Tier I Part Time Help Desk Analyst – Overnight Monitoring

American Systems•McLean, VA

About The Position

The Tier I Help Desk Analyst provides first-level operational support for overnight monitoring activities in a mission-critical federal environment. This is a junior operations and service desk role with monitoring responsibilities. The analyst monitors designated NSOC and enterprise tools, documents incidents and notable events, creates and updates tickets, and escalates critical issues to senior NSOC personnel according to established procedures. The role focuses on observing alerts, following runbooks, maintaining accurate records, initiating tickets, and notifying appropriate personnel when predefined conditions or critical events are identified; advanced cyber engineering and deep incident response are not expected. The position is scheduled for 12-hour overnight shifts from 6 pm MT to 6 am MT on Tuesday and Friday nights. Overnight fill-in coverage may also be needed on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. Management will establish specific hours, shift start and end times, and backup coverage expectations based on operational requirements. The role may also provide coverage support for schedule gaps and leave.

Requirements

Experience with IT service management or call center support applications such as ServiceNow or similar ticketing systems.
Basic knowledge of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, desktop/laptop support, and general IT troubleshooting.
Ability to monitor dashboards, review alerts, follow documented procedures, and escalate issues as needed.
Ability to distinguish routine events and system issues from alerts requiring immediate notification.
Ability to analyze problems, gather information, document findings, and recognize when escalation is required.
Ability to communicate professionally and clearly with users, peers, and support staff.
Ability to work independently during overnight hours while following established workflows and escalation procedures.
Strong attention to detail and ability to maintain accurate ticket and incident documentation.

Responsibilities

Monitor designated NSOC, SIEM, endpoint protection, and operational dashboards during assigned overnight shifts.
Review alerts and events from tools such as Splunk, Microsoft Defender, and other approved monitoring platforms, and perform first-level triage according to documented procedures.
Create, update, and maintain incident, event, and service tickets in the approved IT service management system.
Document notable events, initial observations, actions taken, and escalation status clearly and promptly.
Escalate critical, suspicious, or high-priority alerts to senior NSOC personnel, cybersecurity staff, or other designated support personnel according to approved criteria.
Monitor and manage trouble and incident tickets to ensure information is complete, current, and routed appropriately.
Communicate system issues, monitoring observations, outages, and shift activity through turnover notes, ticket updates, and status reporting.
Follow established SOPs, call trees, runbooks, and escalation procedures for overnight monitoring and response.
Support first-level help desk activities as assigned, including ticket intake, ticket monitoring, customer communication, routing, and escalation.
Help identify recurring alerts, duplicate incidents, or unresolved issues and ensure they are handed off to the next shift or appropriate support team.
Maintain situational awareness during assigned shift coverage and promptly report tool outages, monitoring gaps, or inability to complete required monitoring tasks.
Provide coverage support for schedule gaps and leave coverage as assigned.