Cloud Operations Engineer London, England
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Location
About the job
Job summary
GDS exists to help government make brilliant public services that empower people in the UK. We work at the very centre of government to drive digital transformation, focused on users. We build and maintain common platforms, products and tools for others to use and create great public services that are accessible, inclusive and easy to use. We also work with departments to identify patterns, share learning and create change to make government more efficient.
Our teams are organised around delivering on our priorities. These are:
- making it easier for people to find what they are looking for on GOV.UK
- building common service platforms to make it simpler and cheaper to build quality digital services
- promoting agile, user-centred design practices both in the UK and across the world
Job description
Platforms and Services is a directorate within GDS that provides both Security and Engineering functions to other GDS directorates. As a Cloud Operations Engineer within Platforms and Services Common Capability Team you will be essential to improving, automating and maintaining our common capability tooling and services to ensure the efficiency of the directorate
As a Cloud Operations Engineer you’ll:
- be part of our multidisciplinary operations team working with and supporting our internal service teams
- Build, automate and maintain resilient, highly available and secure systems to meet the needs of our users
- take responsibility for solving complex and interesting problems
- create infrastructure as code to ensure our infrastructure and deployment pipelines are reusable, repeatable and reliable
- ensure our systems are appropriately monitored and instrumented to enable our teams to identify and respond to operational issues quickly and effectively
- participate in our in-hours 2nd line and out-of-hours support rotas to gain empathy for users and awareness of operational concerns
- share knowledge of tools and practices with your wider team and peers to drive consistency and maintain our high engineering standards
Person specification
We’re interested in people who:
- are experienced with Linux operating system internals and are comfortable working with Linux virtual machines or containers
- have experience of cloud infrastructure providers such as AWS
- can deploy monitoring tools to ensure systems are appropriately monitored and instrumented to enable teams to identify and respond to operational issues quickly and effectively
- are proficient using Git for version control
- understand the benefits of continuous integration and continuous deployment and have experience with CI/CD tools such as Concourse, Jenkins, GitHub Actions and CodePipeline
- have a strong preference for automation and experience of using Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation
- are able to use automated testing and test-driven development (TDD) to validate solutions and maintain code quality
- have a good understanding of security principles and how to keep large operational services secure
Benefits
The benefits of working at GDS
There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:
- flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
- a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
- 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
- an extra day off for The King’s birthday
- an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
- career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
- paid volunteering leave
- a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
- job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
- advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
- death in service benefits
- cycle to work scheme and facilities
- access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
- access to an employee discounts scheme
- 10 learning days per year
- volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
- access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning
GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in their local office. You’ll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.
Any move to Government Digital Service 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
Things you need to know
Selection process details
The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:
- a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
- a phone screen (which may not be required depending on the volume of applications)
- a technical interview (conducted over video conferencing) lasting approximately 1hr
- a civil service behavioural interview (conducted over video conferencing) lasting approximately 45 minutes
Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.
In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.
For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:
- working together
- changing and improving
- making effective decisions
We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the DDaT DevOps role:
- availability and capacity management
- information security
- modern standards approach
- programming and build (software engineering)
- service support
- systems design
- systems integration
Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.
A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
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
Working for the Civil Service
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).
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
Recruitment team
Further information
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: [email protected] Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.
