Senior Computing Specialist
Department of Statistics, 24-29 St Giles’, Oxford
Grade 8: £41,526 – £49,553 p.a (with discretionary range to £54,131)

We are seeking an enthusiastic, highly skilled, and knowledgeable IT professional to join the department’s excellent IT team. The primary focus of the role is user support and the provision of training for our extensive teaching, research and administrative activities. You will also be responsible for building, testing and deployment of the latest Linux releases across the IT infrastructure. Reporting to the Head of Administration and Finance on administrative aspects, you will work closely with the Computing Manager, who oversees IT infrastructure, on all technical areas. The role of Senior Computing Specialist is pivotal to the smooth running of the IT operations. You will manage two Computing Officers on a day-to-day basis, while the Computing Manager leads strategic work. Understanding and proactively contributing to departmental IT strategy and policy will be crucial, including participating in the department’s IT committee.

The Senior Computing Specialist’s responsibilities include establishing IT support objectives, tracking progress, and reporting outcomes to the appropriate manager. Mentoring colleagues and sharing specialist knowledge with them, as well as developing and delivering IT training and inductions for students and staff, is a key part of the role. You will promote efficient and sustainable use of IT solutions and Information Security best practice. You will collaborate in the support, development and further integration of a heterogeneous network (e.g. Fedora and Debian Linux, CUPS, DNS, FreeIPA, Subversion, SMTP, Windows AD, Mac OS); manage user account creation and deletion; build, deploy and upgrade Fedora Linux desktops and servers and Ubuntu laptops.

You will have the knowledge, intellectual capacity, reasoning and analytical skills of a graduate or equivalent and experience of managing a small team. Excellent interpersonal skills, with a strong record of verbal and written communication, are a must, as you will be dealing with a wide variety of people with a range of technical knowledge. You will have proven ability to develop and deliver IT training and induction and demonstrable experience supporting current research and teaching applications and environments (e.g. LaTeX, Python, R, SLURM). Experience with a ticketing system and developing IT policies and Service Level Agreements is essential, with extensive experience installing and maintaining a variety of Linux distributions, and of building, installing and deploying software. A working knowledge of Apple MacOS and Windows systems in a network environment is important, and ideally experience providing IT support in an academic environment.

In this small team, broad knowledge and the ability to be flexible is vital, but comprehensive training and support will be provided. Applications from strong candidates with varied experience, but who have not previously undertaken all the duties of this role, are very much welcomed if they meet the essential selection criteria.

Queries about this post should be addressed to Stuart McRobert (sm@stats.ox.ac.uk) or Annette Miller (annette.miller@stats.ox.ac.uk).

This is a permanent post.

Only applications received before 12.00 midday on 26 May 2021 will be considered.

Interviews will be held on 17 June 2021.

Contact Person : HR
Vacancy ID : 150655
Closing Date & Time : 26-May-2021 12:00
Contact Email : HR@stats.ox.ac.uk