About the job

Job summary

This position is National

Job description

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Lead Application Operations Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 10th May

Interviews: 22/23 May

Grade: G7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £58,847 - £66,670 (which may include an allowance of up to £4,828)

             National: £54,358 - £61,585 (which may include an allowance of up to £2,517)

Working pattern: Full time - plus out-of-hours support and maintenance work as necessary, arranged on a rota system

Contract Type: Permanent

Vacancy number: 86578

*We are currently offering hybrid working which includes 2 days per week in your local office. Office locations can be found HERE

The Role

We’re recruiting for Lead Application Operations Engineers specialising in SAP Business Objects here at Justice Digital to be part of our warm and collaborative National Applications Reporting Team working across HMPPS.

We are building a team of specialists to maintain Business Objects across HMPPS reporting applications and provide live service support to our teams of report writers and end users.

This role aligns against the Lead application operations engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

The Team

The National Applications Reporting Team (NART) is a small but dynamic team with good working relationships across many HMPPS digital projects within the MOJ. We are part of the HMPPS Digital Studio within MOJ Digital and Technology and support the Reporting Functions of 3 national case management systems and will support new digital products when required.

The reporting systems underpin the management of offenders through their journey and have a total of approximately 70,000 end‐users across all public and private establishments and probation providers, as well as HQ offices.

The team covers a range of technology with a good understanding of the business processes and data which underpin this, and regularly adapt to many interesting and varied requests.

Our Community

We currently have over 150 experienced developers who make up the engineering community across the MoJ. You will coach and mentor junior colleagues and take part in informal support networks with your peers. You will be encouraged to play an active role in the engineering community and culture.

We take the responsibility of supportive and effective line management very seriously. We will value the skills you bring to the civil service and help you to build on them. When the time is right we will support moving between teams or government departments to learn different technologies, or take on more responsibility, according to your career goals.

Take a look at our developer blog and Justice Digital blog to get a sense of our work and culture.

Key Responsibilities

As an Applications Operations Engineer at Justice Digital your duties would include:

• maintaining and supporting Business Objects software, processes and environments, including patching and upgrades.
• ensuring the system is available and reliable for end users, including daily health checks and using your technical expertise to resolve live service incidents.
• working outside of core hours when required, to support live service and deploy updates.
• reviewing core application changes with the appropriate teams and investigating and feeding back on the impact these may have on the Reporting system.
• developing and deploying changes through an agile release process to align the reporting tools to our core applications (for example when tables, fields and processes are added or amended)
• maintaining and developing structured technical documentation to provide transparency and maintain knowledge across the team.
• sharing your own knowledge and working alongside existing members of the team to help their development and understanding.
• delivering continuous improvements to processes and outputs, e.g., to data quality and output consistency.
• validation and quality assurance of new or updated functionality within the system.
• providing specialist, technical advice on how the various reporting systems can be rationalised and interfaced with new digital services.
• working collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders to understand and meet business requirements.

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms
• Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app
• Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers
• 5 days volunteering paid leave
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym

 Person Specification

Essential

• Knowledge of SAP Business Objects Enterprise administration and environment configuration within a cloud environment.
• Experience with Business Objects Data Services (BODS), or experience with similar ETL process and Data Warehousing.
• Able to support our existing Report Writers to create and maintain reports within Business Objects Web Intelligence, Business Objects universe design changes, and SQL data extracts (we use Oracle SQL).
• Reporting database structures e.g. star schemas, fact and dimension tables.
• Ability to communicate and collaborate between the technical and the non-technical to manage stakeholders’ expectations and be flexible, proactive and reactive communication.
• Align your team’s work with department and government technology strategy, participating in strategic technical collaborations and challenging previous ways of working where needed.
• Ability to review requirements, specifications and define test conditions. Able to identify issues and risks associated with work whilst being able to analyse and report test activities and results.
• Problem resolution - hands on experience of ensuring the most appropriate actions are taken to resolve problems as they occur. Works with team to resolve problems and implement solutions and preventative measures.

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate on the basis of culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,358, Ministry of Justice contributes £15,165 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

Candidates must submit a CV and an optional Statement of Suitability (Up to 750 words) which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

• Communicating and influencing
• Changing and improving
• Developing self and others
• Managing a quality service

Your application will be reviewed against the Person Specification above by a diverse panel.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 60-minute panel interview held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on recent experience as a Developer will be conducted prior to the sift.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for, but demonstrated the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and potentially offer you the position without the need for a further application.

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out the way we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk

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.