Service Desk Engineer (1st/2nd-Line)
Sevenoaks
Up to £28k
VR/02593R

Our client is a Managed Services Provider that provides a broad range of IT services to a varying customer base. They specialise in providing Cloud services from their own facility in Kent as well as public services such as Azure, O365 and AWS. Building on these services they provide consultancy and supply services from a comprehensive portfolio of products as well as providing professional services to fulfil a range of project works. This is backed up by a highly skilled service desk.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Service Desk Engineer
The 1st to 2nd-line service desk engineer is part of a team that is responsible for responding to issues raised by clients directly as well as reacting to automated alerts and other unexpected events caused by planned maintenance or third-party activity. As the first point of contact, members of the Service Desk must be able to communicate in a clear, concise, but polite manner.

The Service Desk perform regular planned/proactive maintenance such as patching and software upgrades to customer systems. They provide onsite support as necessary, often at short notice and manage a varied array of services on customers’ behalf. There is also an out of hours service that is fulfilled on a rota basis.
Attending client sites regularly based on a rota with other engineers.

The following represent the core tasks to be carried out as a part of this role:
• Work cooperatively with team members and colleagues, contributing positively and constructively to the achievement of team and organisational objectives.
• Participate in Major Incident and Major Incident reviews.
• Facilitate effective working relationship between Service Desk and the wider business.
• Monitor progress of work, providing the customer with feedback and real-time information regarding progress, throughout the lifecycle of any work.
• Proactively escalate Incidents to a line manager or next responsible person when targets are expected to be breached, or where technical or functional escalation is needed.
• Assisting Project works, this may involve planning and implementing of client projects including new infrastructure and system upgrades, some of which may need to be undertaken outside of normal working hours.
• Maintain documentation in the relevant systems appropriate to the environment.
• Ability to attend datacentres or customers’ sites for installation or support purposes.
• Work with supporting vendors to resolve hardware and software issues.
• Maintain good working practice under RFC, scheduled maintenance windows with clear communications.
• Participate in out of hours support rota.
• To communicate with the customer in a courteous, efficient, effective and professional manner at all times.
• Co-ordinate work in the most cost-effective manner, ensuring effective utilisation of resources; promote focus and reduce duplication of effort.
• Coach and mentor members of the team as required, ensuring that knowledge is sufficiently spread to provide cover for holidays and other absence

Required Competencies (Skills, Knowledge and Experience)
• An understanding of Microsoft Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Remote Desktop Services, IIS, Active Directory and DNS
• 3 + years of working with Microsoft Desktop operating systems such as Windows XP/Vista/7, 8 &10 and Office products
• 2+ years of working with Office 365 and Azure cloud services
• Working knowledge of virtualisation technologies, Hyper-V or VMware
• Working knowledge of backup technologies, e.g. Veeam, Asigra or other cloud-based backups
• Good understanding of networking, IP addressing, firewalling and public DNS
• Exposure to monitoring tools and applications
• Excellent communication skills both verbal and written with focus on customer care
• Technical documentation skills and understanding its importance

Desirable Skills
• Microsoft Certifications
• CompTIA or equivalent
• Mimecast deployments
• Qualifications in Virtualization technologies (VMware or Hyper V)
• Cloud Services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Office 365, Azure, cloud security, Lync Server, SharePoint, Terminal Services/Remote App)
• Has a commercial awareness, able to identify and communicate opportunities to relevant teams
• Able to evaluation new technologies and products for resale potential

Personal Attitude
• Logical approach to problem solving
• Able to identify when a problem may require escalation
• Excellent time management and priority determination skills
• Polite and constructive whist dealing with all customers
• Maintain a high standard of work and professionalism
• Ability to work unsupervised and diligently
• Personal determination to increase knowledge and competences
• Team working skills
• Be responsible for your own career development by keeping abreast of technology and industry best practice

Full driving license/car owner is essential