About the job

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.

The Health Team manages multiple applications which support some of DWP’s most vulnerable customers.

Key digital applications include Personal Independence Payment; Employment Support Allowance; Access to Work.

In addition, the team manage a number of digital projects that are transforming services for citizens and DWP agents.

Health and Disability has expanded significantly and there is a need to support and maintain our applications 24/7. You will work closely with the engineering community and the product teams which cover both AWS and Azure services.

Your primary task will be to lead a small team of SRE’s that act as the ‘gatekeepers’ of Production, and also 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 and to wider operational teams along with providing oversight to the products and services they support.

The successful candidate will act as a Lead SRE, solidifying the service wrap for Health applications, analysis of error budgets, enhancing the current integrated monitoring solution, creation of service improvements, and lead on incident analysis and resolution, working alongside multiple teams.

Job description

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

• Pushing a mindset change within the organisation to foster engineering ownership, and the importance of the integrity and maintenance of the Live Service. 

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

• Requirement to provide on call 24/7 support, approximately 1 week in every 4-week period (On call allowance is payable for this)

In addition to the essential criteria below, Experience of working with any of the following technologies is also desirable: Terraform, Ansible, Packer, Java, Javascript, MongoDB, Docker, JSON, YAML, SQL, Git, GitLab CI.

Person specification

As part of the application process, you need to align your Experience to the following Essential Criteria:

• Demonstrable experience of supporting a Live Service
• Able to demonstrate experience of implementing automation and challenging organisational processes to reduce complexity.
• Able to communicate effectively, and to build credible relationships at all levels within a complex organisation.
• Good practical working knowledge of a broad range of technologies, both open source and proprietary.
• Demonstrable experience of designing, building, maintaining and supporting cloud-based platforms and applications (AWS and/or Azure).
• Demonstrable experience of building and maintaining infrastructure-as-code.
• Demonstrable experience of building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.

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

Benefits

• 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.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £69,869 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, 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.

Location

Applicants should apply for suitable posts where they can travel to and from their home office location daily within a reasonable time.   

Please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas. Relocation costs will not be reimbursed 

Hybrid Working

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.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Stage 1: Application

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Your employment history detailing your responsibilities, skills, accomplishments, plus your qualifications and relevant training. Please copy this information into the box field provided.

3. Personal statement up to 750 words.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with Essential Criteria listed in the Person Specification.

The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria above.

You will receive one combined score for both your Employment History/CV and Personal Statement, which will be provided in your Personal Statement score.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
• If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will 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 10-minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview. 

Interviews will take place from Late February onwards.

Sift and Interview dates to be confirmed.

Security Clearance Requirement

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, 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.

Further Information

Find out more about Working for DWP

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

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.

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.

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.

For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How We Recruit, page

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. 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.