IT Operations Technician

Protective•Birmingham, AL

About The Position

The work we do has an impact on millions of lives, and you can be a part of it. We help protect our customers against life’s uncertainties. Regardless of where you work within the company, you’ll be helping provide protection and peace of mind when our customers need it most. This position is part of a team responsible for providing 7x24x365 support in diagnosing operational issues with applications, operating systems and hardware, leveraging industry standard tools and techniques to identify solutions to technology-related issues in Protective Life Corporation’s Data Center Operations.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a technical field preferred but not required.
Minimum of 2-3 years of technical school training or equivalent work experience in a related field is required.
Minimum of 6 years experience in a 24x7x365 mainframe production or network operations systems environment.
Ability to work various hours, shifts, holidays and overtime as required.
Minimum of 3-4 years of professional, technical, or customer support experience in a corporate environment supporting at least 1000 users.
Must be available to work night shift from 7:00PM-7:30AM.
The work schedule is a 3-day rotation, alternating M-W and Th-Su about every 4 weeks.
Projects a positive attitude.
Accepts change in a productive manner and contributes to efficient implementation.
Demonstrated effective time management skills.
Strong attention to detail and ability to multi-task.
Strong interpersonal skills.
Strong oral and written communication skills.
Strong customer service skills.
Flexible and reliable.
Strong customer service orientation and desire to embrace technology as a means of improving service.
Must be a team player.
Working knowledge of Microsoft Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office.
Understanding of LAN, WAN and Citrix environments.
Understanding of TCP/IP, Routers, Switches, Hubs, Firewalls, Domains, DNS, DHCP and Subnets.
Good analytical, problem solving and technical troubleshooting skills.
Ability to complete job requirements work with minimal supervision.
Lifting and transporting moderately heavy objects, such as computers and peripherals.
Ability to lift 30 pounds regularly and 50 pounds occasionally.

Nice To Haves

Mainframe print experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

Distributed System/Network/Environmental/Mainframe Monitoring.
Ensures mainframe and distributed system availability and production scheduling.
Monitors mainframe and AS400 operations using TSO, OMEGAMON, TMON, and mainframe consoles.
Monitors servers and applications utilizing WebNM, SCOM and available resources.
Monitors network infrastructure using SolarWinds and available resources.
Monitors facility environmental systems using EnviroNet and available resources.
Monitors business-critical APIs utilizing the available monitoring resources.
Monitors internal and external websites utilizing available monitoring resources.
IT Operations Support.
Executes manual cycles and jobs using IBM z/OS mainframe and AS400 to ensure timely service level agreements (SLA) in support of corporate business operations.
Executes daily checklist tasks to ensure operational efficiency and effectiveness to meet business SLAs.
Provides Control-M support to application development and other IT operations teams, as required (i.e., manipulating errored jobs, holding and releasing jobs for delayed cycles, etc.)
Accomplish daily turnover and status reports, as required.
Identify, report, coordinate, and document system abnormalities.
Responsible for augmenting Technical Support Center telephone support, as needed.
Customer Support and Communication
Utilizes on-call calendars and established procedures to escalate events appropriately.
Formats and transmits vetted communication for Informational, Maintenance, and Emergency Events.
Promptly and professionally receives and responds to customer requests and ensures timely follow-up.
Escalation and communication of issues, events, and outages within the guidelines of DCO procedures.
IT Operations Management.
Reviews ITOM platform discovery and mapping scans to correct and validate any identified discrepancies.
Reviews ITOM event management alerts for completeness and correctness to minimize event noise.
Collaborates with IT owners and the ITOM platform owner, as needed, to resolve any issues.
Information Technology Serivce Management (Incident/Problem/Change Management).
Uses incident management software to log, document and close customer requests, as required.
Uses problem management software to create, document, and complete problems, as required.
Uses change management software to create, document, and complete changes, as required.
Responds to operator alerts, messages, notifications and other error indicators from monitoring systems.
Completes triage in-line with Incident Resolution Documents, procedures, and operating instructions.
Accurately documents, escalates, and makes notification to on-call teams to expedite event remediation.
Provide technical point of escalation for production systems, application and technical issues, equipment failures and environmental conditions to the appropriate team to ensure timely resolution.
Works to resolve routine Data Center Operations equipment problems or issues.
Reviews scheduled DCO changes for potential impact to customers.
Attends weekly change management meeting to participate in review of upcoming changes.
Disaster Recovery.
Participates in Disaster Recovery activities as required.
Acts as a liaison between Technical Services, Production Control, and other Information Technology teams to resolve issues.
Performs backup operations, as required.
Continuous Process Improvement.
Works with DCO management to ensure that processes and services are continuously monitored for quality, cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
Proactively seeks to identify opportunities for process workflow improvements and operational efficiencies and provides recommendations for implementing changes.
Actively assist in the creation of new techniques, technologies and ideas that will enable more proactive resolutions to issues and potential issues.
Assist in developing, documenting, testing and the implementing of processes and procedures.
Engages in process and quality improvement activities.
Provides process improvement recommendations to team leads and managers.
Training/Administration.
Complete all assigned training prior to required completion dates.
Attend all Information Systems, Corporate and OJT training as assigned by management.
Strives to achieve a high degree of position qualification by continually increasing knowledge and skills in-line with improvements and changes to the enterprise IT environment, tools, and processes.
Ensures the DCO work area and other supporting rooms are clean, orderly and presentable.
Additional Duties.
Reports any abnormalities or violations to DCO supervisor or manager.
Performs other duties or special projects as assigned.

Benefits

We aim to protect the wellbeing of our employees and their families with a broad benefits offering.
In addition to offering comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance, we support emotional wellbeing through mental health benefits and an employee assistance program.
Work/life balance is important and Protective offers a variety of paid time away benefits ( e.g. , paid time off, paid parental leave, short-term disability, and a cultural observance day).
The financial health of our employees is just as important as physical and emotional health.
Some of the financial wellbeing benefits include contributions to healthcare accounts, a pension plan, and a 401(k) plan with Company matching.
All employees are encouraged to protect their overall wellbeing by engaging in ProHealth Rewards, Protective’s platform to improve wellbeing while earning cash rewards.
Eligibility for certain benefits may vary by position in accordance with the terms of the Company’s benefit plans.

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