Senior Systems Engineer

Top rated international firm with an attractive working culture has an opportunity for a Senior Systems Engineer to be based out of their New York or Washington, DC office.

The IP Senior Systems Engineer will be responsible for designing, implementing, and operating reliable, secure and well-performing 3rd party IP applications for the firm. The IP Senior Systems Engineer provides advanced IP Application server support, systems analysis, design, and configuration management. The role will lead efforts in troubleshooting, managing and maintaining Application servers, IIS servers, vendor appliances, and relational databases including associated applications where appropriate.

What You'll Do:

• Provide subject matter operational and workflow support to assigned applications, with a focus on our Intellectual Property department applications (Inprotech, Inprodoc and IPDAS).
• Work closely with the vendors, IS Enterprise Systems Management team, and IP Department Management team to monitor IP database needs
• Create and/or update workflows with new or existing events within the IP Management System
• Provide 3rd level support for various Application servers and database components
• Responsible for escalations in day-to-day support and partners with software vendors' technical support staff to resolve complex problems on various application and database systems
• Responsible for designing and implementing highly available robust business applications to improve functionality and the overall end-user experience
• Lead project teams in making technical decisions and prepare all documentation for the Architecture Committee reviews
• Coordinate and perform installation of application server upgrades and fixes firm-wide
• Perform regular maintenance activities to ensure that all enterprise applications are running optimally
• Analyze performance for all 3rd party applications and applies tuning methods to optimize application efficiency
• Responsible for keeping up to date on related technology trends and best practice in defined areas of expertise to offer insight and guidance to Information Systems leadership
• Responsible for ensuring that applications adhere to standard operational procedures. This will include leveraging existing monitoring tools to provide end-to-end operational monitoring as well as working with the infrastructure team to determine appropriate backup, storage, CPU, and memory requirements
• Act as designer and planner for major application projects, working closely with other technical colleagues and subject matter experts
• Train, write/provide documentation and troubleshoot applications as necessary for project teams, 1st, and 2nd level support teams
• Work closely with colleagues in the Information Security and Information Governance Compliance teams to ensure compliance with firm policies related to information governance, data management, retention, privacy, and information protection for each application environment
• Perform a variety of complex tasks. Duties include:
• Ensuring 24/7 access that applications are continually protected and on-line
• Constant tracking bugs, fixes and testing of mission-critical applications
• Research anomalies and workarounds
• Review application log files for errors and irregularities and proactive issue resolution
• Management and proper utilization of disk or other storage space for application servers
• Design backup and recovery procedures, document of same, including functioning rollback plans
• Responsible for change control and coordination of the release management process for applications
• Evaluate and report on the health of Firm's IP applications

Information Services & IP Practice Services collaboration:

• Work closely with IP or other departments to speed problem resolution
• Coordinate software installations with vendors, internal teams, and other parties
• Collaborate with IP team to define integration requirements to create new processes and efficiencies
• Formulate methods to stress and performance test assigned applications
• Recreate steps taken by users to determine source of problem and if database or server related, escalate to IP for correction
• Coordinate with the IP Leadership Team to schedule downtime to run law updates on production database
• Collaborate with IP and other departments on various projects relating to system version upgrades. Help create project timelines and run various tests on system upgrades, (searches, reporting, document generation, and case/event updates)
• Monitor and resolve all internal support emails/requirements and address issues related to Inprotech and/or IPDAS

What You'll Bring:

Required:

• 4+ years Application server, troubleshooting with front and back-end applications experience with minimum of 3+ years' Application technical lead experience
• Experience with the following IP enterprise applications: CPA Inprotech, Inprodoc, IPDAS, Chemdraw, SQL Reporting server, Power BI, USPTO, EPO, and various other legal applications
• Experience with Windows 2016, Windows 2019, and Linux Servers
• Experience and competence in working with Microsoft SQL Server databases

Preferred:

• Bachelor's Degree in computer science or technical discipline or equivalent
• Advanced degree in related disciplines
• Strong technical writing and documentation experience
• Previous work experience in supporting users and various software applications
• Document Management System experience
• Aderant Compulaw Vision; ITSM systems; Inprotech, and various other legal application
• Strong technical writing and documentation experience
• Prior law firm experience
• IS-relevant professional certifications

Competencies:

• Outstanding problem solver and ability to lead by example
• Strong quantitative, analytical, strategic thinking and orientation to detail
• Relies on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals
• Exceptional customer service, initiative, and get-it-done attitude
• Self-motivated with a strong desire to contribute to the success of the department and company
• Communicate effectively at all levels within the organization
• Flexible and agile, ability to reprioritize with changes in the business
• Ability to work independently and under pressure in a fast-paced environment
• Ability to meet deadlines and effectively complete operational and project-based assignments
• Strong organizational skills including time and task management
• Attributes expected of all candidates include: responsibility, honesty, reliability, initiative, patience, attention to detail, determination, taking pride in ones work, and a desire to learn
• Interpersonal skills necessary to interact and work productively as part of the Information Systems team, delivering high quality services to the firm and our clients
• Excellent spoken and written communication as well as receptive listening skills, with ability to present complex ideas in a clear, concise fashion to technical and non-technical audiences