List of Careers

Infrastructure architecture is new concept on the architecture block. Since ancient times, a large amount of architecture attention was devoted to application architecture. Several developments have promoted a growing need for infrastructure architecture. Not only an organization’s infrastructure benefits from appliance of this architectural discipline; infrastructure architecture is in its nascent stage and a lot of work is to be done for stimulating and creating infrastructure-architecture methods, tools and models.

The tasks of an infrastructure architect are helps us in understanding the job prospects for this professional. His responsibilities include knowing the Roles, Duties, Responsibilities and Tasks of Infrastructure Architect. Apart from this basic, one of his jobs is to evaluate market trends, technology and industry and also to identify their prospective impact on the business. This way, the infrastructure architect participates for developing and managing ongoing enterprise architecture structure on basis of IT strategies and performs as board and IT consultant for business leaders for developing infrastructure solutions.

The Infrastructure architect is also helping in promoting organization architecture process resulting in organization including business leaders and enterprises as he has to lead and delegate directions to prepare principles governing to help decision making significant to infrastructure architecture. Many-a-times, he is involved in development and implementation of the plan in relation to infrastructure architecture taking the basis of information technology business requirements and strategies.

He has to ensure the optimal governance structure to comply with the activities associated with infrastructure architecture adherence. He makes compulsory infrastructure architecture implementation as well as continuing refinement tasks for the organization. His involvement in stimulation and evaluation including selection of complete infrastructure architecture standards, in order to commensurate with information technology business partners, is essential. He regularly consults the project teams for their adjustments as per the infrastructure architecture assignments and helps in identifying the needs so that the infrastructure architecture can be modified to accomplish project requirements.

There might be some enterprise requirements for infrastructures, resources, structures, and cultural modifications. He helps in identifying the requirements and help supporting infrastructure architecture. He identifies the need to alter technical architecture for incorporating infrastructure needs. Consult with project teams of infrastructure development to fit entire architecture infrastructure. The entire documentation of the whole architecture design along with the evaluation work is to be done.

In order to perform all or some of the above stated tasks, there is an excellent salary package given to the professionals. The professionals are less and the jobs are more, so go and get it.

Employees in this job function as information technology (IT) professionals serving as technical experts and participate in or oversee a variety of analytical and technical assignments that provide for problem diagnosis and solutions documentation, implementation, administration, support, and maintenance of a variety of hardware, software, and network products in an information technology infrastructure environment.

Infrastructure Analyst: The employee performs a range of professional assignments. Independent judgment is required to carry out assignments that have significant impact on services or programs. Guidelines may be available, but require adaptation or interpretation to determine appropriate courses of action.

Senior Infrastructure Analyst: This is the advanced level. The employee may function as a lead or senior worker. At this level, employees are responsible for overseeing the work assignments of other information technology professionals or have regular assignments which have been recognized by Civil Service as having significantly greater complexity than those assigned at the experienced level.

The job duties listed are typical examples of the work performed by positions in this job classification. Not all duties assigned to every position are included, nor is it expected that all positions will be assigned every duty.

One of the duties is to provide onsite or remote access diagnoses using a highly integrated set of diagnostic tools and techniques utilizing a specialized set of diagnostic tools and elevated privileges. The other duties include research, analyzing, developing, and documenting new processes and procedures to implement new solutions for use by Technicians to meet future problem resolution needs.

An infrastructure Analyst serves as technical expert providing support to IT Technicians who is helping in developing guidelines and upgrade techniques for new operational procedures for the support of hardware systems, databases, network systems software, operating systems software, and security server systems.

He leads in the development of processes and procedures and thus making him responsible to administer, implement, and provide technical support of application and associated hardware used in a client server environment utilizing a specialized set of diagnostic tools with elevated privileges. He also administers and implements automated data processing systems and computer application programs.

There is a part for developing specifications to detail what new systems or enhancements to existing systems can accomplish. Also helps to develop operational, installation, and upgrade procedures, to be used by other staff, for communication systems, hardware, network, security, storage and software. He serves as a liaison between other technical staff, management, users, and vendors regarding service requests, usage, standards, security, and other technical matters.

A three or four year degree in Infrastructure can land a person in any one of the job roles stated below. These job roles are project dependent and many times they are task dependent. Some of the job prospects available for the Infrastructure Engineer include working as an Electrical Design Engineer, Systems Engineer, SOA Architect, Infrastructure Engineer or an Operations Supervisor.

But many will get an opportunity to work as specialists of their said fields. These fields are constantly testing their engineering skills in one way or the other. This includes working as an Infrastructure Engineer I-IBM Tivoli Specialist, Integration and Technical Consultant, SOA Middleware Engineer, VSB Technical Support, CISCO VOIP Engineer or SQL Server Developer.

The main aim of these engineers is to build the infrastructure to be mark of engineering. For this, there is a requirement of Senior Associates, Network Engineers, Server Virtualization Support Engineer, Building Automation Engineer, Senior Consultant and Cloud Computing Manager.

Building a building requires items and that too in very large quantities; the management of those items is done by the Storage Sales Engineer and Inventory Control Manager. The Senior Voice Engineer, Enterprise Engineer, Telecom Engineer, Radio Engineer and the Transmission Engineer are helpful in bringing life to the like plans.

Specific jobs like welding supervisor, pipeline engineer, irrigation engineer and civil engineer are working in conjunction with the supervisors and the foremen of various trades and giving life to the structure.

Apart from the job, most of the companies also give the following benefits to the employees of this profession are like competitive salaries including medical, vision and dental benefits, disability and life insurance, transportation facilities, accommodation or reimbursement for accommodation and a laptop or a desktop.

Many of the appointments are available on contractual basis also. The opportunities for job vary as per the specialty of the task. For most of the jobs, a bachelor degree in the specified field is required for most of the jobs in entry level. The starting salaries are definitely the highest and there is always a scope of learning new things and technology as job progresses. Infrastructure offers very responsible job opportunities as most of the time, lives are dependent on the tasks or while tasks are being completed. The job offers are in between the scientific discoveries and inventions and the application of this in the commercial world, thus ensuring job satisfaction in terms of status, knowledge, responsibility, growth and salary.

There are a number of courses offered at various selective institutes for studying Infrastructure. These courses are very much job or the task dependent. The courses for infrastructure have been divided into three main categories namely, General Management Courses, Infrastructure Management Courses and Elective Courses.

The core courses in General Management category are dealing to make the individual somewhat efficient in the effective control of a division or department of a large organization. If one has work experiences along with the courses, one may easily find themselves in the position or appointment that is among the top management levels.

Some of the courses in infrastructure, helping you to win in this big arena of General Management are like Microeconomic or Macroeconomic Analysis and Policies, Economics and Financial Accounting, Management and cost Accounting including corporate finance and capital market. Apart from these courses, there are many specific courses like Leadership and Change Management, Strategic or Marketing Management, Talent Management and Organizational Behavior are specific task based courses.

The infrastructure management has the courses, not helping in developing the managerial skills, but the technical skills of an individual. There are a variety of programs that an individual can decide to go in for and increase his proficiency and efficiency. Some of the courses like Infrastructure development, policies and regulations and Project Initiation and Land Acquisition are an eye opener for the students as they are able to correlate the project with its impact to the environment.

But, in an infrastructure, there is a risk involved and these and much more are covered in the courses like Management Control System or Infrastructure Financing or Risk Management in Infrastructure and Legal Aspects of Infrastructure Business. These courses help the student to get an insight of in bureaucratic structure of the Infrastructure system

Elective Courses: These elective courses are offered so the student is able to get along with the subjects of his or her liking and improvise on their skills. In many institutes, the students are to select a few elective courses that amount to aggregation of credits or marks for that subject. Some of the elective subjects being offered by the infrastructure institutes are like Transport Infrastructure, Port Management and Finance, Energy & Environmental Markets, Carbon Finance, Sustainability, Renewable Energy Applications and Organizational Development.

Each and every course in the main or the elective stream is valid in combination for a specific type of job, so the students must be careful in deciding the electives.

Infrastructure is a career option that has expanded to billions of dollar industry. Some time back, it was only restricted to simple but designer buildings, but now a days, the buildings are more of engineering marvels and this is what has created the jobs and employment opportunities for the skilled persons. The following are the hottest jobs in infrastructure, in the world:-

• Installers for smart meter: The world has seen meters for electricity evolve into smart meters. Throughout the world, the old electricity meters are being replaced and these new smart meters are being installed.
• Process Piping Designer: They are the persons, who are helping in the designing of the complex system of plumbing in many of the petrochemical plants. The requirements are that the person applying for this job should have a minimum of a two year degree in subjects of computer aided design. Experience is always counted.
• Geotechnical engineers: They are the professionals having expertise on the soil conditions and foundations. The professionals play a key role in the foundation of the buildings and large structures like bridges, highways, tunnels, dams, etc.
• Transmission lineman: They are the persons earning $40 + per hour and are responsible for the maintenance of specific type of installations like high voltage lines, laid across very long distances.
• Nuclear engineers: These are the types of engineers are hard to get and this type of studies are conducted at very limited number of authorized colleges. They are those professionals, who are employed for specific jobs only. They are the ones who are working for maintenance and operating civil nuclear power plants.
• Radiation protection Technician: It is a big responsibility to monitor radiation levels in the place or the environment, where the radioactive materials are used. These people are highly trained. They are the best in the jobs they do.
• Ironworker: There are two types of iron workers, namely connectors and the rodmen. The connector ironworkers generally work on vertical uprights and attach horizontal beams to these uprights. While, the rodmen ironworkers lays the steel grids on any type of floors.
• Bridge engineer: There are more than a hundred thousand bridges in India and more than eighty thousand bridges in America, making one realize how important the bridge engineer is.

These careers in infrastructure are all specialized tasks and require constant training under a supervisor for some years before one can start to do job by themselves.

Building management is a specialized service that helps in doing a multi-facet task. It allows the owner of the building to rest while; the management gets involved in the rental or investment of the building. Their approach to building management and also maintenance helps in overall look-after of the building or the property.

Building management is responsible for the following essentials:-

• Listing of the property as a rental and also helping in advertising of the building using the available media, as per the funds allotted or decided.
• The building management also organizes meetings to show off the pre-screened perspective of the available property or building, through fixing private appointments.
• There is a requirement for preparation and lodging of ingoing property condition report.
• The building management photographs the property in detail.
• It is also responsible for preparation of the inventory of the building or the property.
• Necessary documentation is available with them.
• Building management is also responsible for taking on the legal and tribunal matters and representations on behalf of the owner.
• A team from the building management is responsible for carrying out the regular maintenance inspections of the building. This includes the hard and the soft parts of the building. Also this includes the maintenance of the service lifts and gardens.
• Building management acts as advisors to the owner for insurance options available.
• Various kinds of rental bonds or sale deeds are kept with the building management.
• They are also responsible for the accounting and paying of the taxes.
• They are present to resolve any kind of conflicts that happen in or for the building.

This does not mean that they are the owners of the building, but this means that they are the care takers of the building and helping the owner to generate income from it.

Building management is a very specialized job that requires dedication and lots of patience. The building management takes over the building or the property after a very careful technical examination and till the time, they are not satisfied, they do not do anything.

There are many options available in the concept of building management, but each of them involves a professional to do the job. There are managers and the administrators. There are also clerks and computer operators. There is a chartered accountant dealing with financial aspects and many more.

The primary focus of the infrastructure jobs is to help the implementation of the data of the organization and the operations strategy to come up with the standards. Infrastructure manager jobs are vastly further classified into almost all the types of managerial jobs known to us, but are looking after a defined set of operations. This means that there is a strong coordination required for the overall system to work. The various types of jobs further available under the head of infrastructure manager are Infrastructure Project Manager, Operations Systems Engineer, Senior Problem Management Analyst, Senior Network Engineer and Database Administration Manager.

Some of the managing departments are highly skill specific and require managers who have expertise in the said technologies or work, like Administrator Lotus Notes, MS Exchange Share-point Active Director, and Senior Engineer for Market Data Operations, Manager Cisco Network, Oracle Systems DBA and Oracle Data Administrator.

There are some of the managers who are required to work under dangerous situations and so very bold and best in their work are required for the jobs like Telecom Manager, Geotechnical Manager and Electricity Supervisor. Some of the appointments are in the strategic installations and these include Reactor Supervisor, Nuclear Engineering Manager, Pipeline Supervisor, Radiation Protection Manager, Reactor Manager, Cooling Bay Manager, Cooling rod Supervisor and Maintenance Manager. These jobs are dangerous and require presence of mind to work with a team of equally if not more skilled professionals.

The demand for the professionals in the field of infrastructure has increased to a large extent as all the businesses require infrastructure and thus a requirement for infrastructure management. But what does an infrastructure manager do? They are responsible for Integration of computer applications with the strategies involved in building an infrastructure and they plan the infrastructure policies based on the countries project development rules.

They are also responsible for applying the principles of finance and accounting in the field of contract management and help in regulating the issues of Infrastructure Management. They also study the demographic dynamics of settlement of humans and housing.

A graduate with a three years degree minimum can get into the field of infrastructure management, but a higher degree like a post graduate degree in Master of Business Administration can help in cracking the desired level in infrastructure management. These people with MBA’s with their masters in infrastructure management would find themselves as infrastructure managers or project resource managers or sometimes find themselves at project organizers. Information Technology, Energy, Aviation, Construction and mining are some of the favorite sectors where the youngsters see their destinations in infrastructure management.

Infrastructure management services deals with the particulars for the analysis of the necessities, the scheduling of the project, and the plan of the project and operations management. This includes the technical support staff helping the customers in relieving them of queries posed by them.

The infrastructure management services broadly include the following disciplines:-

• Design and Planning: This discipline helps in provision of the skeleton and a commonsensical approach for two aspects of design. The two aspects are strategic and technical. This discipline includes a combination of the approach for business, the design and the associated architecture of the project. The essential output of this discipline include:-
  • The strategies, the policies and the plans.
  • The overall architecture.
  • The feasibility study.
  • Any other business cases.
• Deployment management: This discipline of the infrastructure management services provides the necessary and successful management of the design, the build parameters, the testing and the deployment or the roll-out of the project. This management services is basically doing non-functional testing. It also helps in functional testing of the project.
• Operations management: This discipline is dealing with the infrastructure management, a service that includes the technical supervision of the day-to-day problems project encounters in a huge project. It’s not an incident management system, but is more technical in nature and is not only concerned with the incidences reported by the users. It is also dealing with the incidences which get reported by the employees or are recorded by the computers. Operations management is answerable for:-
  • Stable and secure infrastructure.
  • Updating of operational documentation library.
  • Operational event logs.
  • Operational management tools and monitoring.
  • Operational scripts.
  • Operational procedures.
• Technical Support: It’s a specialized technical function of the infrastructure management services. This technical support is present for helping the technical staff for technical evaluation and also helps in finding out the market intelligence. Apart from this, the technical professionals are also involved in creation of the documents for the know error database and get into specialist technical expertise for problem managements.

All these disciplines work in coordination towards the better development of the project. The data also help in analysis of project at various stages of evolution. This is the backbone of any project to grow as desired. It is a focused job and required technical efficiency and skill in the persons trying to get into it.

For building up an infrastructure, there is a need to get loans and finances for developing these huge projects, unless otherwise one is too rich. In order to make things better, infrastructure financing has developed many types of financing options to help the project grow and take a shape in reality.

There are many types of financing options for building infrastructure and they are:-

• Feasibility study: There are options available for financing the loans for the research regarding feasibility of a project. Many financial institutions give this loan if they pass project report of the project mentioned.
• Infrastructure Funds: In order to start a big project, the loans can be demanded in form of infrastructure funds, from the insurance companies. The rate of return is very high and is best utilized by the multi-national companies.
• Project Finance: Under this subhead, the project gets financed purely on the basis of the projected flow of cash in the project, rather than taking into consideration the borrowers and sponsors credit worthiness. The institutions also recognize the risks involved, so the financing institutions ask for the supply contracts and demand analysis reports.
• Corporate Finance: This type of finance is based on two different parameters. They are the equity financing options and the debt financing options. In equity financing options, the funds are raised on the basis of provisioning of the ownership by the company to the shareholders. The debt financing options involve loans against secure assets.
• Export Credit Finance: This type of financing is also known as trade financing and there is a requirement of letters of credit by the banks so as to assure repayments.
• Public Finance: This is also called Bond Funding. This type of financing options is being increasingly exercised by the private companies. This takes into consideration the tax revenues or the projected tax revenues by the companies.
• Credit Enhancement Programs: In such programs, the companies involve many different companies to share the project and the profits. Though the profits given to the other companies are minimal, but it helps the project to incorporate attraction to the final output.

Infrastructure financing is indeed a tough job to do and requires a great deal of study before taking a financial advice. The financial advisors working in the companies have given out their entire lives to study the behavior of other institutions and have perfected themselves to get desired results.

Infrastructure Industry has grown very large in terms of space and money that it the careers in this industry have been divided into five groups. All the groups are the combination of various types of perspectives joined together with a focus independent of the other. All these type of career diversifications have led to the overall unification of the country and provides a structured harmony for the country. Five groups under which an individual is able make his or her career are:-

• Rural Infrastructure: There are three important sub-categories under this. The first is the road connectivity. This is an important aspect to rural development. The second category is the housing. It involves developing houses of contract or as planned. The third category in this infrastructure is the electrification of the structure.
• Core Infrastructure: This infrastructure group consists of coal production, electricity generation, crude petroleum production, petroleum refinery production, finished carbon steel production, cement production, roadways, aviation infrastructure, waterways, generation of thermal power, transmission of power, distribution network for power, etc.
• Land Intensive Infrastructure: These are those forms of infrastructure that involve lots of land and space requirements. These infrastructures include shopping arcades, highways, industrial parks and over bridges. The main objectives of land intensive infrastructure are:-
  • Increase in economic activity.
  • Promotion of goods, services and exports.
  • Promote investments both domestic and foreign.
  • Create employment.
  • Development of the area.
• Social Infrastructure: One cannot negate the overall effects of development. This concept has opened an arena of jobs by itself, where the professionals get employment and his employment gives benefits to the government in by generating revenues.
• Urban Infrastructure: The main aim of this type of infrastructure development is the urbanization of the areas where it is proposed. Take for example of commonwealth games held in India. The aim was to conduct the games, but the budget and planning of the infrastructures was done, so that permanent structures get made and these structures would help in making of the athletes and players in the times to come.

There are lots of avenues in all the five categories of infrastructure and due to which, the individual can do a lot. A degree in infrastructure management or architecture engineering will sail the young minds to their dreams.