Job Description

Systems Engineer, Comms

Date: 20-Jul-2022 Location: Singapore, Singapore Company: Singtel Group
NCS is a leading information and communications technology (ICT) and communications engineering services provider across the Asia-Pacific region. We are headquartered in Singapore and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Singtel Group. We have in-depth domain knowledge and unique capabilities that create business value for customers. We offer a broad range of services, including consulting, systems development and integration, business process outsourcing, infrastructure management and solutions, and technology solutions.

You are required to perform duties in a Network Operations Centre (NOC), jointly manned by users and NCS team, 24 hours and 7 days a week.

• Role and Responsibilities

• Fault management

• To monitor any fault alarm generated from the Network Management System (NMS);

• To identify the nature and type of the network failures whenever a fault alarm is generated or a fault is reported, and to execute the appropriate corrective actions to ensure minimum disruption to the network;

• To seek approval from the user’s representative on the remedial actions should such actions entail disruption to the network or the allocation of resources;

• To report the fault to the Maintenance Agency (MA) when the fault cannot be resolved at the NOC level;

• To liaise with the MA directly to isolate or rectify the fault reported;

• To provide interim update of a fault via SMS or phone to the user until the fault is closed;

• To document the number and types of faults occurred and the process and action taken to resolve the problem;

• To perform daily checks with the aid of NMS to ensure all sub-systems are in proper physical and working condition;

• To backup data of the NMS and to restore it when necessary.

• To carry out the MA’s recommended periodic preventive maintenance of the sub-systems and its equipment at all sites to ensure network functionality and the equipment are in working order;

• To perform periodic testing of the main and backup switching equipment to ensure all sub-systems are functioning properly.

• Configuration Management

• To maintain an up-to-date physical and logical configuration of the sub-systems with proper and accurate documentation;

• To maintain and manage the numbering plan for all system end-user terminals;

• To perform network reconfiguration for operational role changes that does not involve additional hardware or swapping of equipment boards upon instruction from the user;

• To perform network and new services configuration;

• To track and report to the user any unauthorised equipment, hardware, applications, relocation, etc. regarding the overall configuration of the system.

• Administration Management

• To receive calls from end-users on all aspects of the system such as fault reporting, network consultation, etc.;

• To keep end-users informed of such events like network failure, network maintenance, network testing, password changing, etc. so that end-users are given adequate notice in advance to prepare themselves;

• To issue Repair Report Forms (RRF) and/or Anomaly and Improvement Forms to MA for its further actions;

• To be responsible for the proper maintenance and documentation of all the maintenance and operating manuals;

• To activate the user’s representative after office hours should there be any anomalies in the sub-systems that require their intervention or advice or if such anomalies result in adverse operational impact;

• To liaise with building owners for access;

• To provide shift report on all related incidents that happen during the shift;

• To provide monthly updates of the sub-systems status to the user and ad-hoc reports when so requested by the user;

• To maintain the stock inventory management system to track all equipment movement in/out of NOC located in the main site.

• Performance Management

• To collect and compile network statistics periodically, and to analyse the statistics collected. The network performance results together with recommended solution to improve network performance, if required, are to be provided to the user;

• To track the performance in terms of the Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) of the various sub-systems with MA. Such task includes tracking the response time and turnaround time of the MA upon activated;

• To recommend to the user necessary actions to be taken to enhance the performance of the sub-systems;

• To assess and decide on the need to fine-tune the sub-systems based on the performance results submitted and recommend technical solutions to the user.

• Security Management

• To ensure that all components of the sub-systems located at NOC (NMTs, equipment of all sub-systems, equipment rooms, etc.) are physically secured according to the security guidelines set out by the user;

• To monitor the sub-systems against any unauthorised network access and to track down for such unauthorised access to the network.

• To perform periodical change in password access control to the sub-systems according to the IT security requirement;

• To desensitise system terminal equipment;

• To reload terminal software;

• To monitor the overall security of the system and to report any possible breach to the user;

• To recommend to the user the necessary actions to be taken against any unauthorised network access;

• To assist the user in safeguarding and restricting access to all the security related information;

• To plan and recommend to the user the periodical change in password access control for the sub-systems;

• To assist the user in system security keys renewal;

• To assist user in tracking the loss of system user terminals.

• Project Support

• To assist the user in project planning and to provide network operations advices to the user’s project team;

• To assist the user in conducting verification tests/trials during project run-in phase;

• To perform network and new services configuration;

• Put to service new system user terminals.

• Consultancy Services

• To provide consultancy services in technical and tactical operations of the sub-system;

• Study and analyse in detail the sub-systems on the business continuity planning;

• Support the user in the ad-hoc studies on the network capacity and capabilities.

• General Support Management

• To advise and support the user in the planning and execution of special operations that involves allocation, configuration and deployment of system resources.

• To formulate network recovery procedures in response to all possible failure scenarios for approval by the user. Such failure scenarios include example like network degradation on fallback modes and the total failure of the main NOC site which necessitates the need to relocate operations to the alternate site. The network recovery procedures when approved by the user shall be constantly improved, updated and re-approved through the conduct of periodical exercises and validations;

• To assist the user in carrying out retrieval of logs;

• Support the user on site and monitor the network performances during major events;

• To assist the user to report any missing system end-user terminal (reported by end-user) to the user to terminate the service and to submit a report.

• User Equipment (UE) Management

• To confirm failures or faults in the reported equipment;

• To ensure that all relevant data in the equipment are removed and perform software and content management if it is not done adequately;

• To save equipment configuration and settings especially for faulty equipment;

• To secure delete or remove configuration and data within the faulty equipment;

• To clone equipment configuration from one equipment to another;

• To update or restore firmware and software in the equipment physically;

• To perform remote wipe of confirmed faulty equipment;

• To consolidate repaired UE and provide updated software or apply patches before returning to user.

• Application Management

• To provide Level 1 software support and basic application trouble shooting, consisting of:

• Version update
• Reinstallation
• Cache clearing
• User Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ)
• User registration check
• Hardware requirement check

• To provide Level 1 backend infrastructure support, consisting of:

• Server status check
• Connectivity check

• To escalate to application vendors for Level 2 support.

• Requirements

• Only Singapore citizens with the required security clearance.

• Required to perform 12 hours rotating shift work in teams, for 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, inclusive of Sundays and Public Holidays. Standby duties are also required.

• Required to work on users’ site(s).

• Able to work in a team and with external stakeholders.

• Able to work under stress during outage or emergency.

• Experience in a control centre will be a plus.

• Knowledge in any domains or software listed below will be an advantage:

• DC operation – Splunk, SolarWinds, operational process, setting up, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Business Continuity Plan (BCP) SOP.

• Systems – VMware, Nutanix, MS AD, MS servers, tape backup, Hyper V.

• Security – Cisco, VPN, Symantec, RSA, CA, Palo Alto, familiar with IM8, ISM, CISSP.

• Networking – L2 & L3 switches, networking design, minimum CCNA, CCNP is a plus.

We are committed to a safe and healthy environment for our employees & customers and will require all prospective employees to be fully vaccinated.