Senior DevOps Engineer
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
The Digital, Data and Technology (DDAT) directorate has recently been established in UKEF, drawing together the expertise in digital currently within the organisation to provide representation of digital services, user centred design, analytics and technology at the highest levels. The areas with the directorate work closely with all areas of the business such as the Business Group, Operations and Strategy and Policy.
About the Role
UKEF is committed to be a more customer-centric organisation, making it easier for customers to deal with us, offering improved response times, quicker decision-making and improved case-processing. To enable this, UKEF is committed to using digital as a primary means for managing relationships with a wider range of stakeholders. Focusing on developing end-to-end services that meet user need and enable business outcomes, this is an exciting new role showing the growth and drive of UKEFs digital ambition.
As a Senior DevOps Engineer, you will be instrumental in designing and implementing modern DevOps practices across Azure cloud environments. You will develop CI/CD pipelines and DevOps toolchains, placing automation at the heart of everything you do. Your work will ensure solutions are highly available, resilient, scalable, extensible, and maintainable.
You will collaborate across product-focused teams to gather requirements, evaluate tools, and implement solutions. You will also provision environments using both imperative and declarative approaches and assist with operational issues. A key part of your role will be to foster engineering ownership and promote the integrity and maintenance of the services we deliver. Job description
Main Activities
- Be a visible leader and role model in your area, championing diversity and inclusion in how we work.
- Build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the engineering department, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance.
- Act as a hands-on expert across multiple technical areas, or as a specialist with deep knowledge in a particular domain.
- Work effectively with multiple teams, developing, testing, and championing the adoption of industry best practices.
- Design and implement CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines to support continuous integration and delivery across multiple environments.
- Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using BICEP, ARM templates, and Terraform to provision and manage Azure resources in a repeatable and scalable manner.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather requirements, evaluate tooling options, and implement DevOps solutions that align with business and technical objectives.
- Champion automation-first practices, embedding automation into build, test, deployment, and monitoring processes to improve reliability and reduce manual effort.
- Support and enhance cloud-based applications using Azure services such as Azure Container Apps, Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Key Vault, and Azure App Services.
- Troubleshoot and resolve operational issues across Unix/Linux/Windows environments, leveraging scripting languages such as Bash, Python, and PowerShell.
- Promote a DevOps culture by fostering engineering ownership, encouraging best practices in service reliability, and advocating for continuous improvement.
- Mentor and guide engineers across multidisciplinary teams, supporting agile delivery using Scrum or Kanban methodologies.
- Contribute to the development of internal standards and practices for DevOps, infrastructure, and cloud operations, ensuring alignment with organisational goals and compliance requirements.
Participate in incident response and post-mortem analysis, helping to improve system resilience and reduce future risk. Person specification
UK Export Finance is looking for motivated individuals with a desire to learn about the business. Successful candidates will be provided not only with functional training to enable them to do well in their role, but also with personal development to help them to achieve their career ambitions. Please note that the person specification below outlines at which stage(s) you will be assessed on how you meet the criteria for the role(s) including:-, * You can approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with others
- You can establish design patterns and iterate them
- You can use a variety of prototyping methods and choose the most appropriate
(Skill level: practitioner) (A, I)
Service support:
- You can identify, locate and fix complex service faults
- You can advise others on different methodologies and types of service support
(Skill level: expert) (A, I)
Systems design:
- You can design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity
- You can select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, and ensure they are applied effectively
- You can review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology
(Skill level: practitioner) (A, I)
Systems integration:
- You can define the integration build
- You can co-ordinate build activities across systems
- You can understand how to undertake and support integration testing activities
(Skill level: practitioner) (A, I)
User focus:
- You can collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally
- You can explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user
- You can champion user research to focus on all users
- You can prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so
- You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use
(Skill level: practitioner) (A, I)
Availability and capacity management:
- You can manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and key performance indicators (KPIs).
(Skill level: working) (A, I)
Development process optimisation:
- You can work under guidance to identify process optimisation opportunities.
- You can contribute to the implementation of proposed solutions, * Describe a time when you implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in a cloud environment (please see candidate pack for more information on answering this question).
- How would you approach designing an Azure Landing Zone for a new service? (Please see candidate pack for more information on answering this question).
- Technical interview - you will be assessed across your technical expertise and acumen, in relation to the essential criteria.
We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:
- Describe a time when you implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in a cloud environment (please see candidate pack for more information on answering this question).
- How would you approach designing an Azure Landing Zone for a new service? (Please see candidate pack for more information on answering this question)., * What tools did you use (e.g. BICEP, Terraform, ARM templates), and how did you ensure the solution was scalable, secure, and maintainable?
- What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
- How would you approach designing an Azure Landing Zone for a new service?
- Please outline your considerations around governance, networking, identity and access management (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID), and monitoring.
- How would you ensure alignment with organisational policies and security standards?
An initial sift will be carried out against the 2 technical questions (above) with applicants successfully benchmarking against these been taken forward to the full sift.
If you are successful following the initial sift your application will be taken through for a full sift and evaluated against:
- Experience - CV and Statement of Suitability.
If you are successful following the sift stage, you will be invited to an initial technical interview, to be held via MS Teams, which will include the following assessment:
- Technical Questions - you will be assessed across your technical expertise and acumen, in relation to the essential criteria.
If you are successful following the sift stage, you will be invited to a panel interview to be held onsite at 1 Horse Guards Road, London; this will include the following assessment:
- Behaviours / Experience - a formal panel interview where you will be interviewed across all three behaviours highlighted in Appendix 1.
- Technical - you will be assessed across your technical expertise and acumen, in relation to the essential criteria:
- Presentation
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 .
See our vetting charter . People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements
Requirements
- 5 GCSE passes (including Maths and English) at Grade 4 (C) or above; or relevant demonstrable professional experience. (A)
- Evidence of continuing professional development. (A)
Knowledge
- Extensive understanding of Microsoft Azure cloud services, including Azure Container Apps, Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Key Vault, and Azure App Services. (A, I, P)
- In-depth knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Configuration as Code (CaC) principles using tools such as BICEP, ARM templates, OpenTofu, and Terraform. (A, I)
- Solid grasp of CI/CD concepts and tooling, particularly GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines. (A, I, P)
- Familiarity with Unix/Linux/Windows operating systems and scripting languages such as Bash, Python, and PowerShell. (A, I)
- Understanding of DevOps methodologies, including continuous integration, continuous deployment, and agile delivery practices (Scrum/Kanban). (A, I)
- Awareness of automation-first approaches in provisioning, deployment, and monitoring. (A, I)
- Knowledge of designing cloud-native solutions that are scalable, resilient, and maintainable. (A, I)
- Working knowledge of Azure Landing Zones, including governance, security, and network configuration best practices. (A, I)
- Understanding of Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory), including identity and access management, role-based access control (RBAC), and integration with cloud services. (A, I)
- Familiarity with containerisation concepts and Azure Container Apps. (A, I)
- Understanding of monitoring, logging, and alerting practices within Azure environments. (A, I)
- Awareness of security and compliance considerations in cloud-based systems. (A, I), All skill levels are in relation to Senior DevOps Engineer - Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk), Programming and build (software engineering):
- You can collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications.
- You can use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools., * Experience in the following disciplines (A, I) :
- Demonstrable experience of developing and supporting Azure cloud-based applications.
- Extensive knowledge of Infrastructure as Code tools: BICEP, ARM templates, Terraform.
- Experience with scripting languages: Bash, Python, PowerShell.
- Proven track record in implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience working in DevOps environments with agile delivery methods.
- Experience with containerisation and Azure Container Apps.
- Familiarity with monitoring and logging tools within Azure.
- Understanding of security and compliance in cloud environments.
- Ability to support, guide, and develop engineers across teams.
- Experience in fostering engineering ownership and promoting DevOps culture across teams.
Qualifications ? 5 GCSE passes (including Maths and English) at Grade 4 (C) or above; or relevant demonstrable professional experience. (A) ? Evidence of continuing professional development. (A) Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Changing and Improving
- Delivering at Pace
- Leadership
Technical skills, We are assessing candidates using Success Profiles (see Appendix 1) and across the whole process we will assess your Experience, Technical and Behaviours and Line Management Standards as highlighted below.
Benefits & conditions
Benefits Alongside your salary of £56,475, UK Export Finance contributes £16,360 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%, To deliver our aims, we are committed to attracting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a mutually rewarding career experience. Our employees bring with them valuable qualifications, experience and skills from previous employment or outside interests. In return, we offer a wide range of opportunities and benefits.
Positions may be offered on a permanent or fixed-term basis in line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles, available on the Civil Service Commission's website.
Benefits of working for us
We are an equal opportunities employer and take our goal as a diverse employer very seriously. We aim to provide an enabling environment to meet the varying needs of our workforce including:
· work-life balance
· flexible working patterns including part-time, compressed hours, job-share and flexible working hours
· access to 'Gold Standard' Civil Service pension scheme with substantial employer contribution
· season ticket loans
· 25 days annual leave on entry, rising to 30 days after 10 years' service
· leave for professional and academic studies
· excellent opportunities for learning and development
· maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay
