Platform Administrator

This is a Full Time Job

Reporting to a Duty Operations Manager, this position is critical in to monitoring and supporting Discovery’s Global platform infrastructure. Resources supporting this role are our Tier 1 and 2 behind-the-scenes operations support team expected to have a versatile skill set both technically and personally with the ability to stay focused and continually develop as an experienced and skilled technician. Analysts in this role will to have experience in leading difficult situations, staying calm, reacting quickly under pressure and being able to execute on the key responsibilities noted below.

Highlights of the role
The position is a shift based role working as part of a unified “virtual” teams that will consist of members from multiple disciplines (Distribution Operations Network Operations, Enterprise Platform Operations, Digital Platform Support Operations and Security Operations) to form a dynamic technology focused team capable of providing monitoring all Discovery linear and non-linear output as well as supporting IT infrastructure. The support operation also leads Discovery’s response to all incidents within our infrastructure.

Role responsibilities for the Platform Support Operations Analyst, part of team of 12 in either our London or Sterling, VA centers is Discovery’s primary line of defense in supporting Discovery’s platform infrastructure 50 offices and productions centers globally.

Post holders will be expected to work shifts including weekends whilst regular night work is not required it should be expected that the post holder will need to work nights during certain events.

The team execute our IT Event, Incident and Request Management processes at Discovery ensure a culture of excellence and consistent service and supporting Discovery’s best in class platform infrastructure.

The centers are also the point of contact and owners for an IT Major Incident Incidents and as an Analyst are responsible for initiating IT Major Incident process and procedures in our Platform Infrastructure.

Responsibilities

1. Outage vetting – initiating of critical outage situations
2. Severity 1, 2, and 3 outage notifications/updates/resolutions
3. Monitor Discovery’s production network in real-time
4. Working experience of AWS architecture and operations, including EC2, S3, RDS, VPC, IAM, Cloud Formation
5. Implement, or assist with implementation of, changes to production & network infrastructure or server equipment
6. Perform escalation resolution of systems accounts for Active Directory, 0365, and numerous globally deployed business applications
7. Manage network printer queues, drivers, and firmware
8. Provide oversight to the Release Management process in monitoring and updating the status of network and server devices
9. Work closely with regional IT staff to ensure success of daily operations
10. Provide support for server patching/change management activities
11. Provide a seamless and professional experience in supporting remote and regional customers
15. Coordinate escalation process to third-party vendors
16. Identify, adjust, and help establish new monitors and metrics needs
17. Be available for on-call/after hours to support critical outage situations requiring multiple streams of technical lead support
18. Support new-hire on-boarding with proactive verification on HR initiation, follow-up on new hire arrival, and post-arrival checks
19. Uphold professional ticket management from the get-go for the benefit of the rest of the global support teams by ensuring all ticket types are logged, work logs comprehensively updated and then carefully manage routing to ensure resolution
20. Maintain on-going communication with customers, keeping them up-to-date with the progress of their tickets
21. Serve as a liaison between other support teams and the customer as required by working collaboratively across all leadership levels
22. Provide support to the Duty Operations Manager in the management of outages as needed, providing communications to small and large-scale user groups.
23. Be proactive and ensure constant follow up with involved IT teams to ensure resolution
24. Ability to embrace and support new technologies introduced first hand to IT
25. Experience with ITIL principals
26. Keep Knowledge Base(s) up-to-date

Requirements

* 4 years Active Directory administration experience (Windows users, groups, shares and network printers)
* 4 year experience providing of administrative and troubleshooting support in the areas of Windows Server, Unix/Linux servers, and LAN/WAN equipment in an enterprise production environment
* 2 years of Microsoft Exchange Server experience
* 4 years VMware, Xen, Hyper-V technologies and their configuration and design
* 2 years Citrix Xenapp environment support
* 2 years Support Databases in the areas of MS Sql, Oracle, AWS RDS
* 3 years scripting experience (VBS, Perl, Python, PowerShell, Bash, Ruby, bat)
* Able to work without supervision, combining initiative with discretion
* Able to communicate technical matters to technical and non-technical audiences
* Flexibility to work evening, weekend, and overnight shift
* 4 years’ experience supporting Microsoft Office product suite (minimum intermediate knowledge level required)
* 4 years’ experience supporting Mac desktops, laptops, and iPads
* 1-2 years ServiceNow or similar Call Management application experience
* Chef, Puppet, Ansible or any build automation deployment experience
* Experience with Amazon Web Services and Azure.
* Education – Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Administration or related field or equivalent experience.
* Experience using SMS or similar software for remote troubleshooting, software deployment, audit and hardware inventory
* Understand and be able to work with monitoring systems and related technologies
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills and a friendly disposition
* Excellent interpersonal skills
* Must be able to independently research, troubleshoot, and resolve trouble tickets within established Service Level Agreements
* Ability to provide Total Call Ownership to include handling irate customers, escalating issues as appropriate and providing the necessary follow up before incidents are closed
* Ability to define & document IT support procedures as required
* Ability to maintain focus in a high pressure environment

* Must have the legal right to work in the United States