Home Office

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Croydon CR0 2WF, Manchester M5 3LZ, Sheffield S3 8NU

About the job

Job summary

We are looking for people who are passionate about Engineering to join our community led team in Shared Applications Service (SAS). You will work in agile multidisciplinary teams with over 200 engineers in a modern cloud environment using the latest technologies. Our purpose as a team is to bring technical understanding in-house for over 600 Home Office applications. 

You could be creating and maintaining some of the most critical public services in the United Kingdom and transforming how we use data and technology to improve these. We are responsible for designing, building and supporting solutions to help people prove their identity or apply for visas. You could also be working on critical IT systems that support policing and counter terrorism, which helps protect UK borders. 

Job description

The Senior DevOps is responsible for the reliable use of our platforms. Your role is not only to maintain our platforms, but also design and build elements of them, working with our architects and standards. You will also consider the security of platforms, monitoring as necessary. 

You will support long or short-term discovery within teams and with developers, helping them understand design constrains, and workforce/cost implications. You will advise on the CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Delivery) pipelines, ensuring those new users are able to deploy with appropriate speed. As necessary you may be working with a team long term to ensure effective working and maintain overall workflows. 

The Senior DevOps will be expected to mentor and lead other engineers in technical tasks, as well as support recruitment and assessment activities. 

Tools and Technologies we use: 

We are keen for Engineers to continue learning new technologies, we have a large range in the Home Office including:

• Backend: Java, Node.js, C#, Python, PHP, Scala, Power platform 
• Frontend: React, JavaScript, Typescript, Angular 
• Data: PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Mongodb, Apache Cassandra 
• DevOps: AWS, Kubernetes, Azure, Docker, Ansible, Terraform, Service Fabric 

What you will do 

Your main day to day responsibilities will be: 

• supporting teams in mapping their stories to the available platforms, helping effectively build and deploy secure services
• undertaking skilled platform build/support activities, such as developing hardened base containers
• spotting instances where teams are not using best practice; advising around delivery risk
• supporting engineers in service topology discovery; helping to define QA and deployment pipelines
• driving adoption of new tools so teams they can improve their integration approaches; developing new or improved support processes for users 

Like many organisations we need to maintain our services 24/7, therefore, on occasions there may be a requirement to work out of hours, for which you will be paid an additional allowance. 

Person specification

UK residency and security requirements - You need to have lived in the UK for the past 5 years. 

Essential Criteria 

As a Senior DevOps, you will have experience of: 

• Specifying and leading the implementation and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines according to best practices. (Lead Essential Criteria)
• Leading the design, implementation and review of complex cloud solutions using AWS or Azure according to best practices.
• Leading the implementation of automated testing, scanning and code analysis tooling, and advising on best practices.
• Specifying and ensuring good use of processes, procedures and tooling for application monitoring, maintenance, and incident response.
• Devising and leading implementation of data management processes and standards for cloud resources such as naming, tagging, metadata, backups, and documentation.
• Designing, coding, testing, maintaining and documenting scripts and infrastructure-as-code definitions to automate build and deployment activities. 

SFIA capability framework 

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all engineering levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework: All skills A–Z — English (sfia-online.org) 

We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process. 

SFIA levels of responsibility – Use the SFIA Levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each Technical Skill listed below. 

SFIA Technical Skills 

The essential technical skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework. Please see below for the relevant skills required for your role.

Technical skills

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

• Software design (SWDN) - Level 4
• Programming/software development (PROG) - Level 3
• Testing (TEST) - Level 3
• Systems integration and build (SINT) - Level 4
• Data management (DATM) - Level 4
• Application support (ASUP) - Level 4

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,300, Home Office contributes £17,468 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Why work for us...

• A highly competitive pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% 
• 25 days annual leave on appointment rising 1 day per year up to 30 days, plus 8 days public holidays and 1 day for the King’s Birthday. 
• Flexible working options to enable you to achieve the work life balance that is right for you including; Full time, part-time, flexi time, compressed hours and job sharing. 
• A hybrid working model of a minimum 60% of your contracted hours in the workplace and 40% remote. 
• Training and development opportunities tailored to your role, including access to technical and professional accreditations. 
• Access to funded qualifications (subject to approval) 
• A capability allowance reviewed annually. 
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity. 
• Enhanced parental leave schemes. 
• Annual performance-based bonus and recognition awards. 

This link is to a short guide to employee benefits: Benefits - Home Office Careers 

Why join our Engineering Community in the Home Office? 

This is a huge opportunity to be a part of our growth journey and build your capability and expertise. Below is what you can expect from us as part of your role: 

• Dedicated time for personal development and strong coaching/mentoring culture at all levels – Engineers love to give back to others!
• The ability to quickly progress and further yourself in your career with tailored career development plans to improve your capability.
• Opportunity to learn new programming languages and technologies.
• One of the largest technical estates within the UK and an opportunity to explore many different projects in a modern, agile digital environment.
• An inclusive environment where everybody's thoughts and opinions are valued.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Ruth Christy
• Email : acrecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment

principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance

HORecruitment.GRS@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

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