Production Systems Support Specialist

Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data and valuations. An essential part of the world's financial infrastructure, Standard & Poor's has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. And we do it with the utmost integrity. If our values speak to you, then speak to us.



This position works within a team responsible for ensuring that various production systems deliver quality products in accordance with contractual timelines. Responsibilities include providing technical support for all S&P production processes and the successful transition of new production systems from the quality assurance area into production. Candidates must be capable of independently researching, analyzing, and creating effective solutions to problems within strict deadlines. All products are computer generated financial data products, some of which have software applications packaged with the data.



Tasks include:

Developing a deep understanding of the systems environment, dependencies, data flows, databases and how products are produced Monitoring production processes, and responding to system alerts, warnings and errors according to procedures and through job scheduling tools Researching and analyzing issues, determining corrective actions and coordinating and communicating with involved parties Working with and coordinating activities of IT development, Data Operations, Technical Engineering and Product Management groups on day to day activities to ensure the integrity of the production systems Work with above mentioned groups to ensure efficient smooth implementations and ongoing support of new production systems Updating support documentation (less than 5% of activities) Weekend, night and holiday work scheduled on a rotating basis (typically for 1 week out of 6)
REQUIREMENTS


A working knowledge of operating systems, computer architectures, 2 years in a UNIX environment using an Autosys job scheduler, 3 years experience in SQL and Oracle relational database management systems, plus a good working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Excel and Word) are necessary to provide technical support for production processes. A formal education in computer information sciences, or two years technical or production experience in a systems support area is required. Unix script writing and experience with Perl are a plus.



Qualified applicants must possess excellent communication (including technical writing) and interpersonal skills to perform the necessary research and convey the results to all appropriate parties. Excellent trouble-shooting skills - ability to gather and analyze detailed information under pressure and make good decisions is required.