Application Support Administrator

Job Profile Summary
Responsible for administration, installing, configuration, maintenance, and support of ICON business applications. Key areas of responsibilities include incident management, request fulfilment, access management, security administration, event management, and knowledge management.

• Experience in GxP environment (training in GLP, GCP, data integrity etc.)
• Understand the ICON Bio Analytical Laboratory and Early Phase Clinics business.
• Work closely with business partners on improvement in the supported solutions. Not act as an order taker and work together with the business for solutions
• Has the knowledge foundation of understanding the IT architectures of equipment, application, database, and interfaces so can identify root causes and solve issues in complex environments over several functional groups (Vendor, Developers, Networking, System, DBA, QA, Business, Validation Officers, etc.)
• Local support in the Clinics and laboratories (equipment, infrastructure changes, issues and projects)
• Capable of writing system assessments, IQ docs, design documentations, test cases etc. (SDLC docs).
• Will setup application configurations, perform installations (in conjunction with other functional groups), provide training, and represent workshops.
• Manage system changes, enhancement and system updates and lead this initiative over several functional groups.
• Involved in project and enhancement intakes
• Process improvements
• Provide IT audit support.
• Application management, user management, patch management , vulnerability actions, license management, backup & DR & data integrity strategy, and vendor management.

Job Description

• Recognize, exemplify and adhere to ICON's values which center around our commitment to People, Clients and Performance.
• Provide technical support ICON Applications in accordance with ICON SOPsWPsBPs and appropriate project specifications.
• Perform administration and maintenance of business applications.
• Must be able to complete individually incidents and service requests within defined SLA.
• Maintain applications in the development and test environments for pre-release testing.
• Perform setup of users/roles/permissions as part of access management and security administration.
• Monitor the availability and performance of supported applications. Review system and application logs.
• Maintain proper system documentation (SDLC) and regularly review and maintain the IT knowledge base to improve overall customer experience.
• Monitor and address application related and job failure alerts on time.
• Assist with periodic maintenance OS patching activities as it relates to application testing.
• Triage issues and escalate it to other internal IT groups and IT Development teams as needed.
• Liaise with Application Vendor when required.
• Perform troubleshooting of application problems.
• Required to be on-call to support after hours issues as they arise.

Minimum Requirements

• Associate / bachelors degree or equivalent practical experience in IT / Business Administration (Computer sciences, computer engineering)
• Proven experience of customer service, system and or application administration
• Proven experience with Microsoft Products and Network configurations
• No nine-to-five job mentality
• Flexibility with WFH and ability to be onsite within less than an hour
• Good English in speaking/reading/writing, Dutch is not a requirement but favorable
• Ability to work independently and as a team player
• Drivers license
• Ability to travel to other states and countries (US/EU)

Desirable

• Experience with Laboratory or Clinical environments
• Experience with project management, application testing, application development
• Experience with Database management
• Experience with IT Security

Key character traits

• Accurate
• Analytical mindset (e.g. step-by-step and repeatable approach to gathering information)
• Able to quickly adapt to changes to circumstance and schedules
• Self-sufficient in prioritizing work based on criticality/severity/impact in a dynamic manner
• Strong communicator
• Proactive
• Studious, willing to learn from others and teach themselves as issues arise

Brief Example of Day-to-Day

• Manage queues of support tickets (new and backlogs) in ServiceNow, responding to submitters via email, Teams, phone, or in person
• Facilitate Change Requests for changes, enhancements, upgrades to HW/SW
• Have engagement as SMEs into projects for analysis/desgn/implementation (full SDLC activities) of HW/SW
• Participate in audit requests (internal, externa)
• Note: All of these do not occur in the day, but have the potential to. Each day could represent a different percentage of the persons time allocated to different key tasks.

Requirements for position It is going to be very difficult to replace the skill set and disposition required to fill this role.
A successful candidate will:

• Be willing to engage vendors frequently and pre-emptively at the first sign of a problem.
• Have experience, and a comfort level, with configuring unconventional devices.
• Understand VLAN tagging.
• Possess a skill and desire to troubleshoot independently.
• Be familiar with Windows 10 and newer.
• Demonstrate attention to detail.
• Have an approachable demeanor and excellent communication skills.
• Be comfortable evaluating the priority of multiple work streams.
• Set expectations appropriately, giving internal customers the information needed to adapt when necessary.
• (for one role) Reliably arrive at the Lab at or before 8:00am local time each day.

The following skills often appear in job descriptions as generic boilerplate text but are extremely important for this role. It should be emphasized in the search that a candidate must:

• Have respect, even reverence, for the regulations surrounding the integrity of the environment.
• Understand the importance of documentation in an environment subject to audits.
• Be assertive enough to push back against several forces that threaten validation and best practices.

Experience in any of the following would be a bonus:

• Working in or around a research laboratory or clinic.
• Working in any federally regulated environment.
• Environmental monitoring System(s), if not necessarily Rees Scientific
• Laboratory Information Management Systems

Some other notes about the position:

• Travel to another local location (the clinic) will be necessary, but infrequent.
• Training for, and entry into, at least a Biosafety Level 2 laboratory will be required.
  • Wearing of additional safety equipment will also be required at times.

Additional thoughts on the position The admin(s) responsible for providing this support need to balance many competing forces. They will be faced with IT problems that need resolution before a non-arbitrary deadline, for example, the expiration of biological samples.

Their solution may be at odds with global IT rules, standards, or timelines. They may be aware of solutions that are not viable, as they would violate regulations or threaten the validation of the environment. Someone new to ICON, especially someone at a junior level, may be especially eager to please, but will inevitably have to disappoint an internal customer.

Further still, in this example, the expiration of the sample may reduce the urgency of the issue for a time, especially if others have arisen.

Whoever fills this position must understand that they are empowered to protect the integrity of the environment above all else in these situations and that when this occurs, a reckless or hasty solution, even if effective in the moment, creates tremendous risk and exposure. They need to know that this may frustrate them at times, but that is their most important responsibility. It is also important that management support this person(s) when they make these difficult decisions.

In addition, this role is a liaison between vendors, scientists, management, and even ICON IT and at times, an advocate for each of those groups, or an advisor in helping one navigate another. A successful candidate will be able to translate when these groups have extremely different expertise, goals, and levels of understanding.

Thanks!