Systems Engineer Cloud Automation

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

NCI Agency is looking for a Systems Engineer to support Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Science and Technology (S&T) PoW activities in the area of cloud automation technology and exercises in 2024. Furthermore, the resource will also support the Agency’s multinational project in the area of remote interoperability test facility. The NCI Agency, as the main ICT service provider in NATO and the main technical entity providing subject matter expertise in the domain of cloud automation under the technical programmes of work with NATO ACT. The candidate will provide technical support and expertise to the ACT Science and Technology Programme of Work project that is being executed by Chief Technology Office Innovating Team.

NCI Agency is contributing to the ACT’s S&T experimentation participate in designing and automating the deployment of multiple NATO C2 applications in a combined public and private cloud environment. Candidate will have the opportunity to implement CI/CD best practices and automation in a multi‐cloud context leveraging an open source stack. The candidate is also expected to influence the deployment and automation strategy and implement their ideas with a focus on abstracting the infrastructure and platform services from application developers. Furthermore, the candidate will provide technical expertise to the Agency’s multinational project in the area of secure communications interoperability specifications. In this context, the candidate will have the opportunity to design and build landing zones in a cloud environment to enable interoperability testing. The candidate will have the opportunity to participate in standards setting processes and implementing testing environments in the domain of network security.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Support NCI Agency in the NATO Programmes of Work with ACT in the area of cloud automation technologies.
• Support NCI Agency’s multinational project in the area of secure communications interoperability standards. Act as a work package lead to track progress of the technical work in the work package.
• Provide technical support to NATO exercises and associated events organized by NATO bodies and the Agency.
• Collaborate to the development of software automation code using Terraform, Ansible and/or Helm for the events Innovation Continuum 2024 and CWIX.
• Perform cloud administration tasks on an AWS account based on GitOps, and on multiple Microsoft Azure tenants.
• Collaborate to the planning and organisational aspects for the upcoming experimentations.
• Participate to the bi‐weekly project meetings held in the NCI Agency in The Hague either online or face to face.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Deep knowledge and demonstrable experience in IT automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools in cloud environments, such as Ansible, Terraform, and Helm.
• Experience with containerization technologies and orchestrators, such as Docker, Podman, and Kubernetes/OpenShift.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices, tools and methodologies.
• Proven experience with Linux and Windows system administration.
• Strong knowledge of one or more cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI.
• Deep understanding of cloud architecture principles particularly in setting up landing zones and cloud network design
• Excellent understanding of networking concepts and cloud networking technologies.
• Experience with cryptographic elements: Key management (PKI), encryption algorithms (AES) and encryption in transit (TLS) Documentation skills, with the ability to create detailed technical specifications and architecture diagrams.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Extensive knowledge of AWS or Microsoft Azure. Related Professional Cloud Certifications are desirable.
• Experience in AWS edge devices (e.g., Snow family) or Microsoft Azure (e.g., Azure Stack Hub).
• Working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.
• Experience working with standards organizations and/or open source software maintenance.
• Configure and maintain network security controls, including firewalls, VPNs, and access control lists (ACLs).
• Implement and manage cryptographic elements like PKI, digital certificates, and encryption algorithms (AES).
• Experience in multi‐cloud deployments.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field. At least 6 years of relevant professional experience.

Working Location

• The Hague, Netherlands

Working Policy

• On-Site

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance