Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer (Azure)

As a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, you will be an expert in your field, skilled in multiple disciplines, a role model in Infrastructure operations and have proven experience in the design, development and support of infrastructure services.

You will lead a team of senior infrastructure engineers and provide guidance and support for cloud engineers in your area, ensuring they build products and services using industry standards and following DWP good practice.

You will be responsible for defining medium to long term strategies for product lines, defining guidelines for the engineering community and leading their adoption across teams to deliver quality infrastructure solutions.

You will have solid experience of the full application development lifecycle, including supporting live service., As a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, you will

• Be responsible for ensuring services/solutions being delivered are aligned to departmental and user needs, deliver value for money, are of high quality and are technically stable.
• Lead on delivering architectural and roadmap developments in own accountable area.
• Drive innovation in ways of working throughout the team and encourage experimentation where opportunities arise.
• Promote a mindset of continuous improvement across the team and peers across the organisation.
• Act as an escalation point for service-related incidents.
• Monitor and take part in on-call rotations, ensuring applicable services and products are supported out of hours.
• Be responsible for the leadership of engineering employees, providing expert advice or dealing with complex problems.
• Set the strategic direction to maintain pace with the wider industry, by defining criteria for personal development in the context of cloud engineering.
• Act as a Department representative acting as a liaison with external bodies and third parties, promoting good practice and process, and encouraging adoption across the engineering community.
• Make complex decisions, involving a wide range of solutions, possibly affecting a number of work areas within the organisation.
• Work closely with other senior leaders, sharing information, providing advice and support around technical choices and implementation approach., * 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.
• Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application; however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own), applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. A candidate's guide to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment.

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., If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

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

All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.

For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed.

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.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

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., * 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)
• 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

Do you have experience in Terraform?, When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Extensive proven experience of providing technical leadership and support within a team of Infrastructure Engineers.
• Demonstrable comprehension of Azure.
• Expert proficiency of working with networking including DNS, NSGs, VNETS, etc.
• Extensive experience of Scripting systems for example Terraform.
• Detailed working knowledge and experience of version control systems such as Git, Gitlab CI, Gitlab Dedicated.
• In depth expertise and proven experience of working in an agile environment building, deploying, supporting and operating cloud applications (in particular Azure)., 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 .

Alongside your salary of £75,026, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,735 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave - at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro-rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year's continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women's Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Hybrid Working

This 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.

If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.

If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £75,026 to £80,267.

The maximum salary for the grade is £80,267 however a Digital Allowance of up to £9,728 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed.

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 will maintain their current salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will either move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or get a 10% increase to their current salary whichever would be the greater.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join DWP Hybrid Cloud Services as a Cloud Infrastructure Engineer and to create innovative digital solutions that make a difference to the lives of our 22 million users.