Systems Engineer III - Open Competitive Exam at City of Rochester (NY), NY

About the Department

The eligible list resulting from this exam will be used to fill vacancies at both the City of Rochester and the Rochester Housing Authority.

City of Rochester Salary Range: $85,769 - $116,480
Rochester Housing Authority Salary Range: $52,000 - $72,767


Employees in this position are responsible for designing architecture, installing, configuring, and maintaining one or more dimension of the Desktop/ End User, Network, or Server environments, and leading assigned staff.  They participate in senior management strategic planning and problem solving.  They provide input for optimum economy, flexibility and performance of the respective IT Infrastructure environment.  They assist in the definition and maintenance of disaster recovery plans and facilities for City computing needs.  They develop procedures and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) required to maintain and support City computing needs and ensure this documentation is accurately maintained.  Performs related duties as required.

Position Duties

• Develops strategic plans and ensures communication and understanding by the organization;
• Leads, plans, coordinates, and implements all aspects of the IT Client, Server, or Network components within the business plan;
• Functions as project leader/manager on large projects to ensure all required capabilities are provided for, which may involve coordination and training either inside IT or outside the IT Department, such as a new roll-out of desktop software;
• Collaborates with organizational project managers in strategic planning, to define requirements and provide technical direction;  
• Leads and coaches Technical Infrastructure (TI) employees on assigned team activities, assigning and monitoring work, motivating, and providing feedback;
• Interfaces with vendors for contract negotiations and ongoing life cycle maintenance and support activities;
• Evaluates day-to-day operations for process or technology improvements;
• Configures/manages software release and patch testing, Client, Server, or Network upgrades, plus monitoring and resolution of all related problems;
• Provisions Physical or Virtual Desktop and/or Servers and Storage within a VM and SAN environment for servers, and/or provisions wireless, network switches, and routers in the network environment;
• Develops and implements Team/Technology SLAs based on organizational/business requirements and data driven analysis;
• Designs and/or implements monitoring tools and ensures performance parameters stay within acceptable user requirements or promised SLAs;
• Designs architecture of capacity planning processes and tools and ensures adequate capacity for day to day operations and new initiatives;
• Conducts cost benefit analyses and provides budgetary resource and cost estimates to TI Leadership and Project Managers as required;
• Evaluates and advises IT management on computer hardware and software, resource allocation, and development;  
• Develops strategies and provides recommendations associated with security technologies and standards relative to Desktop/End User, Network, or Server environments and develops implementation approaches and strategies;
• Diagrams flow charts, including the use of spreadsheet and graphics software;
• Analyzes Help Desk tickets in the relevant technology and implements improvements for organizational productivity and effectiveness;
• Provides training and strategic transfer of responsibilities to 1^st Level Support, self-service environments, or elsewhere within IT as appropriate;
• Assesses technical competence of staff and develops training plans to improve staff and organizational competence.

Minimum Qualifications

1.  Bachelors or Associates degree in Computer Science or closely related field and five (5) years of Information Technology work experience which MUST have included one of the following: 

• design, configuration, installation, and maintenance of server environments; 
• design, configuration, installation, and maintenance of network environments; 
• design, configuration, deployment, and maintenance of end user computing environments;*

AND

2.  One (1) year of project and/or people leadership, which may include direct supervision of IT staff.**

 *Within the five (5) years, there MUST be a minimum of three (3) years of systems design (architecture).
**The experience in 1 and 2 may have been gained either concurrently or separately.

Other Qualifications

Scopes/Subjects of Examination:  A test designed to evaluate knowledge, skills and/or abilities in the following areas.

Preparing Written Material:  These questions test for the ability to present information clearly and accurately, and to organize paragraphs logically and comprehensibly.  For some questions, you will be given information in two or three sentences followed by four restatements of the information.  You must then choose the best version.  For other questions, you will be given paragraphs with their sentences out of order.  You must then choose, from four suggestions, the best order for the sentences.
 

Principles of Networked Communications:  These questions test for basic concepts and terminology of data communications.  They cover such subjects as data communications, types of networks, modems, security, protocols, topologies, transmission media, wiring, installation and troubleshooting.  The questions are general in scope and are not specific to any vendor or system.

Supervision:  These questions test for knowledge of the principles and practices employed in planning, organizing, and controlling the activities of a work unit toward predetermined objectives.  The concepts covered, usually in a situational question format, include such topics as assigning and reviewing work; evaluating performance; maintaining work standards; motivating and developing subordinates; implementing procedural change; increasing efficiency; and dealing with problems of absenteeism, morale, and discipline.

Project Management:  These questions are designed to test for techniques and concepts of project management.  They may cover, but not necessarily be confined to, management of systems development, management by objectives, project scheduling and control techniques (e.g., PERT), characteristics of organizations and of the systems life cycle, and the development of data processing standards.

Test Guide:

• The New York State Department of Civil Service has not prepared a test guide for this examination.  However, candidates may find information in the publication 'General Guide to Written Tests' helpful in preparing for this test.  This publication is available on line at:  https://www.cs.ny.gov/testing/testguides.cfm.
• The Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County MAY have exam-related material, as well as, other branches. (i.e., CSEA Exam Preparation booklets)

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