Cyber Operations Managment

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role ID – 2026-0083

Role Background

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) is dedicated to acquiring, deploying, and defending communication systems for NATO’s political decision-makers and Commands. It operates on the frontlines against cyber-attacks, collaborating closely with governments and industry to prevent future debilitating attacks. The NCI Agency plays a crucial role in maintaining NATO’s technological edge and ensuring the collective defence and crisis management capabilities of the Alliance. In pursuit of our mission, we require specialized advisory services to enhance our interim workforce capacity.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

Deliverables:

• Deliverable 1: Mock-up of COMS NR/NS environment on the NATO Software Factory
  • The contractor shall build a mock-up environment that simulates what is doable today on COMS NR and COMS NS, including the relation between Atlassian JIRA, Atlassian Confluence, including all plugins currently installed on the production environment. It will notably replicate all Jira processes supporting the execution of the DEFEND branch missions, as well as all other supporting Jira processes (including but not limited to "STAGIL assets" projects). It will also replicate the mechanism allowing low-side workflows tracking from the high-side with the associated hand-over/take-over mechanism, the dynamic wiki page publications based on the Jira issues changes and the use of dynamic page template (scaffolding/reporting-based).
• Deliverable 2: Identification and documentation of the COMS requirements
  • Based on the mock-up of the environment set during D1, the contractor shall identify and capture the functional and non-functional requirements of what COMS is able to deliver today into a NATO AQAP conforming format which is readable and unambiguously understandable by a third-party company having no prior knowledge of NCSC, NCIA or NATO. The requirements shall be organized in logical groups to later on facilitate the production of a video in D3. The requirements are written in such a way that a third-party could recreate using one or multiple technical capabilities a solution that would satisfy the identified requirements. The requirements will be captured within the COMS Confluence environment until final review is agreed. The final deliverable will be in Word document format.
• Deliverable 3: Creation of a video demonstrating the identified requirements in D2
  • The contractor shall make a recorded video introducing what COMS is today, and going through the different requirements captured in D2. The requirements document shall identify the time in the video at which the actual requirement is being presented.
  • The video in D3 and the requirements in D2 will be made available to industry as part of pre-solicitation industry engagements The video shall be securely hosted by the contractor. A copy of it shall be delivered to NCIA. The video shall remain available on the contractor hosted platform and as per D4 for a duration of contract end + 2 months.
• Deliverable 4: Demonstration of the COMS mock-up environment
• The contractor shall present a live demo of the COMS mock-up environment as part of an industry engagement day organized by NCIA. The demo will take place online. The live-demo should cover the points of the video in D3, but with an authorized level of interaction (questions from industry). The Questions and Answers session may be organized at the end of the demo or during the demo, as best identified by the contractor.
• NCIA is responsible to invite industry and set the date of the demo. The contractor shall ensure availability and full working condition of the environment at the time of the demo. Depending on the risk of non-availability, an alternate date may be set – in common agreement between NCIA and the contractor.
• NCIA will be present during the demo to answering the questions.

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Excellent knowledge (5+ years) of Atlassian JIRA Datacenter administration
• Excellent knowledge (5+ years) of Atlassian Confluence Datacenter administration
• Prior Experience working on the NCIA COMS Environment.
• Excellent knowledge in scripting languages (e.g., Bash, Python) for automation and customization tasks.
• Excellent knowledge in deploying solution on Microsoft Azure environment.
• Excellent knowledge of Java, Groovy and Scriptrunnner.
• Strong experience in dynamic content management and integration between Atlassian JIRA and Confluence
• Strong experience in managing metadata in Atlassian confluence, Office and PDF documents and Microsoft Sharepoint
• Strong understanding of the inner working of Atlassian JIRA and confluence instances, including at database level
• Experience with the management of Linux servers (preferably RedHat).

Working Location

• Offsite

Working Policy

• Offsite

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance