About the job

Job summary

The MetDB (Meteorological Database) team support and maintain a system for storing weather data, developed using Fortran and C alongside some Python scripts. These data are stored and made available on request for many of the Met Office data processing systems, resulting in products and services to the public and our customers.

This job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Why join us?

The Met Office is accredited as a 'Great Place to Work UK 2023' and in addition has achieved a place on both the UK's 'Best Workplaces in Tech' and 'Best Workplaces for Women' lists.

We invest in our people to unlock their full potential. As our DevOps Engineer - MetDB team, we will support you to develop and thrive to be the best you can be.  We champion positive physical and mental health in the workplace and are committed to being an inclusive organisation, providing a working culture that actively values an equal and diverse workforce. 

Who we are:

We provide critical weather services and world-leading climate science to deliver extraordinary impact and benefit across the globe. Our work helps people make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.

Together:

• We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
• We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Find out more about our values - https://bit.ly/3fokaRD

Job description

Job Purpose:

As our DevOps Engineer - MetDB team, your key responsibilities are:

• Work as part of the team, to ensure that our service delivery targets are achieved.
• Monitoring the system and providing solutions to any identified issues.
• Working alongside other Met Office teams to help support and improve the service.
• Developing solutions to allow storage and retrieval of data for Met Office systems, which require access to this weather information.

Person specification

Essential Qualifications, Skills & Abilities:

1. Service Support – Experience of managing systems, ensuring service level targets are maintained, investigating and resolving problems, managing change in a controlled way to minimise impact to the service and supporting users.
2. Continual Improvement – Seeking ways to improve system efficiency, user experience and tools and processes used to support the service. Be able to explain the importance of developing process efficiency, support specific activities to improve development process and be able to spot obvious deficiencies. Keeping abreast of technological developments and training. (Keep Evolving)
3. Programming and build - You can collaborate with others to create and review specification documents and then use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs and scripts of medium to high complexity using the right standards and tools.
4. User Focus - You can identify and engage with users or stakeholders to collate user needs evidence, understand and define research that fits user needs, and be able to turn user focus into outcomes.
5. Committed to professional development, and using your expertise, to mentor your colleagues. You will need evidence that you are a team player, knowing what makes a team work well together, and using this knowledge to help improve the team. (Better Together)

Desirable Qualifications, Skills & Abilities:

We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet our essential criteria, but we’re also keen to discover if you have:

1. Evidence of writing code in one or more of the following Languages: C, Python and FORTRAN.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,100, Met Office contributes £8,667 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

How to apply:

If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you. Apply below using your CV and a Cover Letter/Supporting Statement which evidences how you meet each of the essential criteria - we recommend candidates use the CARL (Context, Action, Result and Learning) method for presenting evidence of skills.

Closing date 25/02/2024 at 23:59 with interviews commencing from 15/03/2024. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.

If successful, please note we are unable to offer expenses for travel to your normal place of work. This post is contractually aligned to Exeter HQ, please ask at interview if you would like extra clarity on how often this requirement is likely to be.

How we can help:

If you are considering applying and need support to do so, please contact us via careers@metoffice.gov.uk . You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.

Additional information:

We operate an on-call roster in Technology to provide 24/7/365 support to respond to operational service requirements. This post may be part of an on-call roster and the postholder would be required to participate in an on-call roster where in operation.

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

Security

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.