Central Infrastructure SME

Central Infrastructure Subject Matter Expert
Location: Remote (UK)
Permanent
RS Group is seeking a passionate and driven Central Infrastructure Subject Matter Expert to join our rapidly growing Technology team. This is a critical role focused on ensuring the reliability, availability, and evolution of our global infrastructure services. You’ll provide operational support and technical guidance to third-party partners, internal stakeholders, and suppliers—ensuring consistent delivery of infrastructure solutions that meet defined service levels and standards across the RS Group landscape.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Accountability for configuration, performance and availability of infrastructure services executing on servers hosted in branch or cloud through 3rd party engagements.
• Accountability for all patch management change activity coordination and execution, on servers hosted in branch or cloud through 3rd party.
• Accountability of all RS Group branch and relevant cloud assets in CMDB; ensure 3rd Party maintain IPAM solution to RS Standards.
• Liaise with the engineering focussed RS Cloud Competency Centre, internal customers and project teams, Technology support teams and external service providers to ensure all branch and cloud infrastructure change activity is assessed.
• Assess request for change within Infrastructure platforms, ensuring activity is performed in line with best practise, has suitable test and reversion plans, and is expected to meet the requirement.
• Attend weekly Technical Change Boards to review change requests across multiple technologies, consider there cross-technology stack implications and advise on potential conflict.
• Manage business requests for support in line with Service Level Agreements.
• Support incident managers to seek resolutions across a diverse range of technologies and teams, leading where appropriate.
• Accountable for auditing branch & cloud-based development, test, and production infrastructure capacity.
• Review and assist in the development of documentation for solutions being transitioned into support.
• Input into the risk management process.
• Identify improvements to the RS infrastructure.
• Liaise with all Service Management teams to maintain effective systems maintenance and monitoring processes.
• Act as a lead Technical Expert to resolve technical issues.
• Manage issues impacting service delivery and define and implement effective solutions via the service improvement process.
• Deliver appropriate action plan to resolve incidents.
• Input and review branch and cloud infrastructure project lifecycle activities for acceptance into BAU production.
• Input into the branch and cloud platforms services lifecycle budget planning process.
• Deliver a program of continuous improvement via the service improvement plan.
• Review vulnerability reports and make recommendations around environment updates in line with requirements from RS security team and follow industry standard practises.
• Project: Perform role of technical lead for acceptance into service of projects, preceded by review and input to high- and low-level designs, in various formats and levels of detail, to ensure solutions are a good fit with existing solution components.
• Proactively engage with both 3rd party service providers and internal support teams to maintain a positive working partnership.
• Manage 3rd party service providers and internal support teams to meet contracted support agreements.
• Maintain effective stakeholder relationships with Technology and Business community stakeholders.
• Communicate complex issues and recommendations in a format applicable to the audience.
• Review and challenge root cause analysis reports due to critical events.
• Activity participate in the sharing of Global Technology and Cloud best practice and processes across the RS Group.
   

About You:
You are a proactive, technically astute infrastructure expert who thrives in a complex and fast-paced global environment. With a hands-on understanding of both cloud and on-prem infrastructure, you’re adept at navigating operational challenges, leading technical initiatives, and delivering results through collaboration. Your ability to communicate effectively across technical and non-technical audiences makes you a valuable bridge between technology teams, business stakeholders, and vendors.

You take pride in driving service excellence and continuous improvement while keeping a strong focus on security, governance, and user experience.
 

What You Bring

• Proven expertise in hybrid infrastructure environments, integrating cloud and on-premise solutions.
• Strong experience with AWS and Azure platforms.
• In-depth technical knowledge of:
  • Active Directory, MS Exchange
  • Microsoft Server and RHEL OS
  • Virtualisation (Hyper-V)
  • IP networking (firewalls, switches, VPNs)
  • Cloud monitoring and automation tools
  • Enterprise server hardware
• Solid understanding of managing infrastructure in outsourced vendor environments.
• Experience managing change in large-scale, complex technology environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead continuous improvement and process optimisation initiatives.
• Strong stakeholder management and the ability to communicate with clarity and credibility.
• A commitment to the RS Group Values, with integrity, collaboration, and innovation at your core.
• Experience working in global teams and managing cost-effective infrastructure strategies.
• Familiarity with both Agile and Waterfall delivery methodologies.

Desirable Experience

• Experience working with SLAs and OLAs in a managed service environment.
• ITIL Foundation certification or equivalent knowledge of IT service management frameworks.

The extras you’ll get:

At RS, as well as the usual employee benefits you’d expect from a FTSE listed company, including annual performance bonus, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, private healthcare, in the UK&I, we’ve just introduced a number of new Family Friendly Policies including:​

• Help for people to take control of ongoing Health conditions such as diabetes or asthma with £500 a year available for monitoring & consultation​
• Support for Neurodiverse colleagues and families with neurodiverse members with needs assessment, diagnosis and post diagnostic support for autism spectrum, ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome​
• Support for Women at different life stages from streamlined fertility support through to diagnosis and monitoring of both endometriosis and menopause​
•  Helping our LGBTQ+ community through enhanced coverage for trans colleagues, including voice coaching, facial surgery and gender confirmation surgery​
• Additions to Fertility coverage including IVF for lesbian couples and information/support around surrogacy and adoption for all. 

We are RS

At RS we’ve been solving engineering problems for over 80 years: big ones, small ones, easy and difficult ones. We turn the ‘what ifs’ into the ‘why nots’, the impossible into the possible.  ​

Our purpose? Making amazing happen for a better world.  ​

We offer service and product solutions. We send out a parcel every 2 seconds, to over 130 countries. We provide over 700,000 in-stock and over 3 million unstocked products to more than 1.2 million customers.  ​

We want people like you, as you are curious about things, you like doing things differently and also in a human way with empathy. Because that’s exactly how we partner with people – our customers, suppliers, colleagues and communities – to solve problems.  ​

We’ll also invest in your development and wellbeing – because building a more diverse and inclusive culture, being ethical, responsible and committed to our Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) action plan is at the heart of everything we do. ​

Come and join us and we’ll help you to think big, do more and unleash your brilliance, so you do amazing things too.​

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