Lead DevOps Engineer

On behalf of DWP we are looking for a Lead DevOps Engineer for a 12 months (Inside IR35) contract. Hybrid working with 2 days per week required in London, Manchester, Leeds or Newcastle.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers. As such, we operate on a scale that is almost unmatched anywhere in Europe and most people in Britain come into contact with us at some point in their lives.

Working with DWP, you will be helping us to drive our priorities to:

* Run an effective welfare system that enables people to achieve financial independence by providing assistance and guidance into employment
* Increase saving for, and security in later life
* Create a fair and affordable welfare system which improves the life chances of children
* Deliver outstanding services to our customers and claimants
* Deliver efficiently: transform the way we deliver our services to reduce costs and increase productivity

As a Lead DevOps Engineer you will have proven experience in the development, deployment and support of software applications and services that are focused on stability, availability and quality.

You will lead a number of multi-functional agile delivery teams, guiding and supporting the DevOps Engineers to build in quality, using industry best practices, to the products that make up our citizen services.

As a Lead DevOps Engineer your main responsibilities will be to:

* Be responsible for the leadership of employees, from a variety of disciplines, providing expert advice or dealing with complex or high-level problems.
* Work and support large teams of DevOps Engineers and key technical decision makers to define the strategic vision for delivery
* Promote technical evolution within the organisation, find, test, agree and adopt emerging technologies while maintaining a pragmatic focus on delivering user needs efficiently
* Act as the Departmental representative acting as a liaison with external bodies, promoting the latest Engineering and DevOps practices, standards and processes then lead the Engineering community to deliver the strategic DevOps vision.
* Develop and support our Engineering capability by rewarding high performers, shaping career paths and recruiting talent to the organisation
* Maintain relationships, reconciling priorities and agreeing common action, working with the Lead DevOps Engineering community to ensure security, stability and capacity are embedded in the development and deployment of our citizen services
* Make complex decisions, involving a wide range of solutions, possibly affecting a number of work areas within the organisation.
* Work closely with seniors, sharing information, providing advice and support around technical choices, implementation approach, resourcing an identifying skills gaps and key dependencies within our technical teams
* Highlight and document risks and produce effective plans to address them
* Design and lead the strategies for building a reusable DevOps toolchain
* Consult with senior stakeholders and provide a full analysis and recommendations, which usually influences the final decision.
* Advise on problems arising from specific work programmes or from implementation of proposed changes in Departmental policy, and make balanced recommendations.

Essential:

* An active SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this position, as a minimum you must be eligible and willing to undergo these checks.
* Significant demonstrable experience of working in a DevOps environment.
* Significant demonstrable experience of designing, implementing, securing and supporting Unix/Linux based platforms and developing solutions using scripting languages.
* Significant demonstrable experience of developing and supporting cloud-based application platforms in AWS.
* Significant demonstrable knowledge of implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (ideally Gitlab CI & Jenkins).
* Significant demonstrable experience in designing and implementing best practices using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform, Packer, CloudFormation and Cloud-Init.
* Experience of working and leading in a complex, multi-disciplinary environment, delivering products within specific time-scales and engaging with multiple stakeholders.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".