Hungary: Team Leader, Business Applications Support (DB Administrator & Datawarehouse)

Background

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, with 190 member National Societies. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, our work is guided by seven fundamental principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

Organizational Context

The Information Technology Department (ITD) has the dual role of providing cost effective information and communications technology (ICT) solutions to enable the geographically distributed staff of the secretariat to function effectively, as well as advising National Societies on developing their use of ICT. The department provides all ICT services for the Secretariat with staff based in Geneva, Budapest and at important locations worldwide. Increasingly the IT department facilitates the development and sharing of best practices in ICT by National Societies and contributes to their ICT development, strengthening and capacity building. The IFRC is in the process to establish a Global Services Centre (GSC) in Budapest, Hungary and the IT services will be partially moved there as the first global shared service component. The Geneva based IT department is led by the Director, IT. The two Unit Managers (in Geneva & Budapest) are key members of the global IT department management team along with the Advisor, Innovation and National Society Development, contributing to the development and implementation of an IT strategy that best serves the IFRC’s business needs. The Team Leader, Business Applications Support is based in Budapest specialising in technologies used by IFRC for various business applications, example Databases administrations (MS-SQL) and data warehouse systems. The position holder reports to the Manager, IT Services Unit in Budapest.

Job Purpose

The job purpose is to:

• Lead, manage and coach the business applications support unit;
• Deliver high quality IT business applications support services on collaboration platforms and Office 365 technologies;
• Act as a focal point and manage escalation process as professional subject matter expert within the scope of IT business applications support services;
• Guarantee data information security, availability and integrity through strong operational competencies using the ITIL framework;
• Set operational procedures, endorse their development in alignment with the support activities requirements, maintain them up to date and provide structured support recommendations to the various IFRC stakeholders and end users.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

General duties

• Manage, mentor and coach the ITD business application support team to deliver quality support in daily operations.
• Promote ITIL framework usage at all support levels and guarantee state of the art service management.
• Ensure service quality and security, while respecting operating methods defined within the ITD.
• Manage the implementation, support and evolution of Databases and Data Warehouse components and environements applying the standard operational procedures in force within the IT department.
• Manage operational tools (monitoring and management) to ensure sustainability of Databases and Data Warehouse structures and running services for the various business unit and at end user level.
• Maintain the operational knowledge base in the service management tool; record incidents; provide quality advises during resolution.
• Establish and update operational processes jointly with the other team supervisors and the IT service managerto warranty operational level agreements (OLA).
• Support the IT project managers during project life cycles and manage related projects if required.
• Participate in all activites related to providing adequate and stable Database and Data Warehouse structures and related services to all IFRC stakeholders distributed accross 5 regions.
• Identify, review and participate in the development of IT training solutions to deliver appropriate, cost effective trainings on IT topics for users while promoting on-line training opportunities.
• Contribute actively to the overall satisfaction level of IFRC end users while develop and promote effective working relationship within the ITD, the wider IFRC and the RCRC movements including ICRC.
• Manage personal knowledge and continuously update your skillset on various systems and applications used at IFRC.
• Adhere to staff regulation of the IFRC Budapest Global Service Center regulations and to the IT security rules at all times.
• Communicate effectively with the various IFRC stakeholders within the IT sector, share knowledge and be subject matter expert.

Specific duties

Operations support

• Undertake the team management role related to second/third level business applications support and administration, act as main contact point for the first level service desk during escalations.
• Provide support on business applications asset management within the Service Management Tool and support workflows establishment for an efficient service.
• Contribute to the IT knowledge base within the Service Management Tool to promote knowledge sharing and self-service support model.
• Be proactive on incident management by proposing long term resolution strategies to reduce significantly reccurring incidents.
• Ensure the smooth operations (administration, patching, monitoring and optimization) of the systems and services under primary responsibility within IFRC quality standards.
• Report on changes and events within the scope of support activities which could have and operational impact on the service availability.
• Ability to rapidely diagnose and coach the business application support team members in a fast and efficient troubleshooting and resolution approach.
• Prioritize requests and incidents resolution to maintain high quality support service levels to the IFRC user community and guarantee time resolution commitments (OLA/SLA).
• Make proposal for new tools or methods to improve solutions, applications and tasks undertaken by the business application support unit.
• Manage technologies to support information privacy, confidentiality, security, integrity and availability requirements.
• Follow and apply industry standards and best practices in the area of business applications support.
• Identify and implement opportunities to improve operations outcomes. Act as knowledge backup to other areas of expertise within the business application support team.
• Ensure a good collaboration with all the IT support team involved in operational support activities and more widely within ITD.
• Support the Database and Data Warehouse environements within the ITIL framework across the IFRC Federation systems distributed accross 5 regions.

Reporting and Documentation

• Identify and update documentation to maintain efficient operational level, anticipate documentation needs and regularly update operational documentation.
• Create, maintain and improve the knowledge base and knowledge documentation managed through the Service Management Tool.
• Document incidents, problems, changes with relevant information to allow continuous improvement within the support team and the end user satisfaction level.
• Provide periodic reports upon request on systems usage, performances, capacity and availability to the IT Manager responsible for the support units in Budapest.
• Record and Treat operational information (general and specific) accurately and confidentially.

External Relation

• Maintain regular contact with end users within the Secretariat as required.
• Maintain contacts with other support teams involved during the request resolution process.

Office Activities

• Adhere to all administrative procedures linked to his/her work.

Education

• Engineering degree, in computer sciences discipline or equivalent experience.
• ITIL certification or equivalent experience and proven track record of ITIL usage in enterprise environment.
• Project management professional certification - Preferred

Experience

Required

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in the administration, setup, backup and management of clustered database environments.
• 3 years of professional experience or equivalent as software developer on Microsoft BizTalk and Microsoft SQL Server
• Excellent knowledge and proven experience with Microsoft SQL Server virtual environment administration, operations, performance and capacity management.
• Experience in service management and reporting tools
• Experience in managing teams in a supervisory role

Preferred

• Experience in service management and reporting tools
• Experience in Business Intelligence and reporting tools

Knowledge, skills and languages

• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft BizTalk
• Excellent knowledge in data warehouse ETL processes and architecture
• Excellent knowledge ITSM tools and reporting
• Proven interpersonal skills and ability to resolve issues and conflicts within teams
• Adept at analysis, problem solving, solution and end-user result oriented
• Affinity for team work, collaborative attitude, open-minded and adaptable
• Well organized, able to work under pressure and manage emergencies
• Fluently spoken and written English.
• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic); Knowledge on Russian and/or Hungarian is an asset - Preferred

Competencies and values

• Accountability
• National Society relations
• Teamwork
• Development
• Integrity
• Strategic Orientation
• Collaborating, influencing
• Managing performance
• Building alliances
• Building trust
• Effective communication

Comments

“This is a national staff position open to Hungarian nationals and others who are legally eligible to work in Hungary. Candidates must be able to provide proof of their eligibility to work in Hungary.”

The Federation is an equal opportunity employer.

Please apply on the organisation's website: Click Here