Jimmy Jennings                       

Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

About Me

From a young age, I had a keen interest in understanding the mechanics of technology, delving into everything from new mobile phones to intricate operating systems. This passion drove me to excel in ICT at both GCSE and A-Level, achieving high grades.

 

Despite pursuing a Sociology with Psychology degree in university, I spent nearly 5 years working with young people experiencing mental illness. Throughout this period, my technology enthusiasm remained, earning me the reputation of the "IT guy" for providing consistent IT support.

 

After realizing my enduring passion for technology, I transitioned my career and secured a position at Allstate NI. Starting on the Service Desk, I contributed to assisting insurance agents in the US. Advancing to the Command Center, I now analyze application health, manage major incidents, and ensure a swift resolution. My role involves moderating bridge calls, engaging relevant teams, and meticulously documenting actions taken.

 

Recently, I have completed my BSc (Hons) Cybersecurity and Networking Infrastructure degree, yet to be awarded. This educational journey heightened my ambition for a career in Cyber Security, specifically in Incident Response, Vulnerability Management, and Threat Hunting/Analysis. I am committed to leveraging my skills to uphold data integrity and security within business operations.

Experience

 

 

NOC (Network Operations Center) Engineer

Proofpoint

Aug 2024 - Present (0 years 5 months)

  • Monitoring and maintaining a large-scale infrastructure consisting of over 14,000 servers and 250 network devices across 8+ global data centers to ensure 99.99% system uptime. Utilizing industry-standard monitoring tools (e.g., Nagios, Prometheus) and troubleshooting ticketing systems (e.g., Jira) to efficiently diagnose and resolve routine and complex hardware, OS, and network issues.

  • Proactively monitoring internal and production systems, escalating issues to Level 2 engineers when necessary to ensure rapid resolution. Managing trouble tickets effectively while engaging cross-functional teams, including Engineering, Support, and QA, following established procedures.

  • Documenting issue descriptions and diagnoses accurately to maintain compliance with operational standards and facilitate team knowledge sharing. Continuously updating and maintaining operations documentation, such as support guides, procedures, and knowledge base articles.

 

Key Tools and Technologies:

 

Linux command line, bash scripting, Python programming.
Monitoring tools (e.g., Nagios, Prometheus) and ticketing systems (e.g., Jira, PagerDuty).
Troubleshooting Linux-based environments within complex, multi-vendor ecosystems.

 

Notable Skills:

 

Strong analytical, organizational, and multitasking abilities under pressure.
Exceptional communication and documentation skills for both technical and business audiences.
Experience with integrated, Fortune Global 500 environments and advanced NOC operations.

 

ECC Major Incident Analyst

Allstate Northern Ireland

Nov 2021 - August 2024 (2 years 9 months)

  • Leading Major Incident conference calls via Zoom, ensuring that the correct support individuals are engaged who can reach a resolution and minimise the outage situation.

  • Scribe the Major Incident conference call, noting major updates and actions taken allowing visibility to senior leadership and stakeholders. Issuing business communications regarding major incident status updates and severity.

  • Managing and administrating the Avaya VoIP software within my team, this involves editing the database to add, edit and delete users and assign them to telephone extensions.

  • Administrating a team of users of the LivePerson Messaging platform.

  • Contributing to the development of an in-house built automation tool which will allow analysts to have Major Incidents created via automation, freeing the analyst from this repetitive task.

 

Within this role I utilise platforms such as ServiceNow, Datadog, Splunk, IRIS (our internal SIEM software), Flipper (our internal network traffic software), RIPCORD (our internal DR activity software).

 

Senior Service Desk Analyst (Mentor)

Allstate Northern Ireland

May 2020 - Nov 2021 (1 year 7 months)

  • Working as part of the Onboarding Team for new analysts providing support during their initial probation period. 

  • Acting as a Subject Matter Expert within the Service Desk.

  • Liaising with different Areas of Responsibility to support new analysts in transitioning from their training period to independent working.

  • Creating, Editing, Reviewing and Approving knowledge articles created within the service desk, ensuring the quality and integrity of the knowledge base remains in line with Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) and ITIL standards.

 

Service Desk Analyst

Allstate Northern Ireland

May 2019 - May 2020 (1 year 1 month)

  • Providing 1st-line service desk support to Allstate Insurance agencies using the Integrated Service Phone systems.

  • Providing a white-glove service to key stakeholders.

  • Contributing to a newly established knowledge base for the Integrated Service product.

  • Liaising with the Voice development and Voice analytics team to investigate incidents and perform root-cause analysis.

  • Working within Avaya Softphone software to troubleshoot VoIP issues.

  • Providing 1st-line technology support to Allstate Insurance Agencies in the United States.

  • Contributing to the internal knowledge base by creating knowledge articles which provide troubleshooting steps for users to attempt to resolve issues they experience via self-service.

  • Working within ITSM software such as ServiceNow, creating incidents and working them to either resolution or escalation.

  • Utilising Remote Assistance software such as GoToAssist and BeyondTrust to remotely access users' machines to troubleshoot and resolve issues.

 

 

 

Education

Belfast Metropolitan College

Bachelor's Degree,

Cyber Security and Networking Infrastructure

Sept 2023 - Jan 2025

Grade Awarded: Course complete, yet to be awarded. Provisional 2:2/2:1.

 

Modules studied:

♣ Advanced Networking (Y1)

♣ Cyber Security Operations and Response (Y1)

♣ Final Year Project (Y2)

 

Belfast Metropolitan College

Foundation degree,

Cyber Security and Networking Infrastructure

Jan 2021 - May 2023

Grade Awarded: Pass with Merit

 

Modules studied:

♣ Introduction to Programming (Python) (Y1)

♣ Introduction to Networking (Y1)

♣ Host Security (Y1)

♣ Mathematics for Computing (Y1)

♣ Blockchain Architecture (Y1)

 

♣ Cloud and Mobile Security (Y2)

♣ Ethical Hacking (Y2)

♣ Incident Management (Y2)

♣ Implementation of Cyber Security (Y2)

♣ Work-based Learning Project (Y2)

 

University of Ulster

Bachelor of Science - BSc,

Sociology with Psychology

Sept 2011 - May 2014

Grade Awarded: Second Class Upper Division

 

Modules Studied:

♣ Introduction to Psychology (Y1)

♣ Classic Studies (Y1)

♣ Qualitative Research Methods (Y1)

♣ Introduction to Sociology (Y1)

♣ Classical Sociological Theory (Y1)

♣ Social Structure of Modern Ireland (Y1)

 

♣ Developmental Psychology (Y2)

♣ Social Psychology (Y2)

♣ Contemporary Sociological Theory (Y2)

♣ Counting Society (Y2)

♣ Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict (Y2)

♣ Cross-Cultural Perspectives of Society (Y2)

 

♣ Counselling Psychology (Y3)

♣ Health Psychology (Y3)

♣ Methodology, Ethics and Politics of Research (Y3)

♣ Sociology of the Media (Y3)

♣ Mind, Body and Society (Y3)

♣ Dissertation (Y3)