Senior L2 NOC Engineer - Austin | Thales Job

Location: Austin, United States of America

Thales people architect identity management and data protection solutions at the heart of digital security. Business and governments rely on us to bring trust to the billions of digital interactions they have with people. Our technologies and services help banks exchange funds, people cross borders, energy become smarter and much more. More than 30,000 organizations already rely on us to verify the identities of people and things, grant access to digital services, analyze vast quantities of information and encrypt data to make the connected world more secure.

This is a hybrid role in Austin, Texas.

Position Summary

The Senior L2 NOC Engineer provides advanced technical and operational support for mission-critical customer environments monitored by the North American Operations Center (NOC). This role independently leads the investigation and resolution of complex production incidents, assesses business and customer impact, coordinates cross-functional technical response, and drives service restoration to maintain availability, security, and operational performance.

Working within established service level agreements (SLAs), operational procedures, security requirements, and change-control standards, the Senior L2 NOC Engineer applies broad technical knowledge and sound judgment to diagnose issues across applications, infrastructure, networks, databases, cloud platforms, and integrated systems. The position serves as a senior technical resource during major incidents, planned maintenance, on-call rotations, and operational handoffs, providing clear direction and escalation guidance to NOC team members and partner organizations.

In addition to incident response, the Senior L2 NOC Engineer analyzes operational trends, leads root cause and problem-management activities, improves monitoring and support processes, develops automation and technical documentation, and mentors less-experienced engineers. The role works closely with engineering, infrastructure, cybersecurity, vendors, service delivery teams, and customer stakeholders to strengthen the stability and resilience of critical Civil Identity and Biometrics Solutions environments.

Regulatory Compliance Requirement

Must have U.S. Citizenship to obtain the post-hire Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Clearance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and must be able to obtain post-hire clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S. (CFIUS) and Department of Treasury. 

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Independently manage complex or high-impact production incidents from initial triage through service restoration, validation, stakeholder communication, and operational closure.

• Serve as the senior technical point of contact during assigned NOC shifts, on-call rotations, planned maintenance windows, major incident response, and operational handoffs.

• Lead or coordinate technical activities during major incident bridge calls, establishing priorities, engaging the appropriate support teams, evaluating recovery options, and maintaining focus on timely service restoration.

• Monitor and analyze production applications, infrastructure, networks, databases, cloud services, alerts, logs, and service dashboards to identify outages, performance degradation, security concerns, and emerging operational risks.

• Perform advanced troubleshooting and service-impact analysis across multiple technologies and system dependencies, applying independent judgment within authorized access, security, and change-control boundaries.

• Determine and execute appropriate corrective actions using established runbooks and technical knowledge; adapt troubleshooting approaches when documented procedures do not fully address the issue.

• Coordinate escalations to engineering, infrastructure, application, database, cybersecurity, vendor, and service delivery teams, providing clear technical findings, business impact, actions taken, and recommended next steps.

• Lead or contribute to root cause analyses, post-incident reviews, and problem-management activities; identify contributing factors, corrective actions, owners, and opportunities to prevent recurrence.

• Analyze incident trends, system performance, recurring failures, and monitoring effectiveness to recommend improvements to system reliability, operational readiness, and service quality.

• Design, develop, test, and maintain operational scripts, monitoring enhancements, dashboards, runbooks, knowledge articles, and other automation or process improvements that reduce manual effort and improve response effectiveness.

• Review and validate operational readiness for system changes, releases, maintenance activities, and new services, identifying support gaps and recommending monitoring, documentation, escalation, and recovery requirements.

• Produce and maintain accurate incident records, technical documentation, operational reports, shift handover notes, knowledge base articles, and metrics for leadership and customer-facing teams.

• Communicate technical findings, incident status, service impact, risks, and recovery plans clearly to technical and nontechnical stakeholders, including leadership and customer-facing teams.

• Provide technical guidance, peer review, and mentoring to L1 and L2 NOC personnel; reinforce troubleshooting discipline, escalation standards, documentation quality, and operational best practices.

• Collaborate with NOC leadership and cross-functional teams to improve operational processes, service metrics, team capabilities, and compliance with contractual requirements.

• Ensure adherence to customer requirements, SLAs, data-protection standards, access controls, security policies, audit requirements, and applicable regulatory obligations.

• Perform other duties, including participating in On Call rotation as assigned in support of NOC operations and business objectives.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive experience in a NOC, SOC, technical support, systems operations, infrastructure operations, site reliability, or similar production-support environment.

• Demonstrated experience independently diagnosing and resolving complex, multi-system production incidents in high-availability or mission-critical environments.

• Experience coordinating major incident response, technical bridge calls, cross-functional escalations, service restoration, and post-incident follow-up.

• Strong working knowledge of incident management, problem management, escalation management, SLA tracking, change management, root cause analysis, and operational handoff practices.

• Broad technical knowledge across several of the following areas: Linux, Windows Server, networking, databases with SQL and MySQL, cloud platforms, application support, virtualization, identity and access management, cybersecurity monitoring, and enterprise integrations.

• Experience using logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, and other diagnostic information to identify system dependencies, isolate failures, assess service impact, and recommend corrective action.

• Experience with ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Remedy, or equivalent tools.

• Experience with monitoring and observability platforms such as Splunk, Grafana, Nagios, SolarWinds, Zabbix, Datadog, Dynatrace, or similar solutions.

• Demonstrated ability to create or improve runbooks, technical documentation, monitoring capabilities, operational processes, scripts, or automation.

•  Ability to prioritize competing operational demands, exercise sound judgment with limited supervision, and make timely decisions during high-pressure incidents.

•  Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate complex technical information into clear operational and business-impact updates.

• Demonstrated ability to provide technical guidance, mentor less-experienced team members, and collaborate effectively across technical, business, vendor, and customer-facing teams.

• Ability to work in a 24x7 operational environment, including shifts, weekends, holidays, maintenance windows, and on-call rotations.

• Associate's or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related technical discipline; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to obtain and maintain required background clearances.

• Experience supporting identity management, biometrics, government, public safety, secure credentialing, or other regulated, high-availability environments.

• Advanced experience with Linux or Windows administration, networking, SQL/database technologies, cloud platforms, scripting, automation, and cybersecurity monitoring concepts.

• Experience with scripting or automation tools and languages such as PowerShell, Python, Bash, Ansible, or equivalent technologies.

• Experience defining or reporting operational metrics, analyzing incident trends, and recommending reliability or service-management improvements.

• ITIL Foundation, Network+, Security+, Linux+, Microsoft, AWS, Azure, or comparable technical or service-management certification.

Additional technical or IT service-management certifications as relevant to the supported environment or customer requirements.

Special Position Requirements

Schedule: Adhere to standard work schedule & business hours (roughly 8-5 Mon-Fri). Currently, the team works a hybrid schedule of 3 days per week at the Austin office and 2 days per week remote. Applicant must have capability to work hybrid or work in office 5 days a week as needed.

Travel: Expected travel would be 10% or less.

Why Join Us?

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This position will require successfully completing a post-offer background check. Qualified candidates with [a] criminal history will be considered and are not automatically disqualified, consistent with federal law, state law, and local ordinances.

Thales champions inclusion and we believe diversity strengthens the fabric of our culture. Thales is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/veterans.

If you need an accommodation or assistance in order to apply for a position with Thales, please contact us at[email protected].

The reference Total Target Compensation (TTC) market range for this position, inclusive of annual base salary and the variable compensation target, is between

Total Target Cash (TTC) 90,810.75 - 161,175.00 USD Annual

This reflects how companies in a similar industry and geographic region generally pay for similar jobs. This range helps the Company make pay decisions as one data point among many. Where a position falls within this range is also dependent on other factors including – but not limited to – the employee’s career path history, competencies, skills and performance, as well as the company’s annual salary budget, the customer’s program requirements, and the company’s internal equity. Thales may offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s status protected by local, state, or federal law.

(For Internal candidate, if you need more information, please raise HR request through MyThales)

 

Thales provides an extensive benefits program for all full-time employees working 30 or more hours per week and their eligible dependents, including the following:

•Elective Health, Dental, Vision, FSA/HSA, Voluntary Life and AD&D, Whole Group Life w/LTC, Critical Illness, Hospital Indemnity, Accident Insurance, Legal Plan, Identity Theft, and Pet Insurance

•Retirement Savings Plan after 30 days of employment with a company contribution and a match, and with no vesting period

•Company paid holidays and Paid Time Off

•Company provided Life Insurance, AD&D, Disability, Employee Assistance Plan, and Well-being Program