Staff Officer (J3/3 Community of Interest Manager)

Post Context

Headquarters Allied Joint Force Command Norfolk (JFCNF) provides a resilient, static Joint headquarters to plan, prepare and conduct operations across all domains in peacetime, crisis and conflict, in order to support NATO’s three core tasks, at the Joint Operational level, as directed by SACEUR.

The Operations Directorate is responsible for directing, monitoring, assessing and coordinating operational effects and staff functions. It assists and provides advices in the execution of assigned responsibilities and duties regarding all regionally and focused operational activities.

The J3 Division is responsible for the implementation and oversight of operational plans, procedures and techniques to ensure effective C2 of assigned forces in peacetime, crisis and conflict. It supervises the activities of the J33 Current Operations Branch and its 24/7 Joint Operations Centre (JOC) capability, J35 Coordination and Synchronization Branch, Joint Fires and Effects Branch, the Force Protection Branch, and the Joint Assessment Branch.

The J3/3 Current Operations Branch provides 24/7, 365 day situational awareness to the JFC/JTF and higher HQ through the exploitation of all available operational information and current intelligence within the Area of Responsibility (AOR)/Area of Interest (AOI) to facilitate timely operational and strategic level decisions and effective C2 in peacetime, crisis and conflict.

The J3/3 - Support Operations Section is responsible for providing sustainable C2 management and supporting C2 systems/functional area services to the C/JOC.

The J3/3 CoI Manager ensures proper provision and usage of all CoI systems within the CJOC.

Principal Duties:

• Ensures all the J3/3 Community of Interest (CoI) software is in the highest operational capability.
• Advises and guides CJOC Director and Battle Captain on the Common Operational Picture composition.
• Plans, coordinates, reviews the CJOC CIS projects and exercise designs, addressing operational, exercise and training event requirements with respect to existing capabilities; ensuring all are tested and are operationally ready to be utilised to support all evolutions.
• Develops proposals for changes in response to evolving real world crises, manages the planning and execution of all CoI during contingency and operations planning. Tracks and assesses the implementation and changes.
• Initiates and promotes work on resolving interoperability issues for operational CIS systems and exercise designs.
• Develops and implements policy and guidance in the area of JOC’s Mission Dedicated Systems and J3/3 Sup Ops operating procedures and instructions.
• Represents J3/3 and CJOC on CIS operations and exercise coordination conferences.
• Initiates contributions, consults and advises other Divisions (J2/J3/J4/JEng/J6/J7) focusing on J3 CoI to COP contribution and connectivity issues.
• Develops and revises SOP/SOI regarding J3/3 COP creation and maintenance applicable for peacetime, exercise and crisis deployments.
• Acts as the lead technical advisor responsible for the management and integration of all dedicated CoIs (NCOP, MCCIS, LC2IS, AirC2IS, JChat, JOCWatch, ICC, LOGFAS, etc) within JFCNF and between other NATO/National HQs for operations, exercises and training purposes.
• Analyses and evaluates the effectiveness of existing JOC CoI capabilities for functionality and against operational requirements; influences technical providers, facilitates and recommends improvements as the Ops representative.
• Supports J3/3 Sup Ops Section Head on all activities as directed or assigned.

Essential Qualifications / Experience:

• University Degree  in library, information science, management information systems, computer science or related discipline  and 2 years function related experience, or Higher Secondary education and completed advanced vocational training  in that discipline leading to a professional qualification or professional accreditation with 4 years post related experience.
• Minimum 3 years' experience in the operational business processes of COI Services / Functional Services.
• Broad technical knowledge of CIS services, architecture and experience supporting customers utilising the systems.
• Experience in collaborating with CIS development teams and users.
• Experience in diagnosing faults, overseeing CIS user-testing and implementing required changes.
• Experience in ensuring optimal hardware and software functionality, as well as information security.
• Service Management experience and certification, such as ITIL.
• Experience in managing business processes and workflows.
• Minimum 3 year experience in web platforms.
• Minimum 3 year experience in database management.

Language:

English - SLP 3333 - (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)

Desirable Qualifications / Experience:

• Proven experience in the support of the NATO Functional Systems / COI Services.
• MS SharePoint experience.
• Experience in troubleshooting CoI interoperability between different classification networks.
• System interoperability, LAN/WAN and network concepts experience.
• Experience in support of mobile computing solutions (eg VPN access, Notebooks, Remote Access, WLAN and iPhones).
• Previous experience in implementing Mission Dedicated Systems operational requirements in CIS environment.
• Knowledge of NATO engineering in supporting CoI software, experience with NCOP and all connecting services (ICC, NIRIS, MCCIS, LC2IS, JOIIS, IntelFS etc).
• Previous experience providing CIS support to a military Operations Centre.

Attributes/Competencies:

Personal Attributes:

• Able to make suitable changes to fit new conditions in an exercise environment or to deploy new solutions on short notice. Analytical – Able to employ analytic methods to refine operational community requirements and translate them to technical solutions. Assertiveness – Able to clearly define expectations and appraise the delivered solutions as seen by operational community.

Managerial Responsibilities: 

• Manages JOC CIS projects as directed or assigned by J33 BH, JOC Director or J33 Sup Ops SH. Depending on CIS requirements and technical knowledge of the other supporting/connected HQs, may be required to liaise, advise or lead the coordination efforts. Supervision in troubleshooting and fault isolation on systems during real world operations or high visibility exercises of one or more HQ multifunctional teams.

Professional Contacts:

• Regular contact with NATO bodies and national authorities at senior level (normally OF-4/5 and A-3/4) involving development and implementation of information system projects. Regular interaction with Principal/Senior CIS Engineers require comparable CIS expert (experienced engineer / senior engineer).

Contribution To Objectives:

• COP capabilities and proper support are essential in providing and maintaining overall JFCNF HQ Situational Awareness.

Security Clearance

The successful applicant will be required to apply for and receive a NATO SECRET Security Clearance prior to final confirmation of contract and commencement of employment.

The incumbent may be required to undertake deployments in support of military operations and exercises, and/or TDY assignments, both within and without NATO boundaries. Such operational deployment may exceed 30 days duration up to 183 days in any period of 547 days and may be on short notice. For NATO International Civilian staff, acceptance of an employment contract linked to this post constitutes agreement to deploy in excess of 30 days if required.

Contract

• Serving NATO International Civilian staff will be offered a contract in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations.
• Newly recruited staff will be offered a three year definite duration contract.

Notes for Candidates

The JFC Norfolk Website gives full details on the eligibility criteria and application processes to be adopted by all candidates.  However, candidates should particularly note:

Please answer each of the pre-screening questions completely in English. Expressions such as: “please see attached CV, please see annex, please see enclosed document, etc” are not acceptable; this is a cause of immediate rejection of the application.

Particular attention should be given to Education and Experience section of your application form, which should be populated with details of your career to date and educational achievements and certifications as they relate to your application.

The candidature of NATO redundant staff at grade G15 will be considered with priority.

NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO’s sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

This vacancy will close on 19 September 2024 @ 17:59hrs (EDT)/11:59hrs (CEST).