Principal DevOps Engineer

Job summary

The role reports to the Head of HPC and provides strategic leadership for UKHSA's platform engineering services and DevOps capabilities, ensuring they enable the organisation's wider digital, data and technology objectives. Responsible for the strategic direction, governance and continual evolution of enterprise cloud platforms, automation, CI/CD pipelines and software delivery capabilities, the postholder will lead the development of resilient, secure and scalable technology services that underpin critical organisational outcomes. Working across organisational boundaries, you will shape long-term technology strategy, influence investment decisions, and manage significant technical risks associated with cloud platforms, automation and software delivery. You will provide authoritative technical leadership to senior executives, programme leaders and the wider engineering community, ensuring security, resilience, service continuity and value for money are embedded in technology decisions and delivery.

You will lead the Cloud Platform Engineering function, establishing engineering standards, professional practices and technical roadmaps that are adopted across UKHSA. You will be responsible for developing organisational capability through leadership of multidisciplinary teams and managers, fostering a high-performing engineering culture, and building the skills required to meet future organisational needs through workforce planning, mentoring, coaching and talent development.

Job description

• Lead the strategic direction and evolution of UKHSA’s cloud platform engineering and DevOps capabilities, defining engineering standards, roadmaps, reference architectures and reusable patterns that enable secure, resilient and cost-effective digital services.
• Provide technical governance across cloud architecture, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, automation, observability, container platforms and resilience, ensuring alignment with UKHSA policies, cyber security and Government Digital and Data standards.
• Work with architects, cyber security, commercial and procurement teams, providing advice on cloud strategy, engineering risk, technology investment and major programmes.
• Lead the Cloud Platform Engineering team, including workforce planning, recruitment, performance and capability development.
• Act as UKHSA Professional Lead for DevOps Engineering, developing standards and capability pathways, and coaching senior engineers.
• Lead evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies and platform tooling, balancing security, resilience, value for money and sustainability.
• Provide expert leadership in resolving complex platform and service issues, driving root cause analysis and operational improvements.
• Represent UKHSA in cross-government engineering communities and strategic supplier engagements, sharing best practice and influencing engineering.
• Undertake corporate responsibilities, including compliance with UKHSA policies and governance.

Core Responsibilities

Technical Leadership and Strategy

• Provide technical leadership for UKHSA's cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, automation capabilities and engineering standards, acting as the principal DevOps subject matter expert across Digital Development and Operations.
• Define and promote engineering patterns, standards and best practices for Infrastructure as Code, container platforms, automation and cloud services. Evaluate emerging technologies and drive their adoption where they deliver measurable business or operational benefit.
• Work with senior stakeholders, architects and delivery teams to ensure security, resilience, scalability and operational excellence are embedded throughout the service lifecycle.

Security and Assurance

• Lead the adoption of secure engineering practices across the DevOps community, ensuring platforms and services are designed, built and operated to mitigate security risks.
• Provide expert advice and assurance on security, compliance and risk management, establishing standards and ensuring adherence across teams.

Engineering Standards and Governance

• Champion modern engineering practices, ensuring alignment with Government Digital Service standards, accessibility requirements and wider engineering communities of practice.
• Establish and maintain engineering policies, standards and governance that support consistent, high-quality service delivery across UKHSA.

Platform Reliability, Capacity and Continuous Improvement

• Lead the design, development and evolution of platform services, ensuring they remain secure, reliable, performant and cost effective.
• Drive continuous improvement of engineering processes, identifying opportunities to increase automation, reduce operational overhead and improve delivery effectiveness.
• Oversee availability and capacity management, ensuring services can meet current and future business demand.
• Design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact and complexity, selecting appropriate standards and methods and reviewing the designs of others.

Capability Building and Community Leadership

• Develop capability across the DevOps profession through coaching, mentoring and technical leadership. Support talent development, recruitment and succession planning to build a sustainable engineering workforce.
• Foster collaboration across technology, data, security and architecture teams, promoting knowledge sharing and a strong engineering culture.
• Identify opportunities to improve technology services and business outcomes, helping shape the future direction of cloud and platform engineering within UKHSA.

Working Relationships

• The Principal DevOps Engineer is a senior technical leader within Digital Development and Operations, reporting to the Head of HPC. The role provides technical authority across platform engineering and works closely with senior leaders, architects and engineering teams to ensure secure, reliable and high-quality technology services are delivered across UKHSA.

Internal:

• Engineering and Operations teams, Senior Leadership Team, Architecture, Security, Data and Business stakeholders.

External:

• Cloud providers, technology partners, NHS organisations, Department of Health bodies, Government Digital Service and cross-government engineering communities.

This list is not exhaustive

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Expert knowledge of cloud platform engineering, DevOps and modern software delivery practices, with extensive practical experience of enterprise cloud platforms (AWS and Azure), container platforms (Kubernetes), Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD and automation. Ability to provide technical leadership across complex cloud-hosted services.
• Expert understanding of cloud architecture, information security, systems integration, observability and engineering governance, including Secure by Design principles. Experience designing, assuring and governing secure, resilient and scalable cloud platforms, establishing enterprise engineering standards and reusable architecture patterns across multiple programmes.
• Strong systems design and software engineering expertise, with experience reviewing and assuring complex technical designs, optimising engineering processes and guiding multidisciplinary teams in the delivery of secure, scalable and maintainable solutions.
• Proven experience of leading organisational technology strategy and engineering capability, including developing