Senior Modern Workplace Engineer

Role purpose: 

The Senior Modern Workplace Engineer - Productivity, reporting to the Modern Workplace Lead is part of the team responsible for the ongoing change, supporting, and evolution of services related to the Microsoft 365 Platform.   The role requires someone with experience of managing a Microsoft 365 environment with a focus on key features such as Teams, Exchange and Sharepoint and with a drive to deliver value from the platform and to develop strategies for emerging technologies such as CoPilot.   The role focus will be on the productivity suite within M365, however there will be an expectation to support the EUC function. 

As part of the infrastructure team at LRQA, you will be working alongside peers in Networking, IDAM, DevOps and Security roles to ensure that productivity services are delivered to a high standard with the support from a wider team of experts. The role also requires you to be able to solve complex or difficult problems with the team to overcome large scale challenges with an understanding of the cost, performance and security elements associated.  This role is also set to act as the escalation point for any issues related to the Microsoft Platform with respect to productivity tooling. 

You will oversee technical aspects of the LRQA Microsoft 365 environment. You will provide technical leadership and shaping strategy which will influence budget allocation. This role will also require experience in mentoring, objective setting, leadership and being responsible for ensuring efficient system operations. You will blend expertise with strategic vision to optimize performance, adoption and guide team development. 

The infrastructure team at LRQA are encouraged to collaborate, share knowledge, and work collectively to cross-skill with other disciplines so an element of being able to work in a collaborative environment is critical to the success of this role. As a senior role the expectation is that your experience and knowledge can be shared with the wider team to help them succeed on any objective. 

The role will also require you to work closely with support vendors to ensure that incidents related to the platform are handled within the agreed service levels and act as an agent for any technical escalations that require specialist support.  

Key Responsibilities: 

• Will provide technical leadership in managing the Microsoft 365 platform. Your expertise and insight will influence strategic decisions regarding infrastructure development and budget allocation. 
• Will be setting objectives for projects, operations, and for the Microsoft 365 capability at LRQA. 
• Mentoring of engineers at various capability levels, fostering their professional growth and skills development 
• Act as a group wide SME for Microsoft 365 and be a key contributor to group wide projects and programme activities through delivery and providing support during the design and development stages. 
• Act as the escalation for the Productivity team to ensure that any issues are resolved as swiftly as possible while following the relevant standards and processes and liaising with senior stakeholders as required. 
• Have an eye on the future, maintain your expertise and ensuring the platform will continuously be future fit. 
• Be a key contributor to the implementation, support, and refinement of the M365 environment. 
• Work with product owners and the IT team to support solution design and implementation of new or existing features. 
• Build and maintain any monitoring capability required to ensure good capacity planning and stability of the service and work to proactively identify and resolve issues to ensure optimal performance. 
• Ensure good governance and processes are maintained or established where needed to ensure that the platform operates to the relevant security and information standards LRQA have in place. 
• Work in an Agile environment working in 2-week sprints and attending all associated Agile ceremonies. 
• Ensure that support for the platform meets all required service targets identifying areas for improvement.  
• Continually identify ways to improve performance and adoption of the platform and work on efforts to reduce costs.  
• Work with the wider infrastructure and security teams to drive up the secure score and create backlog items to remediate any vulnerabilities or issues. 
• Be a key contributor to the roadmap for the infrastructure platform identifying modern technologies and identifying areas where these can benefit LRQA. 

Technical/Professional Qualifications/Requirements 

• Technical background of at least 5 years of working experience as a Senior Productivity engineer working with the Microsoft 365 technology stack 
• 5 years’ experience in a relevant IT support capacity with experience of handling incidents, problems and change 
• Experience dealing with escalations with a level-headed approach to problem solving and working with stakeholders and vendors to achieve a resolution 
• Experience and understanding of the Security and Compliance features in Microsoft 365 and experience with Purview 
• Experience of the nuances of licensing of a Microsoft 365 environment and proven track record of reducing costs in that space 
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplined team with an understanding of cloud related concepts such as networking, IDAM and security 
• Effective communication skills to engage with an ability to not only listen but also advise providing appropriate challenges and questions to find the correct resolution 
• Solid grasp of ITIL around Release, Deployment and Change Management 
• Curious and continuous learner – investigates, interprets, and grasps new concepts. 
• Self-motivated and can use own initiative to work with limited guidance to implement innovative solutions. 
• Ability to understand and assess complex and sometimes unfamiliar situations, visualise solutions and see through to resolution and work effectively within a matrix organisation. 
• Result driven, analytical, and innovative individual with the ability to decipher business requirements and convert them effectively into innovative technology solutions