West London Support Engineer roles

James Walker

James Walker

James Walker

Associate
Joined
17 Mar 2017
Posts
9
Location
London
Hi all

My company is looking for some Support Engineers with a can-do attitude. I figured that posting on the OCUK forum would be a worthwhile shot as I've been lurking on the forum for many many years and know that many of the skills on display here would be a perfect match.

•Advertised Position

P4 x 2, P5 and P6 Support Engineers. These are internal grades for the roles and I have added them just to give you an idea of what the company is after. Our support team ranges from P4 to P8 so the P4 and P5 roles map to 1st line and the P6 would be 2nd line Engineer. I am a P7 Principal Engineer so I take escalations from the P4-P6 people and if I need to escalate then I go directly to the Engineering and development team.

We have around 35 Engineers with 25 1st/2nd line and the remainder in the escalation team. There are about 60 people in the office in total so it is IT heavy. There are a couple of hundred Engineers in our US offices as well but the UK office is fairly independent when it comes to support.

The salary is decent and promotions happen fairly regularly. It isn't unusual for someone to go from P4 to P6(or further) in a couple of years if they know what they're doing.

•Company Name

Aspect Software UK. Aspect is the world leader in automated call systems and call centre software. The main product that we support is comprised of a SQL Always-On Availability Group or Mirror depending on the version, 5 Apache servers, 2 IIS servers and around 100 custom processes split across 10 Windows servers all running on VMWare. There are another dozen products that we support as well.

•Job Location

Stockley Park - close to Hayes and Harlington station in West London. Close to M4/M25.

•Job Criteria/Requirement

They are looking for general IT skills rather than specific product knowledge. If you can build a PC and install/troubleshoot/tweak it until it's perfect then you probably already have many of the skills they need. They understand that no candidate will have experience of all the key technologies but exposure to any of the following will give you a good head start.

SQL Server - Versions from 2005 onwards
Windows Server and Client - All versions
Web Servers - IIS, Apache
Networking - TCP stack, HTTP, SOAP, Wireshark, NetMon, ODBC, XML
Java - Web services, Garbage Collection, performance monitoring
VMWare or Hyper-v - Machine installation, monitoring or management
Windows Performance Monitoring
Linux (any distro)
Telephony - VOIP, SIP, E1
TextPad or NotePad++ type applications for logfile analysis
Scripting - VB, Perl, PowerShell, command line

You will be exposed to all of the above technologies in this role so this is an excellent chance to broaden your IT knowledge. We have a lab environment with 175 machines running every version of our software as well as Exchange, Lync, SharePoint, Active Directory, DNS, File Servers etc so you will get to learn an awful lot of technology working here.

Don't freak out about the list above. most people can only do 1 or 2 out of the whole list. it's more about your ability to learn than what you already know!

•How To Apply

Apply directly on the website : https://www.aspect.com/uk/company/careers or contact me if you have any questions or want me to submit your CV directly to HR (they sit next to me).

•Closing Date

We always have openings so even if nothing is listed on the site please apply. Every few months we run another round of hiring.

Thanks for reading and maybe I'll be working with some of you soon!

-- James Walker

p.s. Here's my current rig just to prove I'm not a recruitment drone :)

http://imgur.com/gallery/AbZlJ
 
It isn't listed on the website so I wouldn't know unfortunately. I'm just an Engineer so not really privy to that kind of info.

If it helps, I'm on 65k but I'm at a higher level and have been here for 5 years so it will obviously be much less than that.

Sorry I can't be more specific.
 
No it's fine just always nice to see what a 1st line positions would attract.

As a civil servant I'm always looking to jump ship to the private sector as the wages are generally better.
 
Well to be fair he's given some useful bits of information - he's on 65k in the 'escalation team' and also that you can be promoted from the lowest grade in the front line team P4 to the highest one P6 (one grade below him) within 2 years. I'd assume/guess something like 30k+ for the junior front line guys?

Given that he's recruiting for three different pay grades then surely it is worthwhile for anyone currently on less than 65k who is interested in that sort of work to get in touch with them.
 
Sorry I can't be more specific about the salaries, I know how frustrating it is apply for something only to be told that the salary is half of what you were expecting.

As this is an unofficial posting I don't want to give the wrong details and then receive flak for it later. I hope you can understand my predicament.
 
dowie said:
Well to be fair he's given some useful bits of information - he's on 65k in the 'escalation team' and also that you can be promoted from the lowest grade in the front line team P4 to the highest one P6 (one grade below him) within 2 years. I'd assume/guess something like 30k+ for the junior front line guys?
Click to expand...

Yeah but you hear that line from every recruiter honestly.

Given that he's recruiting for three different pay grades then surely it is worthwhile for anyone currently on less than 65k who is interested in that sort of work to get in touch with them.
Click to expand...

I'm on less than 65k but I'm not going to relocate if the salary increase is less than the cost of living increase. I'd be really interested in something like this as I have experience in nearly all the key criteria, but without salary info I'm not going to get a 50 quid train ticket to London only to be told it's minimum wage.
 
Energize said:
Yeah but you hear that line from every recruiter honestly.



I'm on less than 65k but I'm not going to relocate if the salary increase is less than the cost of living increase. I'd be really interested in something like this as I have experience in nearly all the key criteria, but without salary info I'm not going to get a 50 quid train ticket to London only to be told it's minimum wage.
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How about contact the op to contact the relevant department, then,you know, you can ask the question over the phone?
 
Energize said:
Yeah but you hear that line from every recruiter honestly.
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He doesn't seem to be a recruiter though.

I'm on less than 65k but I'm not going to relocate if the salary increase is less than the cost of living increase. I'd be really interested in something like this as I have experience in nearly all the key criteria, but without salary info I'm not going to get a 50 quid train ticket to London only to be told it's minimum wage.
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Why not talk to them by phone? I doubt very much it is going to be minimum wage and you're excluding yourself from a fairly large (certainly double digit %) of jobs if the lack of a posted salary prevents you from applying.
 
I might do depending on the glassdoor reviews, I'm just venting my frustration at the fact that employers don't put the most important information ie salary on the job description, generally I put those adverts to the bottom of the pile. I've been on the website though and it doesn't show any IT positions available?
 
I am not a recruiter. Funnily enough, the recruiter who got me this job told me the exact same thing though :)

The reason I'm posting here is that recruiters are good at matching buzzwords on CVs but sometimes fail to read between the lines of the job spec to understand what kind of person is needed for the role. Many of the people on this forum have the "I have never done this before but I'm willing to give it a shot" mentality that is required for this kind of job. If it doesn't work out then I won't try it again but as I have nothing to lose, why not give it a shot? :p

Here are the direct links to the jobs. I also included a graduate one that I didn't see before in case that is of interest to anyone.

https://careers-aspect.icims.com/jobs/8747/customer-support-engineer/job
https://careers-aspect.icims.com/jobs/8690/senior-technical-support-analyst-uxbridge/job
https://careers-aspect.icims.com/jobs/8666/senior-customer-care-engineer/job
https://careers-aspect.icims.com/jobs/8562/2017-graduate-technical-support-engineer-programme/job
 
Energize said:
I might do depending on the glassdoor reviews, I'm just venting my frustration at the fact that employers don't put the most important information ie salary on the job description, generally I put those adverts to the bottom of the pile. I've been on the website though and it doesn't show any IT positions available?
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well one one hand, the cynical side, is that employers don't want to pay 'too much' so the usual game played is the recruiter/employer wants to know your current salary before giving you an indication of salary/range thus they instantly have an upper hand

on the other hand, especially for roles like this where they're looking for a variety of skills and are happy to talk to a variety of people with different backgrounds who may only have a couple of them or may have shallow knowledge of a broader range etc.. then there is quite a genuine reason why the amount they'd pay for different people, even recruiting to the same grade, could vary considerably. Some skills have greater market value than others and perhaps as they don't know what candidates they're going to get they simply can't give an accurate figure, giving a wide range is counterproductive as you'll then get applicants way off the high end of that range in terms of skills trying to push for it not to mention current employees already at that grade seeing the advert and also trying to push for an increase - when that high end of the range is intended only for certain profiles.
 
The description almost reads as a junior position but then at the bottom of the page says "4-6 years relevant work experience supporting customers in a technical environment preferred OR commensurate college-level coursework, or a combination of both" obviously 4-6 years experience is not exactly junior and this confuses me somewhat.

On the subject of salary, how much do jobs like these usually pay in London?
 
Energize said:
The description almost reads as a junior position but then at the bottom of the page says "4-6 years relevant work experience supporting customers in a technical environment preferred OR commensurate college-level coursework, or a combination of both" obviously 4-6 years experience is not exactly junior and this confuses me somewhat.

On the subject of salary, how much do jobs like these usually pay in London?
Click to expand...

Why not just apply and have an initial discussion over the phone? I've been approached by companies via Linkedin with Job specs with no salary defined, I tell them what my salary expectations are and we go from there. You normally get an idea within the first 5 minutes, so not much effort required.
 
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Whilst I totally accept that not having a salary listed is frustrating, what's the harm in applying/phoning them to find out. You may be pleasantly surprised, and if it is not what you are expecting you are no worse off.

I've been head hunted a few times, and the advantage that has is you can be quite blunt and ask what the salary is, but really it is not all that different, just an extra step.
 
It's not that I don't ever phone up, but it puts it lower on my list than other job opportunities and there is nothing worse than being drawn into a tedious phone conversation where the employer is telling you what a great place it is to work because they have a pool table/beer fridge/games room or x other gimmick that's aimed to appeal to individuals easily draw in by crap.
 
Is that what happened when you phoned? They talked about pool tables etc.. Why not just direct the conversation, be upfront - "I don't want to waste any of your time so could you give me an indication of the range for this role"?
 
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