RFQ C004703 - Chief Technician; Provisioning and Hosting

McBride Consulting, based in McLean, VA, USA, and with offices in Brussels, BEL and Bucharest; ROU through its wholly owned subsidiary McBride International, is a Prime Contractor on the NCIA Advisory and Assistance Services Plus (AAS+) Framework.

We are a management and IT consulting firm with significant professional services experience that includes IT transformation, project management, digital transformation, strategic planning, business process improvement, change management, human capital management, systems engineering, and operations. Due to our excellent relationship with NATO and the first-class, security cleared candidates that we source and supply from all 32 NATO nations, we are extremely privileged to ask you to review this role to assess your suitability of skills.

You will be working as a contractor for our client the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA)
NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA)
NCIA was established on 1 July 2012 from a merger of several NATO entities. It has a 65-year legacy of supporting NATO operations, missions, and exercises and is on the front lines against cyber threats, protecting NATO's networks 24/7. NCIA provides expertise and services that are critical to NATO's ability to fulfill its core tasks of consultation, collective defence, and crisis management.

As the Chief Technician, you will play a pivotal role in supporting, contributing to, developing, and managing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and related systems. Your responsibilities span the entire lifecycle, including service operation, and project support and execution. The key aspects of the role are:

• Daily Operations and Maintenance:
• Guarantee seamless operation and upkeep of NISC IaaS Services, regardless of whether they are hosted on-premises, in private clouds, or public clouds; and
• Perform system administration tasks for other IaaS-related assigned systems.
• Troubleshooting and Issue Resolution:
• Identify and troubleshoot issues promptly, assisting in their timely resolution.
• Change Management and Documentation:
• Follow change management processes diligently; and
• Update network topology diagrams and the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) after installing new components or decommissioning old ones.
• Strategic Support and Coordination:
• Provide advice and support to the IaaS Service Area Owner (SAO) and Service Delivery Managers (SDMs) throughout the entire capability lifecycle; and
• Foster close and coordinated ties with IaaS management to ensure harmonized efforts and synchronized outcomes across all activities.
• SLA Compliance and Process Development:
• Monitor compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs); and
• Contribute to the development of processes, procedures (SOPs), and Standard Operating Instructions (SOIs) for IaaS services.
• Reporting and Communication:
• Prepare reports, briefings, position papers, and presentations for senior management during project development and implementation phases.
• Ad Hoc Responsibilities:
• Undertake ad hoc tasks related to the NISC Business Area's responsibilities.
• Availability and Flexibility:
• Be prepared to work during scheduled maintenances, service-affecting activities, and contingency situations beyond regular business hours; and
• Be on-call after working hours on weekends if necessary.
• Travel and Deployment:
• Be ready to travel and work at various locations, including Braine-l'Alleud, BEL; SHAPE in Mons, BEL; NATO Headquarters in Brussels, BEL;
  The Hague, NLD; or other datacenters in NCIA's responsibility as required.

Essential education, experience, and training:

• Higher vocational training in a relevant discipline with 4 years post-related experience. Or a secondary educational qualification with 6 years post-related experience.
• Technical Expertise:
• Virtualization Skills (IaaS):
  Demonstrated practical knowledge and hands-on experience of IaaS, including both physical and virtual servers, VMware hypervisor, and storage devices;
• Proficiency in managing software-defined storage systems, particularly vSAN. VMware Cloud Foundation as a bonus;
• Guest Operating System Competence:
  Comfortable working with both Linux and Windows operating systems, including hardening and patching;
• Containerization:
  Knowledge of at least one containerization solution, such as Open Shift, Docker, Kubernetes, or Tanzu;
• Cloud Operations and Management:
  Practical experience in private and public cloud environments, covering IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and cloud monitoring and optimization; and
• Infrastructure as a Code:
  Knowledge and Hands on experience on Ansible and Terraform coding and automation will be a bonus.
• Collaboration and Communication:
• Exceptional ability to function effectively within a team, provide IT support, and resolve technical issues; and
• Willingness to stay updated on advancements in IaaS technologies.
• Documentation and Process Development:
• Proficiency in documenting current designs and configurations; and
• Ability…