Senior Drupal Infrastructure Engineer

JOB DETAILS

Type of contract : Consultant Contract

Level : Level 3 - Senior

Hiring Unit : Bureau for Digital Business Solutions (DBS)

Duty Station : Paris

Work location : Remote

Duration of contract : 11 months

Hiring open to : External candidates

Application deadline (Midnight UTC+2 Time) : 09/10/2026

UNESCO Core Values: Commitment to the Organization, Integrity, Respect for Diversity, Professionalism

OVERVIEW

This post is located within the Bureau for Digital Business Solutions (DBS), under the overall authority of the Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO) and the direct supervision of the Senior IT Operations and Service Manager.

ASSIGNMENTS

Under the Director of Digital Business Solutions' authority, Paris, direct supervision of the Senior IT Operations and Service Manager and coordination with the Network and Systems Operations Team. The consultant will assist HQ's UNESCO DBS (Digital Business Solutions) team in managing the web environment. The consultant should deliver the following expected outputs:

• Secure and modernize UNESCO's web hosting infrastructure.
• Maintain and evolve the Drupal platform and its supporting services.
• Support UNESCO's cloud and infrastructure strategy through targeted studies and reporting.

CONTRACT DURATION

The assignment is expected to cover a period of 11 months, commencing on or around mid october 2026.

The services will be delivered [remotely/on UNESCO premises through a hybrid arrangement], subject to operational requirements. Availability may be required during critical production incidents, financial closing exercises, banking implementations, and major deployments.

Any travel required for the assignment will be agreed in advance and handled in accordance with UNESCO’s applicable rules and procedures.

DELIVERABLES

The consultant will assist HQ's UNESCO DBS team in managing the web/Drupal environment. The consultant should deliver the following expected outputs:

Cloudflare Deployment:

• Responsible for the migration of defined websites to Cloudflare. The list of websites will be defined and prioritized together with UNESCO.

• Coordinate with the website owners the test of migrated websites and the fine-tuning of configured rules when required.

WAF Platform Deployment:

• Bring on-premises websites that are not yet behind the WAF platform under its protection, with its security rules enforced.

• Migrate all websites currently served through the legacy load balancer to the WAF platform.

• Coordinate with DBS and website owners to test migrated websites and fine-tune the configured rules where needed Support CPE activities:

• Installation of a queueing system (RabbitMQ/MQTT).

• upgrade of SOLR.

• upgrade of the URL shortener system.

• Test of PostgreSQL.

• Contribute to the evolution strategy for the virtualization infrastructure.

• Automatic deployment of new websites.

• More performance monitoring.

Cloud Migration:

• Perform a study on how the website environment could be migrated to the cloud and how much that would cost.

• Write a document describing the results of the study.

Daily Maintenance of the Website environment:

• Apply operating system security updates to all servers in a timely manner.

• Keep servers on current, supported versions of the operating system.

• Ensure that Drupal security fixes are tested and installed on all servers in a timely manner.

• Ensure that a proper monitoring solution is in place to alert on CPU, Memory, storage, and Application performance for all servers. Alerts should automatically raise incident tickets in the UNESCO ticketing tool.

• Decommissioning of websites and servers that are no longer being used or no longer meet security and quality standards..

• Evaluate Azure Arc and Azure features to manage the website environment.

Weekly Reporting:

• Provide by e-mail a description of the tasks performed during the week every Friday by 06:00 pm.

COMPETENCIES - Core (C) & Managerial (M)

• Communication (C)
• Accountability (C)
• Innovation (C)
• Knowlegde sharing and continuous improvement (C)
• Planning and organizing (C)
• Results focus (C)
• Teamwork (C)

For detailed information, please consult the UNESCO Competency Framework.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

EDUCATION

• Advanced degree (Master’s) or bachelor's with a minimum of 10 years of working experience in the IT field from a recognized and reputable university

WORK EXPERIENCE

• At least 5 years of successful, relevant professional experience (or 10 years in case of a bachelor’s degree) focused on Drupal, Linux and full-stack automation.
• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic, MySQL databases and CI/CD pipelines is mandatory.

Long Description

SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

The consultant should demonstrate:

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, information technology, networking and negotiating skills. Knowledge of UN systems and procedures is an asset.

LANGUAGES

• Excellent oral and written skills in English, particularly the ability to draft documents and express views clearly and concisely.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Please upload the following documents into one single PDF file:

1) an updated curriculum vitae

2) a technical proposal including an approach and methodology for the assignment (1-2 pages)

3) a financial proposal: The amount to be charged for the assignment period from 15 October 2026 to 15 August 2027, which should be quoted in US dollars or Euros as a monthly fee.

Long Description

SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Please note that all candidates must complete an on-line application and provide complete and accurate information, by the above deadline.

To apply, please visit the UNESCO Careers website. No modifications can be made to the application once submitted.

The process may include pre-recorded video interviews and/or written assessments, interviews with a Panel, as well as reference checks. In addition, candidates may be requested to provide additional information which may be pertinent to the position’s qualifications.

Please note that all candidates, whether selected or not, will be informed of the outcome of their application in due course.

Short-listed candidates may also be added to Talent Pools; subject to their consent (i.e. Data Privacy Statement).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• UNESCO recalls that paramount consideration in the appointment of personnel shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, technical competence and integrity.
• UNESCO applies a zero-tolerance policy against all forms of harassment.
• lndividuals from minority groups and indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.
• All applications will be treated with the highest level of confidentiality.
• UNESCO does not charge a fee at any stage of the hiring process.