Nederlandse Grondwet:
Software Operations and Maintenance Engineer - Deadline extended

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

SOFTWARE OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ENGINEER Ref. n°: EMSA/CA/2012/01

The European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 provides the legal basis for the establishment of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

The goal of the Agency is to provide technical and scientific assistance to the European Commission and the Member States on matters relating to the proper implementation of European Union legislation on maritime safety and pollution by ships. To do this, one of EMSA's tasks is to facilitate cooperation between Member States and between Member States and the Commission in all key areas. This includes undertaking a range of actions related to design, construction and operation of all types of merchant and fishing vessels.

In April 2004 EMSA was also given some additional tasks by the European Council and the European Parliament related to oil pollution response, ship security and training of seafarers. EMSA invites you to send your application for the recruitment process of a Software Operations and Maintenance Engineer. The post will be attached to Department A, `Corporate Services', Unit A.3. `Operations Support'. More information about the Agency and its structure and activities can be found on our

website: http://www.emsa.europa.eu

Functions and Duties:

Unit A.3, Operations Support, has been given the task to support the maintenance and the operation of EMSA Maritime Applications (SafeSeaNet, STIRES, CleanSeaNet, LRIT, Thetis, etc.) as well as some EMSA internal applications (Document Management System, HR-tools). The focus is on ensuring the performance and availability to end users of applications that fulfil business needs while, at the same time, ensuring that the underlying software infrastructure is running and performs according to the application requirements, always according to best practices and software methodologies.

EMSA applications are implemented according to JAVA Platform, Enterprise Edition (JEE) specification and deployed into EMSA corporate architecture that follows best practices for Service Oriented Architecture. Applications are developed to provide services in the different tiers (presentation, business and data) using standard and open technical frameworks (e.g. jQuery, Spring, Hibernate). Oracle Weblogic (10g and 11g) are used as JEE Application Servers and data is stored in Oracle databases (10g and 11g). Oracle Service Bus is used to expose Business and Data services and as the central integration

hub. When needed, Oracle Weblogic Integrator is used as the Message Oriented Middleware. Applications are deployed in production environments at EMSA data centre taking full advantage of VMWare virtualization techniques. Sound quality control during deployment phase, ability to anticipate operational issues based on monitoring and experience in problem solving are key success factors.

The Software Maintenance and Operation Engineer will, under the responsibility of the Head of Unit A.3 be in charge of operating and maintaining EMSA Applications and underlying Software infrastructure in production environments by:

Supporting the technical specification and design of Maritime Applications assuring that operational requirements and best practices are followed from the beginning;

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  Verifying and validating deliverables (software artefacts and documentation) for compliance with maintenance and operational requirements as well as the agreed performance, availability and resilience parameters;
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  Giving support in defining and preparing the monitoring procedures for application and middleware;
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  Preparing or upgrading the underlying Software infrastructure (middleware) e.g. Weblogic Application Servers;
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  Deploying or upgrading Maritime Applications according to the system documentation;
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  Keeping Maritime Applications and middleware running with the right performance, and availability;

Monitoring behaviour of the Maritime Applications as well as the supporting middleware infrastructure. Responding to abnormal behaviours by recovering affected systems, correcting issues and/or fine tune middleware components;

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  Analysing profiling and monitor information, identify problems and bottlenecks, propose and applying solutions for optimization;
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  Proactively reconfiguring middleware in order to avoid potential problematic situations in terms of performance, availability and resilience;
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  Providing technical support, including profiling, troubleshooting and optimization of the various operational releases of Maritime Applications and middleware;

Acting as the interface at the technical level with an external Contractor, ensuring the correct implementation and operation of the monitoring system.

A. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Qualifications and experience required:

A.1. Education and experience:

A level of education which corresponds to post-secondary education attested by a diploma, or;

A level of secondary education attested by a diploma giving access to post-secondary education and appropriate professional experience of three years.

A.2. Language skills:

The main working language in the field of maritime safety is English. Candidates must therefore have an excellent command of spoken and written English, with a satisfactory knowledge of at least one other official language of the European Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the above mentioned duties.

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A.3. General Conditions: In addition, in order to be eligible the candidate must:

Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union or of Iceland or Norway;

Be entitled to your full rights as a citizen;

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  Have fulfilled the obligations imposed on you by the laws concerning military service;
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  Meet the character requirements for the duties involved;

Be physically fit to perform the duties linked to the post.

A. SELECTION CRITERIA

B.1. Essential: Experience in the operation and maintenance of large web systems, including knowledge of clustering, scalability, resilience and security techniques;

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  Knowledge and experience in end-to-end profiling, monitoring, troubleshooting and optimization across the various application tiers (presentation, business, integration and data tiers) and middleware;

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Good software/system problem-solving skills;

Experience and knowledge with Apache HTTP Server, Weblogic Application server and Tomcat. Excellent communication skills and ability to communicate effectively in English, including ability to produce written papers and reports as well as to present to an audience;

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  Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to integrate into an international and multicultural environment;

Self-learner, with sense of initiative and perseverance to deliver high quality work.

B.2. Advantageous: Experience and knowledge of middleware tools, integration methodologies and Software Architecture best practices and patterns;

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  Experience and knowledge of the following: Java/JEE technology, XML, Web Services, MOM, JMS, JDBC and Oracle databases;
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  Ability to identify and analyse system needs and propose/develop appropriate monitoring solutions;

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Knowledge and Experience with openLDAP, JBOSS application server;

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  Knowledge and experience with Enterprise Service Bus. EMSA will favour Oracle Service Bus;
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  Knowledge of Portal and portlet frameworks. EMSA will favour the knowledge in Liferay portal;
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  Knowledge of monitoring platforms. EMSA will favour the knowledge in PRTG and Nagios;

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Knowledge and experience in troubleshooting Web Services integration issues;

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  Hands-on experience in Linux Environment;
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  Experience in configuration and release management;

Knowledge of ITIL Application Management best practices. The advantageous criteria will be considered by the Selection Board depending on the number of applicants meeting the essential criteria.

Conditions of Employment:

The successful candidate will be appointed as a Contract staff member under the provisions of Title IV, Article 80 of the Conditions of Employment of other Servants of the European Communities.

The duration of the contract is 3 years, with possibility of renewal.

The successful candidate will be recruited in function group III (FGIII). The grade will be determined in accordance with the number of years of professional experience.

The basic monthly salary for the entry grade of Function Group III, (Function Group III, Grade 8, Step 1), weighted for Lisbon, before any deductions or allowances at 1 July 2010 is 2,088.52 EUR.

In addition to the basic salary, staff members may be entitled to various allowances, such as an expatriation allowance (16% of basic salary), household allowance, dependent child allowance and education allowance. The salary is subject to a Community tax deducted at source and staff members are exempt of national taxation.

Please note that recruitment is done in the first step of the indicated grade.

EMSA offers a comprehensive welfare package including pension scheme, medical, accident and occupational disease insurance coverage, unemployment and invalidity allowance. Further information regarding rights and conditions of employment can be found in the following document:

http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/toc100_en.pdf;

The place of employment is Lisbon, Portugal.

Submission of applications:

Each application shall contain the three following documents:

• 1) 

  A detailed curriculum vitae in European format (that can be obtained at the following address or downloaded from EMSA web site)

http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/documents/curriculum-vitae

• 2) 

  A duly completed and signed declaration of honour (to be downloaded from EMSA web site).
• 3) 

  A motivation letter of 2 pages maximum. Candidates are kindly requested to provide 4 copies (1 original + 3 copies) of their application in order to facilitate the recruitment process. The complete application should be sent by registered mail to:

Vacancy reference n°: EMSA/CA/2012/02 SOFTWARE OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ENGINEER

EMSA HR Sector Cais do Sodre 1249-206 Lisbon, Portugal

Only complete applications containing the three above mentioned documents and sent by registered mail within the deadline will be taken into account.

The postmark will serve as proof of the date of dispatch. The vacancy reference

number must be clearly indicated on the envelope.

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The deadline for sending your application is 31 July 2012. Therefore applicants must meet the required eligibility criteria concerning the required educational qualifications and years of experience, as well as the essential selection criteria by this deadline.

Please note: Mention clearly your address for correspondence and for invitation to an interview.

All correspondence will be sent to this address. Inform us of any change immediately;

EMSA is an equal opportunities employer and encourages applications from all candidates who fulfil the eligibility and selection criteria without any distinction whatsoever on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, marital status or other family situation or sexual orientation;

If you are invited to an interview you will be asked to submit supporting documents to prove the information provided in your application;

You may apply in any of the official languages of the European Community, but it would be helpful to apply in English in order to facilitate the selection process.

However you are requested to state your educational qualifications and positions held in the language of origin.

The Selection Process:

All candidates will receive an acknowledgement of receipt for their application. For each selection process a Selection Board is nominated. The Selection Board will evaluate all applications and select those candidates meeting the eligibility criteria and matching best the selection criteria required in this vacancy notice. The selected candidates will be invited to pass one or several written exams related to the job profile and to take part in a selection interview. During this recruitment phase, the selected candidates will be evaluated by the Selection Board. After the interviews, the Selection Board will draw up a list of the most suitable candidates. The Appointing Authority will select the successful candidate and inform him/her accordingly. As soon as this decision is taken, all candidates will receive an information letter. Please note that a binding commitment can only be made after verification of all conditions and will take the form of a contract signed by the Executive Director.

The reserve list will remain valid for a period of 1 year following its establishment. Therefore candidates whose name will be put on a reserve list could be offered a contract during this period of time. Please note that the selection process may take several months to be completed and that no information will be released during this period. Once a selection process has been completed, its status will be displayed on our web site.

Requests for information and appeal:

An applicant who would like further information, or considers that he/she has grounds for complaint concerning a particular decision may, at any point in the selection procedure, request further information from the Chairperson of the Selection Board. For information on how to lodge a complaint and/or an appeal procedure, please consult the `General Information for Recruitment' overview on our website for more information:

http://www.emsa.europa.eu/recruitment-info.html

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