Lead DevOps Engineer - DWP - G6

Are you an experienced DevOps Engineer with a passion for automation excellence?

Would you love the opportunity to promote technical evolution within the organisation across multiple teams aligned to Digital Channels?

If so, come join us as a Lead DevOps Engineer.

We’re looking for an outstanding Lead DevOps Engineer, who want to contribute to demanding and exciting digital services for the UK Government. The products we build are the changing the face of public services with the potential to dramatically transform the future of millions of people.

Digital Channels drives and enables the modernisation of DWP’s customer contact, helping customers communicate with our department via the most appropriate channel.  We run some of the UK’s largest 'Live Services' including the telephony, bulk printing and the scanning and indexing of incoming letters and forms.

We’re looking for a driven and passionate Lead DevOps Engineer who would like to be part of teams delivering real value to people that need help during the difficult times of their lives.

The candidate will act as a DevOps leader, building a DevOps culture along with line management responsibility of Senior DevOps Engineers. You will lead existing DevOps Engineers while increasing capability, standards and practices across the organisation.

As a Lead DevOps Engineer you will contribute to our community ensuring that DWP and our DevOps practices evolve in line with technology advances.

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see 'Selection process details'.

Job description

As Lead DevOps Engineer, you will:

• Work across multiple teams as an engineering specialist leading the organisation’s DevOps strategy while defining and refining its engineering standards.
• Push a mindset and culture change within the organisation to foster engineering ownership of infrastructure development alongside software engineering activities.
• Create capability, through definition of training opportunities, pastoral care and practice alignment.
• Be responsible for ensuring our digital services are adhering to standards and best practice.
• Be responsible for recruitment within the DevOps community and working with the Head of Engineering for Digital Channels to ensure strategically the teams are setup to succeed.
• Responsible for mentoring and support of engineers and trainee DevOps engineers.

Person specification

When giving details in your employment history and Personal Statement you should highlight your experience in line with the essential criteria below:

• Lead Criterion - Experience of leading and supporting engineers in multi-disciplinary teams in an agile environment following a DevOps strategy while sharing knowledge and good practice with the wider organisation. 
• Significant experience of the full life cycle of a cloud-based platforms and applications from designing, through deployment to supporting and patching (in particular AWS and Azure).
• Significant experience of version control systems as well as building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines e.g. git with GitLab CI or Jenkins. 
• Significant experience of Infrastructure-as-code and configuration of code for one or more cloud providers. 
• Experience of containerisation and container orchestration. 
• Experience of multiple scripting and/or programming languages (e.g. Bash, Python).

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Natalie.selby1@dwp.gov.uk

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,664, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,050 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Alongside your salary, the Department for Work and Pensions contributes 28.97% towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 23 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £72,664 to £77,740.  

The maximum salary for the grade is £77,740, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed.  

Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview.  

Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer should maintain their current salary.  

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion may move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater. 

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Stage 1: Application

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and Personal Statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Your application will consist of three parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Your employment history detailing your responsibilities, skills, accomplishments, plus your qualifications and relevant training. Please copy this information into the box field provided.

3. Personal Statement up to 1250 words. 

When giving details in your employment history and Personal Statement you should highlight your experience in line with the essential criteria listed in the Person Specification.

Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the Lead Criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and Personal Statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria above.

You will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your CV and Personal Statement.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.

If your employment history/Personal Statement contains any personal details your application will be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Interview

Your interview will either be conducted face to face or by video. You will be notified of the location if you are selected for interview. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria.

You will be asked to do a (10 minutes) presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

Interviews will take place from early-December 2024. 

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.

Further information

Find out more about Working for DWP

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

A reserve list may be held for a period of 3 months from which further appointments can be made.

Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location.

Security Clearance Requirement

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting

Reasonable Adjustment

At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How We Recruit, page

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).