Defence Business Services (DBS) Senior DevOps Engineer - MoD - SEO

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence? 

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.

• Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
• Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability. 

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society. 

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments.  Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026.

Come and join the DBS community today!

Job description

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Defence Business Services (DBS), Armed Forces and Veterans Services (AFVS), Development & Change (DevChg) DevOps Team.  You will lead a small DevOps (Development and Operations) team of Oracle Analytics Server (OAS) technical specialists, who provide development and support activities to a central AFVS data analytical service within the MoD.  Analytical services provide statistical and detailed AFVS reports and dashboards, either directly or by self-serve, to enable the MoD to make informed decisions on military strength or investments, as well as a multitude of other business purposes related to people e.g. recruitment, training, health, pay, allowances, unit, assignment, etc.

DBS AFVS are collaborating with their commercial partners to deliver a major transformation programme aimed at providing a more robust and coherent IT/infrastructure using the latest Oracle Analytical and Data Integration products which will migrate to Cloud based services, offering many benefits, including a better customer experience.

As the successful candidate you will provide senior DevOps engineering skills and leadership of a small DevOps team of data modellers and OAS technical specialists, who provide business enhancement to a major reporting service within the MoD.  You will provide OAS technical support, maintenance, and development activities on a large enterprise data warehouse reporting application. You will be part of a wider group responsible for DevChg of the IT capabilities used for AFVS.

The role is primarily to lead the full software delivery lifecycle of change and incident resolution of the MI Reporting Platform Database, currently OAS, with a DevOps and agile delivery focused team.

There are opportunities for training and development to further develop you within the role.

To succeed in this role, you should enjoy working as part of a team, be confident with IT, have excellent organisational and interpersonal skills and be an effective communicator. In return this role will provide you with the opportunity to expand your knowledge and develop your skills to a higher level.

Your responsibilities in this role.

• Mentoring and providing practical support for other team members on all areas of the OAS product and related technical matters.
• Service Operational support of a large enterprise reporting application, working within an ITIL aligned service management framework.
• As part of a resolver team for OAS incidents, respond efficiently and effectively to service tickets raised, as well as ensuring the team is managing the ticket workload.
• Undertake service improvements with fully documented responses to new business requirements, problem remediation and improvement activities.
• Develop full software capabilities within OAS with full testing and deployment, making use of agile methodologies.
• Represent and champion the AFVS Analytics business area in technical meetings and discussions with the Contractor, product vendor and other MoD departments.
• Collaborate closely with the Contractor resources and technical teams to ensure coherent and effective solutions are developed and support routine monitoring activities.
• Build, maintain, and review technical design documentation for the reporting platform, applying appropriate standards and ensuring high service quality.

Person specification

Essential skills and experience requirements:-

You must have demonstrable skills and experience of developing and supporting an Oracle data warehouse technical platform with Oracle Analytics Server (or Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)) providing analytical insights and reporting.

Some experience and exposure to working with Human Resources Enterprise Resource Planning applications such as Oracle e-Business Suite (EBS), where that is used as a data source for the data warehouse and analytical reporting.

Strong database skills for dimensional data modelling (data-mart or star schema constructs) for data warehousing on Oracle databases (or an equivalent).

Desirable skills and experience

• Working within Agile Teams.
• ITIL experience and/or certification. 
• Practical experience of Extract, Transform & Load (ETL) development and support using Oracle products

Qualifications

Oracle Database SQL or equivalent experience

Languages

Proficient in the English language.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Developing Self and Others
• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Developing Self and Others

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Programming and Build (Software Engineering)
• Prototyping
• Systems Design
• Systems Integration