EUMETSAT operates a growing fleet of Earth observation satellites, currently 12 satellites comprising four Meteosat geostationary (GEO) satellites of the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) and Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) series, and two Metop low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. A further five Meteosat Third Generation and six Metop Second Generation satellites are currently in preparation for launch.

Reporting to the Head of IT and Data Infrastructures and working closely with the IT Infrastructure Strategy, Architecture and Delivery Lead and the other IT and Data Infrastructures Competence Area Managers, the successful candidate is responsible for the maintenance and evolutive engineering of all computer systems for the EUMETSAT missions, including the responsibility for the Operating Systems and Commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS S/W) maintenance.

The IT Infrastructure Computer and Systems Management Competence Area Manager is supported by a team of Engineers and System Administrators to perform the above tasks.

In the near term, the primary objective for this Senior IT Infrastructure role is to help drive the organisation to a service-based Infrastructure Delivery (PaaS) approach, coupled with the adoption of a Virtual/Cloud computing platform for application delivery.

Duties

Main duties related as follows:

• Managing a team of S/W engineers, computer systems architects and administrators and securing long-term availability of the critical skills;
• Management of all computer systems, COTS software and license maintenance contracts as well as the relevant frame contract with industry and specific consultancy or support contracts;

• Support the programmes in development by providing guidelines/requirements inputs to the mission-specific Ground Segment development teams regarding computer systems and their architecture, COTS selection (both H/W and S/W), applications build and deployment functions and disaster recovery measures, with the goal to promote synergy with the mid-term operational evolutions and the obsolescence upgrades;
• Technical and contractual management of external support and contractors.

Skills and Experience

• Experience of working in an IT Infrastructure function within a large-scale organisation is essential.
• Excellent at cross-team collaboration, direction setting and delegation at a senior level.
• Clear thinker with well-structured proactive approach.
• Resilient and mindful leadership style to drive technical change within a risk adverse sector.
• Experience of providing IT Platform Infrastructure technical leadership at a senior level.
• Computer operating systems (IBM AIX, SUN SOLARIS, LINUX, Windows NT).
• Experience of managing large scale IT Infrastructure procurements for both asset purchases and service contracts.