VAS Operations & Support Engineer

About the Role

We are seeking a VAS Operations & Support Engineer to oversee and maintain live Telecom Value Added Services (VAS) platforms in a production setting. This role involves hands-on operational and production support responsibilities, including monitoring system health, troubleshooting, restoring services, carrying out preventive maintenance, handling incidents and changes, and ensuring the availability and stability of critical VAS applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and support active Telecom VAS platforms and applications in production.
• Continuously monitor platform performance, health indicators, alarms, service KPIs, system capacity, and availability.
• Conduct daily health assessments to detect and prevent potential service degradation impacting customers.
• Diagnose and resolve issues across applications, Linux/Unix servers, databases, APIs, network interfaces, and messaging systems.
• Analyze logs and traces from applications, systems, databases, and networks to determine root causes of incidents.
• Restore services promptly within agreed SLAs, collaborating with technical teams for escalation as needed.
• Manage incidents, problems, and change requests from investigation to closure.
• Perform Root Cause Analysis for major or recurring issues and apply preventive measures.
• Execute preventive operations such as upgrades, patches, configuration changes, and other maintenance tasks.
• Support high availability setups, failover mechanisms, backup/restore procedures, disaster recovery, and service continuity activities.
• Collaborate with NOC, IT, Network, Security, Application, Database, and vendor teams to resolve complex production issues.
• Coordinate with vendors for troubleshooting, technical escalation, issue resolution, and service enhancements.
• Maintain comprehensive operational documents including SOPs, MOPs, troubleshooting guidelines, health check processes, and RCA reports.
• Create scripts and automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks, health checks, monitoring, reporting, and log analysis.
• Utilize Python, Shell/Bash, SQL, and REST APIs to facilitate automation and operational activities.
• Contribute to advancing monitoring capabilities, automation efforts, system resilience, and operational efficiency.
• Participate in on-call rotation to support critical production services as required.

Mandatory Technical Expertise

• Hands-on experience with Telecom VAS or Value Added Services platforms.
• Background in Production Support, Application Support, or Operations & Maintenance roles.
• Proficiency with Linux/Unix operating systems.
• Knowledge of SQL and database management.
• Experience with RESTful APIs and API troubleshooting.
• Expertise in Python and/or Shell/Bash scripting.
• Strong skills in analyzing application and system logs.
• Understanding of monitoring systems, alarms, and KPI assessment.
• Familiarity with Incident, Problem, and Change Management processes.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot production issues and restore services effectively.

Relevant Telecom VAS Platform Experience

• SMS and Messaging platforms.
• SMSC and SMPP protocols.
• USSD systems.
• Voice and Content Services.
• Device Management platforms.
• eSIM and Entitlement management platforms.
• Other VAS application platforms and API-driven Telecom services.
• Carrier-grade Telecom Value Added Services environments.

Role Expectations

The ideal candidate should have direct experience with live Telecom VAS platforms and manage their daily production operations. They must be adept at independently handling incidents starting from alarm detection through investigation, troubleshooting, restoring services, completing RCA, and executing preventive strategies. Versatility across application layers, OS, databases, APIs, and connectivity is essential. Ownership of service stability and availability, along with ability to coordinate across multiple technical and vendor teams, are key requirements.

Preferred Experience

• Working in 24x7 Telecom Operations or Production Support environments.
• Familiarity with High Availability, Disaster Recovery, backup/restore, and failover processes.
• Experience using monitoring tools and operational dashboards.
• Exposure to containers, Kubernetes, DevOps practices, Cloud platforms, AI/AIOps, or GenAI-based automation is advantageous.
• Knowledge of telecom protocols such as SMPP, Diameter, SIGTRAN, or similar is beneficial.

Education

A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, Telecom Engineering, or related technical discipline is required.

Additional Notes

This position specifically targets Telecom VAS Production Operations and Support roles. Applicants whose background centers mainly on network engineering, software development, QA/testing, project or product management, or IT infrastructure without solid Telecom VAS production support experience may not align well with this opportunity.