Senior DevOps Engineer

Job summary

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office pursues our national interests and projects the UK’s role in the world. We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK’s security, defend our values, reduce poverty and tackle global challenges with our international partners. We employ more than 17,000 staff in 179 countries and territories, across our diplomatic and development offices worldwide, which consists of 282 officially designated Posts. Our UK-based staff work in King Charles Street, London, Abercrombie House in East Kilbride and in Milton Keynes.

Job description

The Senior DevOps Engineer plays a crucial role in ensuring the stability, reliability, and efficiency of IT infrastructure, enabling seamless integration and continuous delivery of our software products.

You will be joining FCDO at a time of transformation with the opportunity to shape digital tools to support front line delivery. As we transition our internal systems, land new digital products and expand the scope of some of our existing digital platforms, we a building an expanded product function to design and integrate our products, spot efficiencies in existing processes and continuously improve our digital services to provide the best user experience.

You will be responsible for supporting the development and operation of software using tools, environments, and practices. This role involves underpinning good development processes, managing tools and testing environments, central code control, maintaining development standards, and writing software that automates systems. The Senior DevOps Engineer plays a crucial role in ensuring the stability, reliability, security and efficiency of IT infrastructure, enabling seamless integration and continuous delivery of our software products.

You will be able to shape and influence both digital services within Digital, Technology & Security Directorate (DTaS) and the wider FCDO as we develop our Government Digital and Data Community. You will be part of an integrated delivery environment and ingrained joint working with policy and operations.

Roles and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Delivery and integration of software to form a complete DevOps toolchain, ensuring seamless integration and continuous delivery of software products.
• Defining, analysing, planning, forecasting, measuring, maintaining, and improving all aspects of the availability of services, including managing the capability, functionality, and sustainability of service components.
• Optimising development processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness, ensuring adherence to modern development standards and best practices.
• Maintaining the security, confidentiality, and integrity of information systems through compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.
• Writing software that automates systems, reducing manual intervention and increasing the efficiency of development and operational processes.
• Working closely with development, operations, and other cross-functional teams to ensure alignment and effective communication throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Identifying, diagnosing, and resolving issues within the IT infrastructure, ensuring minimal disruption to services and continuous improvement of systems.
• Providing guidance and mentorship to junior DevOps engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement within the team.

There will be no initial line management responsibilities although this may be required in the future.

This role may require occasional travel to UK offices. This is estimated at one visit per month, dependent on business needs.

The FCDO also operates an agile workforce. To facilitate this, you may be required to undertake other duties from time to time as we may reasonably require.

Candidates who secure a role that is considered specialist/technical, may be required to affiliate to the relevant specialist network, if not already a member.

Person specification

You must be a British Citizen at the time of application and, if invited to interview, you will need to bring proof of identity (British Passport/Driving Licence etc.) with you.

This role requires you to attain Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance.

For more information about this process, click here. Attaining DV will require you to have been resident in the UK for five of the last ten years. At least one year of this must have been a consecutive twelve-month period. Serving overseas with HM Forces, in some other official capacity as a representative of His Majesty’s Government or having lived overseas as a result of your parents’ or partner’s Government employment counts as UK residency for the purposes of security clearances.

It is essential in your application that you provide evidence and proven examples in each of the following Minimum Criteria, the Behaviours and the Technical question as far as you are able to do so. These responses will be further developed and discussed with those candidates invited for interview.

Essential Criteria

• Hands-on experience building and managing cloud environments, particularly with platforms like Azure, utilising infrastructure as code (IaC).
• Experience in supporting, configuring, management and utilisation of cloud hosted services, for example: Purview, DataBricks, Insights, Analytics.
• Advanced knowledge of programming languages and experience in writing code and script, for example: Powershell, Cloudshell, Terraform, Bicep or YAML.
• Proficiency in managing Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD) tools and processes, for example: GitHub or Azure DevOps, and associated automated build and deployment processes.
• Experience in developing and maintaining automation solutions for development, testing, and production environments.
• Experience in designing and maintaining system architecture, including documentation, risk analysis of security and auditing requirements
• Knowledge of maintaining the security, confidentiality, and integrity of information systems through compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Developing Self and Others

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Development Process Optimisation (Working Level)
• Modern Development Standards (Practitioner Level)
• Programming and build (software engineering) (Practitioner Level)
• Service Support (Expert Level)
• Service Design (Practitioner Level)

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Development Process Optimisation (Working Level)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £46,000, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office contributes £13,326 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).