Closing date: Saturday, 3 January 2015

Vacancy code: VA/2014/B0058/6489

Position title: Systems Administrator

Level: ICS-10

Department/office: CSPG, Corporate Support Practice Group

Duty station: Copenhagen , Denmark

Contract type :International ICA

Contract: level IICA-2

Duration: 1 year

Application period: 19-Dec-2014 to 04-Jan-2015

United Nations Core Values: Integrity, Professionalism, Respect for Diversity

Background Information - UNOPS

UNOPS mission is to serve people in need by expanding the ability of the United Nations, governments and other partners to manage projects, infrastructure and procurement in a sustainable and efficient manner.

Within these three core areas of expertise, UNOPS provides its partners with advisory, implementation and transactional services, with projects ranging from building schools and hospitals, to procuring goods and services and training local personnel. UNOPS works closely with governments and communities to ensure increased economic, social and environmental sustainability for the projects we support, with a focus on developing national capacity.

Working in some of the world's most challenging environments, our vision is to advance sustainable implementation practices in development, humanitarian and peacebuilding contexts, always satisfying or surpassing partner expectations.

We employ more than 6,000 personnel and on behalf of our partners create thousands more work opportunities in local communities. Through our headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark and a network of offices, we oversee activities in more than 80 countries.

Background Information - CSPG

Corporate Support Group

The purpose of the Corporate Support Group is to provide a range of specialized corporate support services to the organization. The core functions of the Corporate Support Group are to

1. Articulate policies and processes relating to corporate support services; enable operationalization and managerial oversight through appropriate systems and reports; provide corporate advice and guidance; and strengthen the knowledge, skills and career development of practitioners in these areas.
2. Avail information and communications technology, general administration and security services in support of UNOPS globally.

Functional Responsibilities

Reporting to the ICT Development team lead, the Systems Administrator will be responsible for implementing and managing release processes for the progression of code in the development, test, and production environments. The Systems Administrator works collaboratively with all participants in software development projects and is supportive of developers and testers as they set up their build dev/test environments. This position also works with ICT management to improve the software engineering processes and practices associated with continuously building, deploying, and updating software and environments.

The key functional responsibilities of the Systems Administrator are as follows

Business Needs & Innovation

• Understand business needs and make recommendations on suitable technology options and solutions with a focus on innovative use of technology to solve common business issues.
• Continually work towards making improvements in release process with a focus on rapid deployment and minimisation of risks associated with new releases.
• Research new configuration management methodologies and technologies and analyze their application to current configuration management needs.

Systems Management

• Produce deployment and release plans.
• Communicate all key project plans, commitments, and changes including requirements, QA plans, schedule, and scope changes.
• Communicate release details and schedules to the business as required.
• Negotiate, plan and manage all release activities.
• Understand impacts of branches and code merges and communicate the same to IT management as well as business process owners.
• Maintain the release schedule for all core services and ensure alignment across key partners and vendors.
• Maintain a release repository and manage key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists.

Application Availability & Performance

• Participate in Go-Live activities including the execution of the deployment plans and checklists.
• Forward plan release windows and cycles across the portfolio of business applications.
• Coordinate release content and effort based on the service request backlog, pending service requests, third party applications, or operating system updates.
• Develop scripts and automation tools used to build, integrate, and deploy software releases to various platforms.
• Measure and monitor progress to ensure application releases are delivered on time and within budget, and that application performance meets or exceeds expectations.
• Participates in change request processes to discuss release scope and/or roadblocks.
• Ensure that backup needs for all data and configuration of business systems are adequately addressed.
• Ensure that all business systems, in particular the Agresso ERP, are configured to address security risks and threats.
• Maintain documentation on application installations and updates, including detailed procedures to perform the same.

Issue Resolution

• Manage risks and resolves issues that affect release scope, schedule and quality.
• Rapidly solve issues related to application availability, performance, or systems bugs introduced through new releases with a particular focus on the Agresso ERP environment.
• Coordinate with ICT help desks to ensure that reported issues are addressed in a timely manner and issue resolution notes and communicated back to users.
• Maintain detailed documentation on issue resolution guidance.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN's values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNOPS
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism

Functional Competencies

• Ability to innovate and provide solutions to complex issues for systems planning and implementation.
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Ability to stay focused under pressure.
• Good organizational skills and sound judgment.
• Comfortable both in the dynamic atmosphere of a technical project oriented organization and with working efficiently in a multi-cultural team environment.
• Structured approach to problem solving.
• Initiative and ability to work independently.
• Ability to work efficiently within a multi-cultural team environment and under pressure.
• Excellent ability to manage multiple high priority responsibilities and flexibility to adjust to changing requirements, schedules and priorities.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

Education

• Masters' Degree, preferably in Computer Science, Software Engineering or Management Sciences is required.
• Bachelor's degree in combination with two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of Master's Degree.
• Secondary education in combination with 11 years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of a Master's Degree.

Experience

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible job-related experience working with systems administration, preferably in large entreprises.
• Agresso ERP experience is a requirement.
• The right candidate would be highly skilled within the areas of business process analysis, requirements analysis, solution design, problem solving.
• Ability to understand technical & business requirements and convert them into solution designs is a requirement.
• Experience with Agile (Scrum) project methodology and practices.
• Ability to train staff and to develop and maintain effective working relationships with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
• Knowledge in web-based systems architecture, service-based architecture, enterprise application architecture.
• Good knowledge and understanding of Web Service API's especially in regard to integration.

Language

• Fluency in oral and written English.
• Knowledge of another UN language an asset.

Contract type, level and duration

Contract type: International Individual Contractor Agreement

Contract level: IICA-2

Contract duration: 1 year

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link: www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx

Additional Considerations

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time (CET)
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• For staff positions UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.

Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

Apply here: https://gprs.unops.org/Pages/ViewVacancy/VADetails.aspx?id=6489