Background

WACREN is the West and Central African Research and Education Network which supports interconnections and fosters collaboration between R&E institutions in the region and international peers by building and operating a world class network infrastructure, developing state of the art services, promoting collaboration among national, regional, and international R&E communities, and building the human capacity of the REN community.

The position of NOC Engineer is vacant and is to be filled through a competitive and transparent process.

Scope of Work

The general responsibilities of Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer are:

• To ensure maximum possible service availability and performance;
• To provide customer network services on core equipment;
• To provide support services for Engineering and other technical teams.

The specific responsibilities of Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer are:

• Assist the Senior Network and Infrastructure Engineer (SNIE) in the deployment, operations, monitoring and maintenance of the WACREN network;
• Configure and install various network devices and services (e.g. routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, VPN, OOB, Network management, Flow Collectors and Security management);
• Perform network maintenance and system upgrades including service packs, patches, hot fixes and security configurations;
• Monitor system resources utilization, trending, and capacity planning;
• Proactively monitor performance and ensure highest levels of infrastructure and systems availability and reliability;
• Provide Level-2/3 support and troubleshooting to resolve issues
• Implement and maintain security, backup and redundancy strategies;
• Perform disaster recovery operations when required;
• Produce documentation for installation, network topology and troubleshooting of systems and infrastructure;
• Develop a system of processes and procedures with connected NRENs to operate and monitor the WACREN network;
• Liaise with vendors, datacenters, peers, partners and other IT personnel for problems resolution
• Provide technical training when and where required;
• Actively participate in public forums for standards-setting bodies, Network Operators Groups (NOGs), etc. where matters discussed have the potential of impacting the mission and performance of WACREN;
• Carry out any other tasks as and when assigned by the SNIE or the CEO.

Qualification Required & Experience

Essential:

• A Master’s degree or Bachelor’s degree in IT/Computer Science with a network engineering focus;
• At least 3 years relevant continuous work experience in a network operations center engineer function;
• Good hands-on experience in routing and switching;
• Good hands-on experience with IS-IS and BGP;
• Experience in installing, configuring and managing Juniper and/or Cisco routing and switching equipment;
• Experience managing high performance distributed Network;
• Good understanding of network and systems security;
• Good understanding of Routing Security: MANRS, RPKI, BGPSEC;
• Good hands-on experience in IPv6;
• High integrity, drive for excellence and good interpersonal skills;
• Result orientation and ability to work autonomously;
• Ability to work in a team;
• Availability and ability to travel within and outside the WACREN region;
• Fluency in English or French with good working knowledge in the other language.

Desirable:

• Juniper certifications;
• Cisco certifications.

Type of Contract, Reporting, Assumption and Place of Duty

If successful, the selected applicant, who reports to the SNIE, will be proposed a 3-year contract, with a probationary period of one (1) year. The contract is renewable, subject to availability of resources and mutual agreement between WACREN and the position holder.

Place of duty is Accra, Ghana, but Staff is expected to move to another location (any country in West and Central Africa), should the Secretariat moves from Ghana and/or opens other offices in the region.

Location: Accra