Senior Platform Engineer

We’ve successfully completed the migration of DBT services from GOV.UK PaaS to our new developer platform in AWS. Now, we’re entering the next phase: evolving this platform into a full Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.

Are you ready to help shape the future of digital delivery at DBT?

We’re looking for Platform Engineers to help us build the most performant, secure, and feature-rich hosting environment possible, one that puts developer experience front and centre. This is your chance to be part of something transformative, where your work will directly impact how digital services are built and run across government., As a Senior Platform Engineer, you will work to give development teams the tools for their job, including application performance monitoring, exception, log and metrics aggregation, dashboards, and declarative CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) pipelines.

You’ll evangelise product teams about service-level indicators, objectives, and error budgets, and negotiate them. You’ll help build and scale our global product platform and participate in an on-call rota for which you will receive an additional allowance.

Specific projects the team are working on include rolling out an observability tool to enhance system monitoring and incident response, streamlining deployment processes to reduce downtime and speed up feature delivery, and developing a CLI tool to automate tasks and boost developer productivity.

You will be using:

• Amazon Web Services
• Azure
• AWS CodePipelines and AWS CodeBuild
• Terraform & AWS Copilot (CloudFormation)
• Docker, Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Elastic Container Registry (ECR)
• ElasticSearch/OpenSearch
• Python and Django framework
• PostgreSQL as a service (Amazon RDS)
• Sentry
• Redis/Elasticache, Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool to support your application, but all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism is identified (such as 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the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.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.

How we interview

At the interview stage for this role, you will be asked to demonstrate relevant Technical Skills and Behaviours from the Success Profiles framework. A role-specific list of these can be found below.

The technical element within the interview, where you will be asked a series of questions to demonstrate your specific professional skills and knowledge related directly to the job role and context, will assess against capabilities which are outlined under DevOps engineer within the DDaT framework which can be found here. As part of this process, you will be asked to complete a technical problem-solving exercise during your interview. Further details will be provided following sift.

Technical Skills

• Availability and capacity management
• Development process optimisations
• Information security
• Modern standards approach
• Programming and build (software engineering)
• Prototyping (with MVP and POC)
• Systems integration
• User focus

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing
• Developing Self and Others

How we offer

Offers may be made in merit order based on location preferences. If you pass the bar at interview but are not the highest scoring you will be held on a 12-month reserve list in case a role becomes available. If you are judged a near miss at interview, you may be offered a post at the grade below the one you applied for.

This role requires SC clearance. DBT’s requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet this requirement will result in your application being rejected and your offer will be withdrawn.

Checks will also be made against:

• departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• security services record
• location details, * 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 UNIX?, * Cloud experience with either Amazon Web Services, Azure or Google Cloud

• Ability to build code-defined, reliable, and well tested infrastructure on top of cloud computing systems (e.g. Terraform, AWS Copilot, CloudFormation, Pulumi)
• Experience and fluency in one or more programming languages (e.g., writing clean and effective code)
• Knowledge of Linux/Unix fundamentals and TCP/IP networking
• Ability to see user impact in the infrastructure and platform changes, including a drive to improve the Developer Experience at every turn
• In depth experience of designing solutions to complex technical problems independently

It is desirable that you have:

• Experience in designing and implementing Docker images through containerisation
• Experience in prototyping through reuse of existing Open-Source components, * 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%

This role can only be worked from within the UK, not overseas. If you are based in London, you will receive London weighting. DBT employees are contracted to work in a hybrid pattern, spending 2-3 days a week (pro rata) in the office. Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DBT, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.

You can find out more about our office locations, how we calculate salaries, our diversity statement and reasonable adjustments, the Recruitment Principles, the Civil Service code and our complaints procedure on our website.

Find out more about life at DBT, our benefits and meet the team by watching our video or reading our blog!

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

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.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has a clear mission - to grow the economy. Our role is to help businesses invest, grow and export to create jobs and opportunities right across the country. We do this in three ways. Firstly, we help to build a strong, competitive business environment, where consumers are protected and companies rewarded for treating their employees properly. Secondly, we open international markets and ensure resilient supply chains. This can be through Free Trade Agreements, trade facilitation and multilateral agreements. Finally, we work in partnership with businesses every day, providing advance, finance and deal-making support to those looking to start up, invest, export and grow. The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate develops and operates tools and services to support us in this mission.