IT and Applications Specialist

Description

About Us:

Alarm New England is one of the largest independent security integrators in the US. Our business has been family-owned for 53 years and serves over 18,000 customers. Our team sells the latest security and smart home solutions to the residential, small and large business markets. Our core values of Being Humbly Confident, GSD, Make The World A Better Place and Do The Right Thing are fundamental to everything we do in Building a Great Company and Keeping People Safe.

Alarm New England is looking for an IT and Applications Specialist to join our team. In this role, you'll be the first person our employees turn to when technology gets in the way of their work. You'll work the help desk queue, learn and support the business applications our teams rely on every day, set up and look after laptops, phones and printers, manage user accounts, and keep our documentation in order, for staff in our offices and in the field.

This is a junior generalist role with room to grow. You'll work alongside the Director of Technology, starting with support and application work and taking on more of our systems administration, infrastructure and integration work as your skills develop. It's a great fit for someone early in their IT career who likes software as much as hardware and wants to learn a modern environment end to end.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Business application support
• Help desk and end-user support
• Devices, accounts and access
• Office, remote, and field support
• Equipment, inventory and licenses
• Vendors and continuous improvement
• Growing into systems administration

Our Environment

• Google Workspace for email, calendar and files
• Windows 10/11 laptops and desktops, managed through Atera RMM today and moving to Microsoft Intune and Windows Autopilot, and protected by Carbon Black endpoint security
• Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID for user accounts and access, with an AD cleanup underway
• Company iPhones managed through Jamf and Apple Business Manager
• Core business applications: SedonaOffice and WeSuite (delivered through Azure Virtual Desktop RemoteApp), HubSpot, Zendesk and Astute financial reporting
• RingCentral VoIP phone system
• Cisco Meraki firewalls with site-to-site and client VPN, and Meraki wireless access points across our offices

What success looks like

• Over the first year, department leaders spend less time supporting our applications, and fewer issues need to go to vendors.
• Tickets get a quick first response and are resolved or escalated promptly, with notes another person could pick up from.
• New hires have a working computer, phone and accounts on day one; departing employees lose access the day they leave.
• Inventory and license records match what is actually in use.
• Employees rate their support experience highly.
• Serious incidents are escalated quickly, with a clear picture of what is happening.

Schedule, location and travel Full-time, on-site Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with an hour lunch. Expect to visit each of our other offices in Rhode Island and Massachusetts about once a quarter and as needed for on-site issues, with occasional after-hours work for planned changes or urgent problems.

How you will execute:

Business application support

• Learn SedonaOffice, WeSuite, HubSpot, Zendesk, Astute financial reporting and our other core applications inside and out: how they're set up, how our teams use them, and how to fix common problems.
• Be the first stop for application questions and problems, so department leaders spend less time supporting the tools and we go to vendors less often.
• Handle user setup, permissions and routine configuration in these applications, and bring in vendors only for what truly needs them.
• Keep how-to guides and notes for each application so knowledge stays with ANE.

Help desk and end-user support

• Be the first point of contact for IT requests sent to the help desk; resolve what you can and escalate the rest with clear notes.
• Log, categorize, update and close every ticket so the record shows what happened and how it was fixed.
• Prioritize by business impact (an office that can't reach SedonaOffice comes before a single jammed printer) and keep users updated until the issue is resolved.
• Support Windows PCs, laptops, monitors, peripherals, printers, Google Workspace and our remote desktop applications.
• Set up, troubleshoot and replace company iPhones, and work with our carrier on lines, upgrades and replacements.
• Handle phone system tickets in RingCentral: add, change and remove users, extensions and numbers; set up desk phones and the RingCentral app; and work with RingCentral support on call quality issues and outages.
• Write short how-to guides for common requests so employees can help themselves.

Devices, accounts and access

• Prepare and deploy new laptops and desktops using our standard setup process, and check each one before it goes to an employee.
• Onboard and offboard employees: create, change and disable accounts in Active Directory / Entra ID, Google Workspace and business applications, following our access procedures. Departing employees' access is removed the day they leave.
• Keep an eye on computer health in Atera and Carbon Black, handle routine alerts, and escalate anything suspicious right away.
• Maintain technical documentation, configuration records and standard operating procedures.

Office, remote, and field support

• Provide first-line troubleshooting for network, internet, VPN, Wi-Fi, printer and phone problems at our offices, using the Meraki dashboard to check firewalls, access points and connected devices.
• Act as on-site support for the Director of Technology, our network partners and vendors: gather information, test connectivity, swap hardware and provide access.
• Coordinate site visits with internet, phone, cabling and other technology providers.
• Support employees who work remotely or in the field.

Equipment, inventory and licenses

• Keep an accurate inventory of computers, monitors, phones and peripherals: who has what, where it is, and where it is in its lifecycle.
• Handle equipment returns, swaps, repairs and retirements, including recovering and wiping devices from departing employees.
• Track user licenses across our applications and flag unused seats so we don't pay for what we don't use.

Vendors and continuous improvement

• Work with hardware, software and telecom vendors to resolve issues, and follow vendor tickets through to resolution.
• Escalate complex or recurring problems with a clear record of the symptoms and the troubleshooting already done.
• Spot recurring issues and suggest fixes that stop them coming back.
• Follow ANE's IT security standards, and report suspicious emails, lost devices and other security concerns right away.

Growing into systems administration

• Assist with administration of our Azure environment, Active Directory / Entra ID and Azure Virtual Desktop, under the guidance of the Director of Technology.
• Help with infrastructure projects such as our move to Microsoft Intune and Windows Autopilot, network and firewall upgrades, and Active Directory cleanup.
• Learn how our systems connect, including SedonaOffice integrations, email delivery and sign-in, and help troubleshoot when they don't.
• Build PowerShell and Atera scripts to automate routine work.

Perform other related duties as assigned.

Requirements

Required

• 1 - 2 years of IT help desk or desktop support experience, or equivalent training such as an IT degree, certificate program or internship.
• High school diploma or equivalent.
• Ability to commute to and between CT, MA, and RI locations quarterly and as needed.
• Ability to lift and move equipment up to about 40 pounds.
• A genuine love of learning business software inside and out, and of helping others get the most from it.
• Hands-on experience setting up and troubleshooting Windows 10/11 computers, peripherals, printers and basic network connectivity.
• Basic familiarity with user accounts in Active Directory, Entra ID or Google Workspace.
• Experience working from a ticketing system and documenting your work.
• Comfort setting up and supporting iPhones.
• Clear, patient communication with non-technical users; organized, able to prioritize and to work independently.

Preferred

• CompTIA A+ (or working toward it), Network+, or IT coursework; any exposure to Microsoft Intune or Windows Autopilot is a plus.
• Experience with an RMM tool such as Atera, NinjaOne or ConnectWise, and with endpoint security / EDR tools such as Carbon Black.
• Experience with Jamf or another mobile device management tool, and Apple Business Manager.
• Experience supporting Azure Virtual Desktop or another remote desktop environment.
• Experience administering RingCentral or another VoIP phone system, and familiarity with cloud-managed networking such as Cisco Meraki.
• Experience in the security / alarm industry, or with SedonaOffice.
• Experience with HubSpot, Zendesk or another CRM or ERP system, or an interest in scripting (PowerShell) and systems administration.