Job Post Summary
· Role Title: Systems & Applications Administrator
· Department: Learning Enhancement & Digital Integration
· Contract Type: Permanent
· Working Pattern: Full-time
· Location: Hybrid
· Salary: €53,000 per annum
Role Overview
This is a hands-on technical delivery role responsible for supporting, maintaining and improving Portobello Institute's core digital systems and the connections between them.
The postholder will work directly with systems including Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, Moodle, Classter, HubSpot, AWS and related reporting, finance and workflow platforms. They will investigate technical problems, configure systems, work with data, APIs and scripts, maintain integrations and support-controlled automation.
A key part of the role is being able to take an agreed requirement or technical problem, investigate how the relevant systems actually work, identify the practical steps required and take the work through to a tested and documented solution. The role combines day to day systems work with continuous improvement. It is not primarily an architecture, strategy or management role.
Key Responsibilities
The key responsibilities of this role include:
1. Systems Administration, Reliability and Technical Support
· Administer and support Portobello's core digital systems and applications, including Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Moodle and related cloud services.
· Maintain identity, access, groups, permissions and key system configuration within agreed authority.
· Support the AWS and related hosting environment used for Moodle and other services, including routine maintenance, monitoring and technical housekeeping.
· Monitor system behaviour, logs, scheduled processes and available alerts to identify operational issues and emerging risks.
· Investigate technical problems across systems using logs, configuration, data, database queries, API responses and system behaviour where appropriate.
· Diagnose and resolve issues involving access, permissions, enrolment, synchronisation, performance, configuration and data mismatches, escalating vendor defects or higher risk issues when required.
· Support upgrades and configuration changes, including testing, impact checks, backup, restore and recovery arrangements.
· Identify recurring problems and implement or recommend more permanent solutions, providing technical escalation for colleagues dealing with routine system queries.
2. Systems Integration & Automation
· Maintain and troubleshoot integrations between core systems and understand how applicant, learner, identity, finance and operational data moves between them.
· Work with REST APIs, JSON, webhooks and other integration methods to investigate, maintain or improve system connections.
· Investigate failed, delayed, duplicated or inconsistent data transfers using identifiers, mappings, system states and timing dependencies.
· Develop or amend scripts, integration routines and lightweight technical solutions where appropriate.
· Build checks and reconciliation processes that make missing, duplicate or inconsistent records easier to identify.
· Develop and maintain practical automation using tools such as Power Automate, scripts, APIs or platform workflows where process rules and ownership are clear.
· Include appropriate logging, error handling, exception management and monitoring in integration and automation work.
· Ensure technical solutions use agreed source systems, are supportable and reduce unnecessary manual handling without creating competing records or uncontrolled processes.
3. Technical Analysis & Delivery
· Take agreed high level requirements or technical problems and turn them into clear technical tasks and implementation steps.
· Investigate the current systems, fields, settings, APIs, identifiers and dependencies before proposing significant changes.
· Produce practical artefacts where useful, including data maps, process flows, field mappings, wireframes, mock ups, prototypes or technical notes.
· Break larger requirements into manageable and testable pieces of work, identifying assumptions, access needs, dependencies and unanswered questions early.
· Identify where a business or process decision is required before technical work can continue and avoid embedding unagreed assumptions in technical solutions.
· Consider proportionate options including configuration, process change, reporting, integration, scripting or automation rather than introducing unnecessary complexity.
· Take ownership of assigned technical work, provide realistic estimates, raise blockers early and demonstrate progress through practical outputs.
· Work constructively with operational teams and seek higher level technical review where a change is complex or carries significant production risk.
The expectation is that the postholder can move from:
problem → investigation → practical plan → implementation → testing → handover
without requiring every technical step to be specified in advance.
4. Data & Reporting Support
· Use SQL and other appropriate tools to investigate, extract, join and validate operational data.
· Support the creation of reliable datasets for reporting and operational use, including reconciliation of data from different systems.
· Identify the source of discrepancies between systems and reports and make unresolved matches or data exceptions visible.
· Support Power BI, Power Query, Excel or other reporting solutions where appropriate.
· Build repeatable extracts or queries where manual reporting can reasonably be reduced.
· Support the technical implementation of agreed reporting definitions and ensure important outputs can be traced back to known source data and logic.
5. Security, Access & Controlled Change
· Administer system access and permissions within agreed authority and maintain appropriate control of administrator accounts, service accounts and technical credentials.
· Apply good security, GDPR and data minimisation practice when working with staff, learner and operational data.
· Test significant changes before production implementation where possible and ensure an appropriate recovery or rollback route exists for higher impact changes.
· Maintain appropriate records of significant technical changes and access decisions.
· Escalate significant access, security, data protection or production risks promptly.
· Work with the Head of IT and Digital Strategy and Retained Technical Assurance Adviser where a change has significant architectural, security or operational implications.
6. Documentation & Technical Handover
· Maintain clear and usable technical documentation for core systems, integrations, scheduled processes and known dependencies.
· Record important field mappings, API behaviour, configuration and known failure conditions where these are relied upon operationally.
· Maintain scripts and technical assets using appropriate source control.
· Produce handover documentation as part of completing significant technical work.
· Create or update troubleshooting guides and runbooks when recurring problems are resolved.
· Reduce reliance on technical knowledge held only by one individual and ensure solutions can be understood and supported by another suitably technical colleague
Essential Experience & Qualifications
· A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computing or another closely related technical discipline.
· Practical experience administering and supporting business, cloud or web based systems in a live production environment.
· Strong troubleshooting and root cause analysis skills, including using logs, configuration and data to trace issues across interconnected systems and upstream and downstream dependencies.
· Practical experience with Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, including identity, access, groups, permissions and application or service dependencies.
· Working knowledge of Windows and Linux environments and familiarity with AWS, Azure or comparable cloud platforms.
· Good working knowledge of SQL, including querying, joining and validating data for investigation, reconciliation and reporting.
· Practical experience with REST APIs, JSON and systems integration, including authentication, identifiers, data mappings, system states, dependencies and error handling.
· Ability to use PowerShell, Python or another scripting language to automate tasks, manipulate data or solve practical systems problems.
· Experience configuring and changing live systems safely, including testing, impact assessment, rollback and appropriate documentation.
· Ability to take a technical problem or agreed high level requirement, investigate the underlying systems and independently develop and implement a practical solution.
· Good understanding of security, access control and data protection principles when working with production systems and sensitive data.
· Good technical documentation skills, including documenting configurations, integrations, scripts, data flows and troubleshooting procedures.
· Ability to communicate technical issues, risks and proposed solutions clearly to colleagues who are not technical specialists.
Desirable Qualifications & Experience
· Experience supporting integrations across multiple SaaS or cloud platforms, including webhooks, scheduled jobs or asynchronous processing.
· Experience with data pipelines or data engineering concepts including ETL or ELT, transformation, reconciliation and data consistency.
· Experience with Power Automate, Azure Logic Apps or comparable workflow and automation tools.
· Experience with Power BI, Power Query or other reporting and data visualisation tools.
· Experience with education or business platforms such as Moodle, Classter, HubSpot, Xero, Stripe or comparable systems.
· Experience working with AWS services such as EC2, S3, IAM and CloudWatch or
· comparable Azure services.
· Experience with authentication and identity standards such as OAuth 2.0, SSO, service accounts and application credentials.
· Experience using version control such as Git for scripts, configuration or other technical
assets.
Experience using AI assisted development or automation tools as part of practical technical delivery.
· Awareness of recognised security and compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001.
About Portobello Institute
Portobello Institute is committed to making education accessible to a wide student body. We are a small Institute with big ambitions and a strong student-centred focus. Our size allows us to nurture the one in every one – we know the name and ambitions of each of our students and each of our team members.
Our culture is collaborative, agile, and supportive, suited to high-performing people who want to grow and develop their careers. We take pride in doing the right thing every time and in working together to deliver meaningful outcomes for students and colleagues alike.
Application Process
As part of the application process, please answer:
- When are you available to start?
- Do you have hands on experience administering Microsoft 365 and Entra ID in a live production environment, including identity, access, groups, permissions and troubleshooting related issues? (Yes/No)
- Describe a production issue you personally diagnosed that involved two or more connected systems. Be specific about the systems involved, what logs, SQL queries, API responses or other evidence you examined, the root cause, what you changed or built to resolve it and how you tested the change. Please describe a real example rather than a hypothetical approach
- A user exists correctly in one core system but has not appeared or updated in a connected downstream system. Describe the first five technical checks you would make, in order, and explain what each check would tell you.
What We Offer
- A collaborative and supportive team environment
- Opportunities to grow and develop your career
- Flexibility and autonomy in your role
- The opportunity to make a meaningful impact on student and staff experience
- A role with strong visibility across the Institute
- The opportunity to influence digital systems, automation, and operational improvement during a period of growth
Equal Opportunities
Portobello Institute is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates and are committed to creating an inclusive, values driven and respectful workplace.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: From €53,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Application question(s):
- Do you currently have the legal right to work in Ireland without the need for employer sponsorship now or in the future?
- A user exists correctly in one core system but has not appeared or updated in a connected downstream system. Describe the first five technical checks you would make, in order, and explain what each check would tell you.
- Do you have hands on experience administering Microsoft 365 and Entra ID in a live production environment, including identity, access, groups, permissions and troubleshooting related issues? (Yes/No)
- Describe a production issue you personally diagnosed that involved two or more connected systems. Be specific about the systems involved, what logs, SQL queries, API responses or other evidence you examined, the root cause, what you changed or built to resolve it and how you tested the change. Please describe a real example rather than a hypothetical approach.
Work authorisation:
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Dublin, County Dublin
