The Application Support Engineer will diagnose and resolve problems with mission-critical, vehicle interfacing systems quickly and creatively, looking beyond immediate symptoms to root causes. They must be able to communicate with a variety of interdisciplinary teams and users of different technical aptitudes patiently and effectively. Potential candidates should be part Business Analyst and part Systems Administrator, possessing both a technical knowledge of the systems and an understanding of why and how the business puts them to use. This individual will be receptive to skill growth and development opportunities, and able to mentor other Application Support team members in their areas of subject matter expertise. The Application Support Engineer operates under general supervision and reports to the IT Operations Lead Engineer. Due to the mission-critical nature of the function supported, this position is homed at Valley Metro’s Operations & Maintenance center (OMC) with minimal opportunity for remote work during standard hours initially. This position supports a 24/7/365 business function, and is therefore on-call 24/7/365, occasional night and weekend work may be required for maintenance and outages.
Minimum Qualifications & Requirements
Education & Experience
Associate degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Business Information Systems, or a closely related field and five (5) years in an Application Support capacity OR an equivalent combination of education and/or experience sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties. Background Investigation Employment is contingent upon the results of a comprehensive background investigation including work experience verification, criminal background, and a personal credit history review. Licenses and Certifications Valid Arizona Driver’s License
Examples of Duties
The statements listed below describe the general nature and level of work only. They are not an exhaustive list of all required responsibilities, duties, and skills. Other duties may be added, or this description amended at any time. Maintain a current understanding of the business processes and objectives of the O&M division generally and the Rail Operations, LRV Maintenance, Maintenance of Way, and Bus Service Delivery departments in particular by interacting regularly with stakeholders; Examine the current technologies and capacities in those departments to determine where they can be enhanced or modified to help the business run more effectively; Act as primary critical contact point for staff in those departments and senior leadership of the Operations & Maintenance division, foster communication, information exchange, and understanding between the broader IT department and those areas of the O&M division; Serve as primary subject matter expert (SME) for the Automatic Passenger Counting (APC), Passenger Information System (PIS), Monitoring and Diagnostic System (MDS), Digital Video Recording (DVR), and Computer Aided Dispatch / Automatic Vehicle Location (CAD/AVL) systems, along with associated equipment and software for light rail vehicles and buses; Administer the above systems, onboarding new users and offboarding departing employees; Problem solve and troubleshoot issues with the above systems, maintaining a focus on the mission of keeping the vehicles in service without violating safety or cybersecurity regulatory requirements; Anticipate potential issues with the above systems and address them proactively, identify and recommend potential changes and improvements to improve business performance and user experience; Train other members of the Application Support Team on the above systems so that they can act as backup support, cross-train on other business applications sufficiently to serve as a secondary SME and backup support for those systems; Perform other duties of similar nature and level as assigned.
Knowledge & Skills
Knowledge of:
Stakeholder and relationship management concepts and techniques; Windows 10 device operating system; Windows Server operating systems (2008R2 – 2019); Linux operating system (CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu); Process automation via scripting (Batch and PowerShell for Windows, Bash for Linux); Relational database management systems (Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Server Express); Importing flat file data into an RDBMS; Requirements gathering concepts, techniques, and tools desirable; Server virtualization using VMWare (5.5 – 6.7) desirable; Advanced scripting using PHP, Python, Perl, or R desirable; Microsoft Visio or SharePoint desirable; ITIL Foundation (v3 or v4) desirable.
Skills in:
Communication and collaboration with cross-functional teams with varying levels of technical ability; Installation, maintenance, and administration of business applications and enterprise applications; Basic Linux system administration; Basic Windows system administration; Shell and batch scripting; Basic Microsoft SQL Server administration; Developing SQL queries (data import and basic manipulation); Problem solving, diagnostics, and troubleshooting; Eliciting and analyzing business and technical requirements desirable; Advanced scripting languages desirable; Creating and maintaining living process and technical documentation desirable.