ICT Officer

The UNOPS Global Portfolios Office (GPO) brings together diverse expertise to help partners deliver impact worldwide. With hubs in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, and expert teams operating globally, GPO leads multi-regional initiatives that advance sustainable development, climate action, and peacebuilding - including in some of the world’s most challenging environments. By leveraging our collective expertise and global networks, GPO supports UNOPS’ strategic priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals across more than 130 countries. We work closely with major global partners - including governments, international financial institutions, and UN agencies - to deliver a wide range of services, such as project management, fund management, hosting services, and HR support.

Not Required - part of GPO/NYPO

The Department of Operational Support (DOS) is responsible for the delivery and maintenance of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure, systems and software applications in support of the operational requirements of Peacekeeping Missions, Special Political Missions, as well as Department of Peace Operations (DPO) and DOS at Headquarters.

ICT is one of the fundamental components that enable substantive work of field missions. Timely and secure communications and information exchange within and between UN Peacekeeping Missions and Headquarters is critical to meet the core strategic, operational and tactical mandate of the United Nations. It is of paramount importance that robust, fault tolerant and scalable ICT infrastructure is in place to maintain operations in the event of natural or manmade disasters, disruption in the theatre of operation, or as Security Council mandates change.

The Service for Geospatial, Information and Telecommunications Technologies (SGITT) at the Unite Nations Global Service Center (UNGSC) provides a critical role as the as the resilient operational hub for the support and delivery of technology services and solutions to field operations and a broad range of Secretariat and United Nations system clients. As a unified, singular service provider, SGITT provides reliable, resilient and innovative, geospatial, communications and information technology services, including centralized connectivity, hosting and monitoring support, ensuring that staff members in field missions and at Headquarters have access to critical enterprise systems.

UNOPS has signed an agreement with the United Nations Global Service Centre (UNGSC) to provide specialized technical support services in the areas of hybrid cloud, platform management, and global identity infrastructure.   

Within this framework, the Platform Support Unit (PSU) delivers operational and technical support for the hybrid cloud environment (covering public and private cloud), platform management (including the Private AI platform), global identity infrastructure, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) infrastructure. These services underpin the digital operations of UN entities and field missions and are aimed at enhancing service resilience, security, operational efficiency, and the responsible adoption of emerging technologies.   

To support the growing demand for cloud-based services, secure identity and access management, private AI capabilities, and reliable ERP operations, this position provides technical implementation, operational support, and innovation assistance to ensure service reliability, system integration, and continuous improvement of the hybrid cloud platform.   

The incumbent of this position will be personnel of UNOPS under its full responsibility.

Under the overall supervision of the UNOPS Programme Manager, and under the direct guidance of the Chief, Infrastructure Operations Section (IOS), and the Chief of the Platform Support Unit (PSU) at the UN ICT Facility in Valencia, Spain, the ICT Officer will provide reliable, secure, and efficient private cloud, private AI, PaaS, and public cloud services within the Platform Support Unit. 

The incumbent ensures that engineering processes, automation practices, and operational tools are applied consistently and in line with recognized industry standards, while aligning all activities with UNGSC objectives and applicable UN policies, rules, and regulations. 

The role supports the coordinated delivery and 24/7 operation of platform services across locations and operational contexts, enabling client entities to deploy and run their applications and AI workloads with confidence.

Summary of Key Functions:

Functional Responsibilities:

The personnel will be responsible for the following duties:

1. Private Cloud

2. Private AI Platform

3. PaaS 

4. Public Cloud 

5. Automation

6. Other
   
   
   
   
   
   1. Private Cloud
   
   

• Design, deploy, operate, and maintain the private cloud infrastructure (compute, storage, virtualization), ensuring performance, resilience, capacity, and lifecycle management.

• Implement backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity arrangements, and support the onboarding of client entities.

2. Private AI Platform

• Deploy, operate, and optimize the private AI platform, including GPU-accelerated infrastructure and training and inference environments.

• Implement and maintain MLOps tooling and manage resource allocation, ensuring compliance with data protection and UN policies.

3. PaaS

• Support the management and improvement of on-premises PaaS offering, including container orchestration, Drupal and Moodle platform, Redis, MySQL, and other managed platform services.

• Develop standardized deployment templates, and support client entities in deployment, and troubleshooting.

4. Public Cloud

• Design, implement, and manage public cloud environments in line with UN architectural standards.

• Optimize cloud consumption and costs, and support hybrid connectivity between private and public cloud.

5. Automation, Monitoring, and On-Call Support

• Develop infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD pipelines, and implement monitoring, logging, and alerting across all platforms.

• Provide 24/7 on-call and rotational support, including weekends and holidays as required, resolving incidents within agreed service levels and contributing to incident, problem, and change management.

 6. Perform other duties as may be reasonably required and in line with the incumbent’s scope of services above.

Required:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) preferably in information technology, computer science, engineering, statistics, or in a field related to the post description with zero (0) year of relevant experience OR

• A first level university degree (Bachelor’s degree or equivalent) preferably in information technology, computer science, engineering, statistics, or in a field related to post description with two (2) years of relevant experience.

Desired: 

• Relevant professional certifications in one or more of the following areas: public cloud platforms (e.g., Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud), identity and access management, infrastructure as code and automation (e.g., Terraform).

Required:

• Relevant experience is defined as experience in DevOps, cloud engineering, or infrastructure and platform management.

• Experience in DevOps, cloud engineering, or infrastructure and platform management.

• Experience with open-source AI/ML platforms (E.g. vLLM, RAG DB’s, etc.) and on-premises GPU-accelerated infrastructure management.

• Experience managing private cloud environments using an open source virtualization platform (e.g., Proxmox or another KVM platform). 

• Experience supporting infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring tools.

Desired:

• Experience in supporting public cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

• Experience with containers and on-premises PaaS environments (e.g. Redis, Solr, MySQL, NGINX, etc).

• Experience working in the United Nations system or a similar international organization.

• UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes. 
• UNOPS will at no stage of the recruitment process request candidates to make payments of any kind.
• Applications to vacancies must be received before midnight Copenhagen time (CET) on the closing date of the announcement. Applications received after the closing date will not be considered. 
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the selection process, which may include various assessments. 
• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of a wide range of nationalities, cultures, languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. We strive to sustain and strengthen this diversity, fostering an inclusive working environment where all personnel are treated with respect and have equal access to opportunities.
• UNOPS evaluates all applications based on the skills, qualifications and experience outlined in the vacancy announcement. We are committed to a fair and transparent selection process and welcome diverse perspectives, including those of women, indigenous and racialized communities, individuals of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, and persons with disabilities.
• We are committed to enabling all candidates to perform at their best during the assessment process. If you are shortlisted and require support or reasonable accommodation to complete any assessment, please inform our human resources team upon receiving your invitation.
• UNOPS has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment, and other forms of abusive conduct, including discrimination, abuse of authority, and harassment. To uphold these standards, background checks are conducted for all final candidates to help ensure that individuals with a history of such conduct are not hired. By applying for a position with UNOPS, candidates acknowledge and consent to these verification processes.
  

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post. 
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few mandatory courses (they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. Refreshers or new mandatory courses may be required during your contract. Please note that you will not receive any compensation for taking courses and refreshers. For more information on a retainer contract here. 
• For more details about the contract types, please click here.
• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda. 
• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.