Sr. Associate - Projects

Lead Administrator

Qualification:

Bachelor's in engineering or equivalent

Responsibility:

Project Planning & Setup:

• Plan for hardware and the software requirements and submit it to supervisor for review.

• Assist customer in identifying hardware/software requirements.

• Set up system for evaluation during requirements stage(depending on the type of project: implementation/ support/ transformation).

• Conduct discussions with different stakeholders to finalize test objectives.

• Verify system build, test environment and iteration test plan.

Requirements Understanding and Analysis:

• Analyze and validate the system and infrastructure requirements.

• Determine the infrastructure required for application deployment.

• Conduct sizing based on the inputs during requirement gathering (hardware configuration).

• Identify any prerequisites and dependencies for application.

• Prepare a master list for installation.

• Map all functional requirements to technical requirement.

• Prepare high level infrastructure requirement.

• For support projects, understand the customer landscape.

• Evaluate if Cognizant has sufficient capabilities to support the project.

• Evaluate customer demographics and prepare analysis reports.

Design & Implementation:

• Define technical solution by understanding various functional and non functional requirements.

• Create system architecture (scalability, availability).

• Explore and evaluate multiple design options.

• Share design and obtain buy in from various stakeholders.

• Develop the design for disaster recovery plan.

• Validate the application design.

• Design, develop and finalize the security strategy.

• Perform a data management strategy (such as when customer wants to go for archiving).

• Develop deployment plan (production, quality).

• Initiate the build for development after the design is finalized.

• Define any deployment required as prebuild system.

• Plan for system maintenance strategy like monitoring, configure clean up activities.

• Define standard operating guidelines.

• Define the roles from a security perspective.

• Adopt best practices.

• Build system for QA.

• Build application environment for testing.

• Create roles as per specification and ensure alignment to SOX requirements.

Testing Management:

• Review test results and provide technical inputs from a system administration perspective.

• Transition roles from development to QA environment.

• Make any role corrections if required.

• Follow up with development team for rework on code defects and close the same.

Project Closure Activities:

• Conduct activities related to system administration during configuration which are requested by clients.

• Create build for production system.

• Liaise with technical lead (development) and deploy system architecture in production system.

• Develop SOPs.

• Post final acceptance, create all documentation.

• Participate in handover to AVM team.

• Provide support for agreed number of overlap days.

• Provide any support required on defects identified.

• Develop SOPs for security procedures.

• Maintain all audit related requirements.

Ongoing System Administration:

• Define KPIs/SLAs.

• Define alert systems and guide team to implement them.

• Create back up and recovery plans.

• Monitor adherence of system maintenance activities and resolve escalations.

• Conduct RCA of issues.

• Develop report on service level availability of the system and capacity utilization.

• Monitor security audit log and take necessary actions.

• Manage identity management experience.

• Conduct security risk assessment.

• Ensure business continuity is maintained.

• Seek feedback on security experience and take actions to ensure compliance is maintained.

• Optimize system performance.

• Proactively analyze and resolve performance bottlenecks.

• Identify end use/applications performance problems and determine optimal performance settings.

• Support relevant teams in resolution of application performance problems.

Sales Support:

• Provide support in presales activities by providing inputs during proposal development from a system perspective.

• Provide inputs for estimation of sizing, infrastructure cost etc.

• Collaborate with Business Analysts to create RFP responses.

• Participate in seminars /conferences.

People Management:

• Provide assistance in selection of representative employee groups for training.

• Conduct training with the help of academy.

• Mentor team members in project teams with respect to technical skills on projects.

• Conduct technical, face to face interviews with candidates and support recruitment process.

• Coordinate with the supervisor in understanding how administrators can better contribute to the project, seek feedback and address concerns.

• Provide inputs during performance appraisal of administrators.