Infrastructure Engineer I

<strong>AF Group (Lansing, Mich.) and its subsidiaries are a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. Insurance policies may be issued by any of the following companies within AF Group: Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Accident Fund National Insurance Company, Accident Fund General Insurance Company, United Wisconsin Insurance Company, Third Coast Insurance Company, or CompWest Insurance Company.</strong>

Lansing, USA

AF Group

<p class="p1"><strong>AF Group&rsquo;s focused and passionate team uses industry-leading best practices, analytics and resources to manage risk and minimize loss for our policyholders while strengthening businesses with our valued independent agent partners.</strong></p> <p class="p1"><strong>We strive to continuously increase the long-term value of our organization by outperforming our industry peers and fostering a culture of underwriting and claims excellence.</strong></p> https://www.afgroup.com/

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Non-Manager

Competitive Compensation and Benefits Package

Overview: <br /> <p>The Infrastructure Engineer role is responsible for the operations of secure and highly available computing platforms, servers, and networks. This role is responsible for installing, maintaining, upgrading, and continuously improving the Company&rsquo;s operating environment while maintaining the ongoing reliability, performance, and support of the infrastructure. This includes monitoring the operating environments, responding to incidents, problems, and planning for growth.</p> <p>Infrastructure Engineers deploy the release of new technologies as well as design, install, configure, maintain, and perform testing of PC/server operating systems, networks, and related utilities and hardware. Additionally, this role&rsquo;s responsibilities include troubleshooting problems as reported by users, supporting Web access and electronic messaging services, and maintaining a secure systems environment.<br /><br /></p> <p><strong>WORKING CONDITIONS:</strong></p> <p>Work is performed in an office setting. May be exposed to temperatures, which may be cooler than a normal office setting.&nbsp;<em>Hazards</em>: Possible injury in working with electronic equipment. Must follow safety and security procedures. Travel may be required.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>
Responsibilities: <br /> <ul> <li>Mentors and accepts trouble reports from operations and less experienced technical support personnel.</li> <li>Investigates and analyzes resource utilization and prepares reports.</li> <li>Optimizes the network infrastructure to maintain the highest possible level of performance and security.</li> <li>Plans for the replacement of obsolete resources that make up the enterprise network infrastructure.&nbsp;</li> <li>Recommends new software and hardware that provide new features/functions and prepares documentation to support recommendation of new software/hardware.</li> <li>Conducts appropriate, routine tests to ensure the proper working condition and security of developed and purchased software/hardware.</li> <li>Maintains an up-to-date technical and practical knowledge and understanding of system testing and analysis.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain support documents, standard operating procedures, and policies related to the network, security systems, server and storage infrastructure, and the client-computing infrastructure.</li> <li>Work with application developers and third-party vendors to develop software or virtualized installation packages for network deployment via the Enterprise configuration management suite.</li> <li>Ensures security among data management and associated processes, including adhering to data retention policies, file systems, and data transfers</li> <li>Ensures maintenance and support agreements are in place with the vendor and licensing is up to date.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain the protection of company data and systems through the use of security solutions, backups, redundancy, and disaster recovery solutions.</li> <li>Perform installation, maintenance and support of system software, hardware, and infrastructure for moderately complex projects.</li> <li>Management of asset lifecycle process through planning and forecasting, including recommendation for replacement of obsolete or end-of-life resources as needed.</li> <li>Interacts with external vendors to evaluate technology changes, including licensing and contracts, and their impact on the business.</li> <li>Investigates and analyzes resource utilization and prepares reports and metrics, making appropriate changes to optimize the infrastructure and provide the highest possible level of performance and security.</li> <li>Conducts appropriate, routine tests to ensure the proper working condition and security of developed and purchased software/hardware.</li> <li>Coordinates and schedules initial installation of new equipment or reinstallation of relocated equipment.</li> <li>Recommends improvements and changes to methods and procedures.</li> <li>Troubleshoots and resolves complex issues that involve the core operating system or desktop components, performing root cause analysis for service interruption and implementing preventative measures.</li> <li>Coordinates with Information Services regarding line framing, provisioning specifications, and bandwidth needs for data transmission.</li> <li>Guides business and ensures that workloads in Azure and AWS meet the organizations need for performance, availability, security and compliance.</li> <li>Ensures changes follow appropriate release management processes</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>NETWORKING RESPONSIBILITIES/TASKS:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Performs administrative language (shell) programming.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain the VDI environment, including standardized templates, application delivery methods, enterprise antivirus, persona management infrastructure, host servers, and zero clients.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain the configuration management suite, including multiple Windows Enterprise desktop images (WIMs), automated task sequences, an automated backup infrastructure, central imaging environment, automated software deployment, and patch management updates.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain role-based access control for enterprise computing solutions, including VDI, endpoint management suite, and Print/Scan solutions.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain Active Directory Group Policy Objects that are used to secure and configure the enterprise client-computing infrastructure.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain the Microsoft and Linux infrastructure for the enterprise.</li> <li>Participate, partner, and collaborate with SME&rsquo;s, database administrators, Network, system administrators, software developers, internal and external vendors to understand their requirements and provide viable solutions using middleware standards.</li> <li>Build, support, and maintain the enterprise network, security systems, servers and storage infrastructure, both virtual and physical, through the use of routine commands, administration techniques, tools, and utilities.</li> <li>Maintain connectivity to multi-cloud providers with infrastructure as code through site-to-site connectivity.</li> <li>Understanding of network security-based tools available within multi-cloud infrastructure.</li> <li>Follow best practices for cloud network configuration.</li> <li>Ability to leverage the right tools to script configuration changes that rescale, resize and reform the network through automation.</li> </ul>
Requirements: <br /> <p><strong>EDUCATION OR EQUIVALENT EXPERIENCE:</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or related field required.&nbsp;</li> <li>Certification or progress toward certification of, industry-recognized professional designation preferred and encouraged.</li> <li>Combinations of relevant education and work experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.</li> <li>Continuous learning, as defined by Company&rsquo;s learning philosophy, is required.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>EXPERIENCE:</strong>&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Three to five years experience within an IT environment that provides the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities.</li> <li>One-year relevant experience supporting personal computers in a multi-site, multi-platform environment as well as telephone support of remote staff preferred.</li> <li>Experience within the insurance industry highly preferred.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>General SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE/ABILITIES (SKA) REQUIRED:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Ability to apply the principles of independent logical thinking to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.</li> <li>Ability to set priorities and manage workload to meet those priorities.</li> <li>Knowledge of IT system installation, configuration, and maintenance.</li> <li>Strong software Development Life Cycle principles, processes, tools, and techniques.</li> <li>Knowledge of performance measuring and monitoring of IT systems.</li> <li>Ability to comprehend the consequences of various problem situations and to refer them for appropriate decision-making.</li> <li>Ability to handle multiple priorities, establish workflows, and meet necessary deadlines.</li> <li>Ability to work with minimum supervision.</li> <li>Excellent oral and written communication skills.</li> <li>Ability to communicate factual and technical information with customers clearly and concisely.</li> <li>Ability to effectively exchange information clearly and concisely and to present ideas, report facts and other information, and respond to questions as appropriate.</li> <li>Ability to maintain confidentiality.</li> <li>Ability to perform other assignments at locations outside the office.</li> <li>Ability to work varying hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays as required.</li> <li>Ability and proficiency in the use of computers and company standard software.</li> <li>Demonstrate ability to work under stressful situations and display professional demeanor</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Networking SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE/ABILITIES (SKA) REQUIRED:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Knowledge of applications and platforms including: Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory and Group Policy, Microsoft Office and Office 365, DNS servers, DHCP servers, and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.</li> <li>Excellent technical knowledge of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, VMware vSphere 5.x or later, VMware View 5.x or later.</li> <li>Considerable knowledge of, and the ability to practically apply, necessary testing, practices, and procedures.</li> <li>Excellent technical knowledge of former and current Microsoft Windows enterprise desktop and server operating systems, including installation procedures, security tuning, troubleshooting, and configuration management.</li> <li>Excellent technical knowledge of network, security, and storage infrastructure including: local area networks, wide area networks, wireless networking, VPN, firewalls, routers, switches, storage arrays, load balancers, WAN optimizers, endpoint security and encryption, proxy servers, digital certificates, hypervisors, data center management, and cabling standards.</li> <li>Excellent troubleshooting abilities through the use of techniques and methods which will isolate and identify faulty components or configurations within a system so that services can be quickly restored to normal levels of operation.</li> </ul>