Principal Platform Operations

at  EDF Trading

Come work at a place where innovation and teamwork come together to support the most exciting missions in the world!
When you join EDF Trading you’ll become part of a diverse international team of experts who challenge conventional ideas, test new approaches and think outside the box.
Energy markets evolve rapidly so our team needs to remain agile, flexible and ready to spot opportunities across all the markets we trade in: power, gas, LNG, LPG, oil and environmental products.
EDF Group and our customers all over the world trust that their assets are managed by us in the most effective and efficient manner and are protected through expert risk management. Trading for over 20 years, it’s experience that makes us leaders in the field. Energy is what we do.
Most of all, we value our people. Become part of the team and you will be offered a great range of benefits which include hybrid working, a personal pension plan, private medical and dental insurance, bi-annual health assessment, corporate gym memberships, electric car lease programme, childcare vouchers, cycle to work scheme, season ticket loans, volunteering opportunities and much more. We even provide free fruit to keep you healthy.
Gender balance and inclusion are very high on the agenda at EDF Trading so you will become part of an ever-diversifying family of around 800 colleagues based in London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and Houston. Regular social and networking events, both physical and virtual, will ensure that you always feel connected to your colleagues and the business.
Who are we? We are EDF Trading, part of the EDF Group, a world leader in low-carbon sustainable electricity generation partnered with JERA, one of Japan’s largest utilities; the perfect organisation at which to begin or progress your career in the commodities sector.
Join us, make a difference and help shape the future of energy.
Job Description:
You will be working in a team of passionate engineers who are responsible for all aspects of infrastructure. Collaborating with Development and Operational teams on producing solid implementations to drive change and improvements.
Our systems are sophisticated and challenging. We run active/active data centres, which allow us to move services seamlessly between them. To accompany this, we also have resources deployed in Azure, we are always looking for opportunities to enhance our environment with automation and cloud services.
As a principal platform operations engineer, you will define our principles and best practises. Our strategy is to take advantage of cloud services to enhance our environment, you will help to drive this strategy, working closely with the IT Delivery team to design new application architectures and streamlining their deployment processes.

Key Accountabilities:

• Design, right size and implement solutions to improve the service we provide and our environment
• Mentor and train members of the team and the other IT teams across the business
• Monitor the enterprise environment managing performance and capacity highlighting any issues
• Reduce support costs for time consuming and costly processes, using automation and configuration management
• Responsible for the day-to-day installation, configuration, management and monitoring of the server infrastructure, and the installation, configuration and maintenance of physical Microsoft clusters (Windows Server 2012 and later), Linux (Ubuntu) and VMware (ESXi 7x) based virtual & physical servers.
• Management and monitoring of the multi-forest active directory and physical hardware support.
• To provide 3rd line support at the required service levels for all IT enterprise solutions that are within the platform operations support strategy.
• Responsible for backup and monitoring of the current Windows & growing Linux estate including associated hardware.

Main Responsibilities:

• Responsible for the management, monitoring, maintenance and provisioning of the following services:
• VMware ESXi
• Pure Storage and brocade SAN switching
• Backup and recovery of approx. 1,500 virtual machines, plus various file services
• Windows Server 2012 R2 and later, build, configuration and troubleshooting skills
• Active Directory, DNS, DHCP configuration and management in a multi-forest design
• Entra ID identity management
• Microsoft Azure Cloud environment
• Ubuntu build and configuration
• Citrix XenApp
• Kubernetes build and configuration
• Championing opportunities to automate repeatable tasks and take advantage of cloud services
• Keep abreast of industry technological developments and identify opportunities to implement new or improved enterprise solutions to provide a more efficient and effective service to the business. Discuss any potential advancement or any recommendations for new designs and technologies with your line manager so that these can be passed to IT Delivery and incorporated within the IT Strategy if required.
• At the direction of the Platform Operations Manager, engage with the other teams in the IT Department to ensure that the IT Department’s policies and procedures are implemented, in particular those procedures relating to:
• Disaster Recovery
• Operational Acceptance Testing
• Change Management
• Engage with IT Delivery to plan and coordinate solution transition and application of changes
• For any incidents that arise perform root cause analysis to identify any enterprise solutions that if implemented would resolve the issue and its root causes. Engage with IT Delivery in order that these requirements may feed into the target enterprise solution strategy.
• Draft and maintain documentation and local working instructions that detail the processes and procedures that are implemented to manage, monitor, maintain and provision the services within the portfolio outlined for this role.
• The Platform Operations team are responsible for all routing/switching and Ubuntu administration, this is an excellent opportunity for a candidate to improve their knowledge in these areas

Experience Required:

• VMware ESXi configuration and monitoring, ideally ESXi 7x
• Fibre channel storage area networks, ideally Pure and Brocade
• Windows Server 2012 and later clustering, installation and maintenance
• Active Directory, DNS, DHCP configuration and management in a multi-forest design
• Entra ID identity management
• Automation via PowerShell or other scripting languages
• Physical hardware configuration and support, primarily Dell or Lenovo servers
• Microsoft Azure Cloud
• Ubuntu administration

Desirable

• Cohesity
• Load balancing
• Infrastructure as code tools such as Ansible or Terraform
• Kubernetes
• Monitoring software such as PRTG and Quest
• Routing/Switching
• Citrix 7.x
• Office 365

Business Knowledge:

The following business knowledge is desirable:

• Experience in trading and risk management systems for commodities
• Knowledge of the full trade life cycle
• An understanding of physical and financial commodities trading

Person Specification:

• A passionate technologist, striving to deliver solutions and continuous improvement
• Proactive at continually improving his/her sphere of influence
• Demonstratable interest in automation, infrastructure as code and scripting
• Ability to deliver results by working effectively with all levels of stakeholders in a high-pressure environment
• Ability to challenge design and operations where availability and performance are at stake
• Can communicate highly complex concepts to non-technical staff
• Will fully participate in a multi-faceted team environment
• Excellent communication skills

Hours of work:
Core hours of 8.30am – 5.30pm; however, flexibility is required to meet essential business deadlines. Must be prepared to work on the 24 x 7 rota and support business critical activities outside normal working hours. Please note we operate a shift system from 7am-6:30pm on a rota basis

• Responsible for the management, monitoring, maintenance and provisioning of the following services:
• VMware ESXi
• Pure Storage and brocade SAN switching
• Backup and recovery of approx. 1,500 virtual machines, plus various file services
• Windows Server 2012 R2 and later, build, configuration and troubleshooting skills
• Active Directory, DNS, DHCP configuration and management in a multi-forest design
• Entra ID identity management
• Microsoft Azure Cloud environment
• Ubuntu build and configuration
• Citrix XenApp
• Kubernetes build and configuration
• Championing opportunities to automate repeatable tasks and take advantage of cloud services
• Keep abreast of industry technological developments and identify opportunities to implement new or improved enterprise solutions to provide a more efficient and effective service to the business. Discuss any potential advancement or any recommendations for new designs and technologies with your line manager so that these can be passed to IT Delivery and incorporated within the IT Strategy if required.
• At the direction of the Platform Operations Manager, engage with the other teams in the IT Department to ensure that the IT Department’s policies and procedures are implemented, in particular those procedures relating to:
• Disaster Recovery
• Operational Acceptance Testing
• Change Management
• Engage with IT Delivery to plan and coordinate solution transition and application of changes
• For any incidents that arise perform root cause analysis to identify any enterprise solutions that if implemented would resolve the issue and its root causes. Engage with IT Delivery in order that these requirements may feed into the target enterprise solution strategy.
• Draft and maintain documentation and local working instructions that detail the processes and procedures that are implemented to manage, monitor, maintain and provision the services within the portfolio outlined for this role.
• The Platform Operations team are responsible for all routing/switching and Ubuntu administration, this is an excellent opportunity for a candidate to improve their knowledge in these area