In this role my primary responsibility is to administer support and improve the Energy One UK SaaS platform which runs on Microsoft Azure. This includes provided 24x7 out of hours support on a rota basis and ensuring the platform is always available and performant.In this role I primarily work as a tech lead advising the UK business on improvements and leading projects assigned to me on a technical basis.On such project I have worked on is the project to replace the legacy suite of monitoring systems with a new Grafana/Prometheus based monitoring system which has involved building custom Grafana dashboards and also writing bespoke custom exporters for Prometheus using the Go programming language.Additionally I fulfil the role of the SME for SQL Server often working to troubleshoot complex performance or data related issues including ways to reduce disk space consumed by over 16 TB over 1 year.

As the UK infrastructure manager I took responsibility for the UK IT estate including for Energy One.This included:- On premise Microsoft Hyper-V- Azure based SaaS platform- UK network infrastructureIn addition to this I provided support and expertise to the group level functions on:- Office365 infrastructure- Mimecast Advanced Threat Protection- Mimecast User Awareness Training- Phishing SimulationIn this role I managed small UK based team of Systems Administrators and DevOps Engineers focusing on supporting the Energy One UK business 24x7.Further to this I worked on several high profile group wide projects such as the rollout and launch of 1Password and migration from legacy password tools to implementing Active Directory automations.

As head of service delivery at Contigo Software Limited I had the application support team, Platform (DevOps) and Internal IT Team reporting into me.My primary focus was maintaining and managing our SaaS platform hosting enVoy and enTrader and working on large customer projects/implementations. One of the main projects I worked on was to implement a fully SaaS offering of EDT and EDL communications circuits to the National Grid (UK) for Contigo’s enVoy product.I also managed our Internal IT team which was focused on delivering systems for Internal stakeholders and managing our IT estate. The largest project I supported was implemented Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) for remote workers.

Manager of the UK IT Operations team responsible for the management of the internal IT estate for the UK business unit.The team is also responsible for the management of Contigo’s SaaS platform (CMS) of which I was the lead architect and responsible for the day to day management as well as designing changes and new infrastructure for the platform.

As the Senior Systems Administrator my role was to be the Tech Lead within the team. This involved proposing, analysing and designing new infrastructure solutions.The role normally involved analysis and designs on Infrastructure projects with handover to other team members to implement the designs.The role was also responsible for the CMS hosting platform whereby I was responsible for maintaining, designing and implementing Contigo’s Azure based SaaS platform.

As a managed service Consultant, I was responsible for the managed service infrastructure which hosts client systems. During this time Contigo began moving off the on-premise infrastructure which hosted client systems to a new Microsoft Azure based platform. I worked as the technical lead on this project architecting and deploying the new Azure based platform from the ground up to use the most suitable and effective Azure technologies available. This project meant working closely with the development teams to make numerous changes to the code base to get the code working in an optimal way on the new platform.During this project we built a new Azure based infrastructure from scratch including, Virtual Networks, Application Gateways, Servers (Over 60 servers), Load Balancers and Log Analytics.I also worked to automate deployments of the Contigo applications taking a manual process which took hours per customer into a fully automated system which now takes on average 10 minutes to complete per customer.

As a Technical Client Manager (TCM) I worked as 3rd line support and provided consultancy services to clients. My areas of speciality where:- Technical Support and Consultancy- Performance troubleshooting- Infrastructure Design- SQL Server AdministrationI was also the support lead for Contigo’s enVoy product which handles notifications out to Energy Industry bodies (Such as Elexon and National Grid).Some of my other work included performing regular installs and upgrades often performing multiple installs and upgrades a week.As a TCM I worked closely with the rest of the support team as an escalation point for the junior team members and to help manage the team. I also worked heavily on projects implementing multiple systems for clients in the time I worked in this role.

I worked in the Capita Libraries (CLIB) Division on the assist managed services team. My role was a senior application support analyst with a specialty in technical support. As such I looked after CentOS\RHEL and Solaris based system for clients. I was also responsible for administering Sybase databases for clients.Part of my role involved implementing a customised Nagios implementation which monitored the managed services infrastructure and the library systems. While some of the setup was using existing scripts a large a mount of the role meant writing custom Perl Scripts. The new Nagios system resulted in the support team being able to be more proactive to problems and often being aware of an issue long before clients noticed which enhanced the client support provided.

My main responsibility was to prepare the nightly SAP Schedules and ensure the correct jobs were run throughout the night. I was also responsible for the monitoring of the IT Infrastructure and escalating any problems to the relevant teams. After a few months within the role I began picking up the extra responsibility of building a new Nagios Core monitoring system which would be capable of monitoring all Compass UK Infrastructure and data centres with better graphing and dashboards so Operations could identify faults easier on top of identifying which rack each host was located in within the data centre.

After completion of my IT Apprenticeship I began working at Contigo Full time. I was then given the added responsibility of maintaining the whole IT Infrastructure for the company including servers, networking equipment and employee devices.I also worked on the Application Support team where I managed the Contigo Support portal and logged, investigated and resolved tickets raised by customers.

During my Microsoft Advanced IT apprenticeship I studied regularly at QA's Birmingham site and then spent time on placement at Contigo getting hands on experience of IT Infrastructure. The Apprenticeship was designed to take a student from limited IT knowledge to fully qualified and suitable for first line IT jobs within 9 months.While at placement with Contigo I worked to maintain all company infrastructure including servers, SQL Server and employee devices (Such as laptops).