GIS Application Administrator

Compensation Range:

$63,297.00 - $94,926.00

Our full-time positions come with an array of excellent benefits including comprehensive healthcare coverage, a pension plan, flexible spending accounts and even a tuition reimbursement program.

At Lancaster County, we understand the importance of work-life balance. That's why we offer paid time off for sick, vacation and holidays, an employee assistance program, and family medical leave.

If you're passionate about making a difference, apply today to join us in serving the community!

Job Description:

JOB SUMMARY

• The GIS Application Administrator serves as the County’s primary technical administrator and subject-matter expert for enterprise GIS applications, platforms, integrations, and related technologies. The position is responsible for the configuration, availability, security, performance, reliability, and continued improvement of GIS systems supporting County operations, public-facing services, and mission-critical public-safety functions, including Next Generation 9-1-1 and integrated emergency-response systems.

• This position provides technical ownership of the County’s enterprise GIS environment and independently administers application configurations, system services, user access, licensing, integrations, upgrades, testing, deployment, monitoring, troubleshooting, documentation, backup, recovery, and continuity processes. The GIS Application Administrator identifies system risks and service dependencies, investigates complex technical issues, determines appropriate solutions, and coordinates corrective actions to minimize operational disruption.

• The position leads GIS application and systems projects, evaluates departmental business and technical requirements, develops implementation strategies, and coordinates work among GIS staff, Information Technology, County departments, public-safety agencies, consultants, vendors, and other stakeholders. The GIS Application Administrator also participates in after-hours and on-call support for critical GIS applications, integrations, and public-safety services.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

• This position is supervised by the GIS Manager.

• This position does not have supervisory responsibility.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Serve as the County’s primary technical administrator and subject-matter expert for enterprise GIS applications, system architecture, spatial data, integrations, geospatial services, and network-connectivity modeling.

• Provide technical ownership and lifecycle administration of the County’s enterprise GIS platforms, including ArcGIS Enterprise, Portal for ArcGIS, ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Online, enterprise geodatabases, web applications, map and feature services, APIs, and related components.

• Administer, configure, monitor, maintain, optimize, and troubleshoot enterprise GIS applications and supporting technologies to ensure system availability, performance, security, reliability, interoperability, and continuity of operations.

• Support mission-critical GIS applications, data, and integrations used by Next Generation 9-1-1, computer-aided dispatch, emergency communications, public-safety agencies, and other time-sensitive County operations.

• Participate in scheduled on-call and after-hours support and serve as a technical escalation resource for critical GIS application failures, service interruptions, data issues, integration failures, and public-safety incidents.

• Independently investigate complex application, database, service, performance, connectivity, and integration issues; identify root causes; assess operational impacts; and implement or coordinate timely corrective actions.

• Design, configure, publish, maintain, and optimize GIS databases, datasets, layers, maps, applications, web services, APIs, and related data structures to meet enterprise, departmental, public-safety, and public-facing requirements.

• Create, manage, maintain, validate, and improve authoritative GIS data using established standards, quality-control procedures, topology rules, versioning practices, data-governance requirements, and approved editing workflows.

• Establish and maintain data-quality standards for critical GIS datasets, including the validation of spatial accuracy, attribute completeness, topology, connectivity, service availability, and compliance with applicable County, state, federal, and industry standards.

• Administer application configurations, user accounts, groups, roles, permissions, licenses, service accounts, authentication methods, and access controls in accordance with County cybersecurity, identity-management, least-privilege, and data-governance requirements.

• Evaluate proposed application changes, integrations, upgrades, patches, and configurations for technical compatibility, cybersecurity risk, service dependencies, operational impact, and supportability.

• Plan, coordinate, test, document, and implement GIS application upgrades, patches, deployments, integrations, migrations, and system changes while minimizing service interruptions and maintaining appropriate rollback and recovery procedures.

• Develop, maintain, and test application backup, recovery, continuity, and disaster-recovery procedures in coordination with Information Technology and applicable business and public-safety stakeholders.

• Monitor application health, logs, services, databases, integrations, capacity, utilization, licensing, and performance indicators; identify emerging issues and recommend improvements before they affect County operations.

• Lead GIS application, integration, modernization, and data-development projects of varying size and complexity, including defining scope, identifying requirements, developing implementation plans, coordinating resources, managing risks, tracking progress, and communicating project status.

• Evaluate business, operational, and technical requirements and translate them into secure, scalable, reliable, supportable, and maintainable geospatial solutions.

• Recommend GIS architecture, application, data, integration, workflow, automation, and technology improvements that increase reliability, operational efficiency, data quality, interoperability, and customer service.

• Coordinate with vendors, consultants, service providers, and partner agencies regarding technical requirements, system implementations, issue resolution, product support, licensing, service performance, and contract deliverables.

• Develop and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, including system architecture diagrams, application inventories, configuration records, data dictionaries, integration specifications, operating procedures, recovery procedures, change records, support guides, and knowledge-base materials.

• Establish and maintain GIS application support procedures, operational standards, technical controls, and escalation processes to ensure consistent and reliable service delivery.

• Provide technical guidance, mentoring, and subject-matter support to GIS staff, Information Technology personnel, departmental users, project teams, vendors, and external partners.

• Collaborate with all areas of Information Technology, County departments, municipalities, public-safety agencies, vendors, and other stakeholders to support the County’s internal and external customers.

• Maintain knowledge of emerging GIS, NG911, public-safety, database, cloud, cybersecurity, and application-administration technologies and recommend appropriate adoption or modernization opportunities.

• Perform other duties and participate in special projects as assigned.

OTHER SPECIFIC TASKS OR DUTIES

• Perform other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS 

• Completion of a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography, GIS, Computer Science, Environmental Sciences, Planning, or related field, and a minimum of three (3) years experience in the Information Technology field or;

• Associate’s Degree in Computer Science, or related field, and a minimum of five (5) years experience in Information Technology field or;

• Any equivalent combination of relevant education, experience, and training is acceptable.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Advanced technical knowledge of the Esri platform, including ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise, Portal for ArcGIS, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Server, enterprise geodatabases, web applications, map and feature services, APIs, and REST endpoints.

• Advanced knowledge of enterprise GIS architecture, application administration, server and service configuration, publishing workflows, system dependencies, authentication methods, licensing models, integration methods, and high-availability considerations.

• Knowledge of GIS applications and datasets supporting Next Generation 9-1-1, emergency communications, computer-aided dispatch, addressing, public safety, network connectivity, and emergency-response operations.

• Ability to independently administer enterprise GIS applications, services, servers, databases, user accounts, groups, roles, permissions, licenses, service accounts, and related security configurations.

• Knowledge of identity and access-management concepts, including authentication, authorization, role-based access control, least privilege, multifactor authentication, single sign-on, service accounts, and access-review practices.

• Thorough knowledge of GIS principles, spatial data management, cartographic standards, coordinate systems, projections, geocoding, topology, network modeling, spatial analysis, and data-quality practices.

• Practical experience working with vector, raster, imagery, elevation, terrain, network, cadastral, address, and other geospatial datasets and analytical tools.

• Applied knowledge of designing, developing, administering, maintaining, securing, and optimizing enterprise geodatabases and GIS datasets using relational database technologies.

• Knowledge of database concepts, including schemas, tables, views, relationships, indexing, versioning, replication, permissions, data integrity, backup, recovery, and performance optimization.

• Ability to design, publish, administer, troubleshoot, and optimize GIS web services, applications, integrations, APIs, and automated data-exchange processes.

• Ability to monitor system and application health, analyze logs and performance information, diagnose complex technical problems, determine root causes, assess operational impacts, and implement effective corrective actions.

• Knowledge of application lifecycle and service-management practices, including requirements analysis, development, testing, quality assurance, deployment, configuration management, patching, change management, incident response, problem management, backup, recovery, and continuity planning.

• Knowledge of cybersecurity principles applicable to enterprise applications, including vulnerability management, secure configuration, patch management, access control, logging, monitoring, data protection, risk assessment, and incident response.

• Ability to evaluate business and operational requirements and translate them into secure, reliable, scalable, interoperable, and maintainable GIS application and data solutions.

• Ability to identify system dependencies, technical risks, resource requirements, implementation constraints, and operational impacts associated with proposed technology changes.

• Ability to exercise independent technical judgment, establish priorities during service disruptions, and make timely decisions affecting mission-critical applications and County operations.

• Ability to lead technical projects involving multiple departments, systems, vendors, public agencies, and stakeholders from requirements gathering through implementation and operational transition.

• Knowledge of project-management principles, including scope development, scheduling, resource coordination, risk management, issue tracking, testing, stakeholder communication, and implementation planning.

• Skill in technical writing, including the development of system documentation, architecture diagrams, operating procedures, configuration records, user guides, proposals, reports, presentations, correspondence, and support materials.

• Ability to organize and manage multiple projects, incidents, service requests, operational responsibilities, and competing priorities while meeting established deadlines.

• Ability to work independently with limited supervision while maintaining effective communication with management, technical teams, customers, vendors, and other stakeholders.

• Strong analytical, organizational, research, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical information to technical and nontechnical audiences.

• Strong interpersonal, collaboration, customer-service, facilitation, and active-listening skills.

• Ability to provide scheduled on-call and after-hours support and respond to critical application, integration, data, and public-safety system incidents as required.

REQUIRED LICENSES/CERTIFICATIONS/CLEARANCES

• Candidate must pass a criminal background check

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS/WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Work is primarily sedentary in nature; no special demands are required.

• Handles highly confidential information/material, with the ability to work under privacy guidelines including the County Information Security Policy, HIPAA, and CJIS.

The County of Lancaster offers comprehensive benefits to our employees.  Read more about our benefits here.

Lancaster County Government provides Equal Employment Opportunity for all persons regardless of race, religion, age, sex, national origin, genetic information or disability. The County also observes all applicable laws regarding Veterans status. The County reflects this action in all areas of employment and compensation practices and policies. Employment with the County is based upon the ability to perform the job as well as dependability and reliability once an individual is hired.