments is required.
• Practical experience with Microsoft Azure and hybrid cloud environments, including Azure DevOps, CI/CD and infrastructure automation.
• Strong PowerShell scripting and automation skills; experience with Python, SQL and Infrastructure-as-Code technologies such as Terraform or Bicep is desirable.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server and enterprise infrastructure concepts including networking, firewalls, proxies, load balancing, high availability, backup and disaster recovery.
• Strong experience in troubleshooting complex infrastructure and application issues, root-cause analysis, security hardening, patching, upgrades, migrations and vulnerability remediation.
• Experience working within IT Service Management processes, including Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration and Release Management.
• Experience producing technical documentation, implementation procedures, operational guides and providing knowledge transfer.
• Relevant Microsoft certification(s) in Azure, Identity, Windows Server, Microsoft 365 or SharePoint. Equivalent or successor certifications may be accepted.
• Certifications in cyber security, IT Service Management, DevOps or cloud architecture are desirable

Desirable Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Experience working for NATO, military, governmental or other security-sensitive organisations.
• Experience supporting highly available or mission-critical services.
• Experience integrating Microsoft platforms with Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Splunk or Power BI.
• Experience with Azure Cloud DevOps pipelines and infrastructure-as-code technologies such as Bicep, ARM templates or Terraform.
• Experience with SCCM/Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, Exchange, Web Application Proxy or similar Microsoft enterprise technologies.
• Experience with PowerShell, Python and SQL scripting or automation.
• Experience in working for or supporting a military or governmental organization.
• Previous professional experience in cyber-security environments

Education

• A university degree from a nationally recognised/certified University in a technical subject with substantial IT content and four (4) years of specific experience.
• Exceptionally, lack of a university degree may be compensated by at least ten (10) years of extensive and progressive expertise in duties related to this Statement of Work.

Working Location

• Mons, Belgium

Working Policy

• On-site
  • May be permitted to perform work remotely, from a different NATO nation than the duty location, for up to a maximum of twenty percent (20%) of their total working time
  • May work from their home in the duty location subject to the NCIA teleworking policy and in coordination with their NCIA designated Resource Manager

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required, each travel will be a maximum of 2 days lengths and happening no more than twice per month and any costs will be reimbursed by NATO.

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance