Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Department for Work and Pensions

Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 25th June 2023

 

Details

Reference number

285901

Salary

£50,155 - £75,781

Job grade

Grade 7

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

DWP - Digital

Type of role

Digital
Engineering
Information Technology

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

5

Contents

These roles will be based in Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield or Newcastle. Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.

Job summary

Are you someone who has excellent stakeholder management and problem-solving skills?

Do you like finding the root cause of a problem and building automated solutions to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

If so we’d love to hear from you.

As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer you will drive adoption of SRE best practice across the teams you work with. 

You will collaborate with application development and operations engineers in the practice of Site Reliability Engineering. 

You will be accountable for the reliability of the applications you support. 

You will actively manage the work backlog and develop reliability improvements as well as leading initiatives to develop the automation of low-value tasks balanced against project delivery demands. 

You will provide technical leadership to wider operational teams along with providing oversight to the products and services they support.

Job description

As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer you will;

• Will work across multiple teams as an engineering specialist implementing organisation engineering standards.

Support teams building reusable, repeatable, observable and reliable infrastructure.

• Design and develop the techniques for improving application reliability, run books, knowledge transfer, and ongoing SRE strategy within the wider engineering community.

Manage the error budget agreed with the product owner for the application and ensure that work is balanced in alignment with it.

Work collaboratively with teams throughout the investigation and resolution of major or complex incidents for the service, ensuring people with the right skills and expertise are proactively available to respond effectively.

Assess the impact of change requests in consultation with stakeholders, providing technical expertise and advice.

There is a requirement to provide on call support out of hours. On call allowance is payable on hours worked out side of the normal working day. Schedule of support will be arranged with the team.

Check out these blogs about Working in DWP's hybrid cloud services group and Sam's life in the clouds

Person specification

The essential criteria are outlined in the selection process details.

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

• An employer pension contribution of up to 27% For further information please click here.
• Annual leave rising up to 30 days, (based on your working pattern).
• Family friendly flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid working, job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Learning and development tailored to your role this could include industry recognised qualifications, coaching and mentoring. 
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join staff 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

Salary for this role is from £50,155 (Band min) to £60,781 (Band max).

Where the maximum salary of £60,781 is offered, a Digital Allowance of up to £15,000 per annum is available for exceptional candidates, based on our assessment of your skills and experience.

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 next grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater.

Selection process details

Stage 1: Application

Applications must include:

1. A completed Personal Details application form.

2. A curriculum vitae including education, professional qualifications and full employment history, giving details of key achievements. 

When giving details in your redacted CV you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Experience of scripting to automate processes, removing toil including infrastructure and configuration as code.

• Experience application and network protocols including port management and certificate management

• Experience of building and improving CI / CD Pipelines

• Experience of resolution of complex technical incidents

• Experience of reliability engineering including capacity and performance management through monitoring, logging and alerting

• Experience of orchestration platforms and tools for hosting and managing containerised applications

• Experience of engaging with stakeholders at multiple levels to provide feedback and support

When giving details of your redacted CV, you should therefore include details of the work and projects that you have been involved in, and your role therein.

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit our blog Getting Hired at DWP Digital .

Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign. 

Important information

• Please attach your redacted CV as a separate additional document in either PDF or word format.
• If your CV contains any personal details your application may be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Interview

If you’re successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria.

You will be asked to do a 5 minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview. 

Interviews will be held on an ongoing basis throughout the campaign.

The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences. If evidence of plagiarism is found your application will be withdrawn.

Further information:

A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. 

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

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 individuals 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. 

Find out more about Working for DWP

Any move to DWP from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Security Information

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out. 

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading. 

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment. 

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Before applying for this vacancy, current employees of DWP should check whether a successful application would result in changes to their terms & conditions of employment, e.g. mobility, pay, allowances. Civil Servants that would transfer into DWP from other government organisations, following successful application, will assume DWP's terms & conditions of employment current on the day they are posted, unless DWP has stated otherwise in writing.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

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.



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 Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
  • nationals of the Republic of Ireland
  • nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
  • relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
  • certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals
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.
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
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 : Richie 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’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DWP by email: HR.BUSINESSASSURANCE@DWP.GOV.UK.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission here to visit Civil Service Commission

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