Department for Work and Pensions

Contents

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

This role may be located in one of the following locations; Blackpool, Manchester or Newcastle. Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.

About the job

Job summary

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

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

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

Payments are core to DWP. We are the biggest payer in the UK, serving 22m citizens which is 34% of the total UK population and make circa £277bn in payments annually generating 1/3 of the UK’s BACS traffic. 

We are delivering an ambitious transformation programme to reimagine and make best use of emerging future technologies in the banking industry to continue to ensure that people who get paid by DWP receive the right amount of money, at the right time into the right bank account. This role will sit within the AME Payments Platform Team. 

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. 

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. 

Job description

As Lead DevOps Engineer, you will: 

• Work across multiple teams as an engineering specialist defining and refining organisation 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 senior leaders in payments 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 essential criteria below:

• (Lead Criteria) 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. 
• Experience of leading and supporting Engineers in multi-disciplinary teams in an agile environment and sharing knowledge and good practice with the wider organisation. 
• 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). 

Please note- an initial sift may be conducted using the lead criteria listed. Those who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift. 

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact richard.hanley@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.

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. 

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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 : Richard Hanley
• Email : richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk

Recruitment team

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

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.

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