Site Reliability Engineer

Job summary

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.

Job description

As a Site Reliability Engineer, you will pro-actively engage development teams and use initiative to develop 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 work alongside senior members of the team to pro-actively engage product teams about service-level indicators, objectives, and error budgets. You’ll contribute towards building and scaling our shared tooling for the platform and participate in an on-call rota.

Our tech stack includes:

• AWS and Azure

• GitHub Actions and AWS CodePipelines/CodeBuild

• Terraform

• Containerisation such as Docker, Elastic Container Service (ECS), Elastic Container Registry (ECR) and Kubernetes

• ElasticSearch/OpenSearch

• Python and Django framework

• PostgreSQL as a service (Amazon RDS)

• Datadog, Logstash

• Redis/Elasticache

Person specification

You should be able to demonstrate:

• Cloud experience with either Amazon Web Services, Azure or Google Cloud.

• Exposure to building code-defined and reliable infrastructure on top of cloud computing systems (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi).

• Working knowledge in one or more programming languages, writing clean and effective code.

• Working knowledge of Linux/Unix fundamentals and TCP/IP networking.

• Ability to see user impact in the infrastructure or application changes, including a drive to improve the end user experience at every turn.

• Strong communication skills when dealing with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Benefits

• 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%

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to apply

As part of the application process you will be asked to upload a 2-page CV which outlines your experience, skills and fit for the role, and go through a multi-stage screening process. If you’re longlisted, you’ll be asked to complete a short, pre-recorded video screening interview (alternately you can provide written answers to questions). Inspire People will assess your full application against the essential criteria listed above to compile a shortlist of applications, which will then be sifted by DBT hiring managers. If you are successful, you will be invited to interview.

It is likely that the sift will take place 1-2 weeks after the closing date and interviews 3-5 weeks after the closing date, though this is subject to change.

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. These are role specific and in line with the DDaT Capability Framework.

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. More 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

• Systems integration

• User focus

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing

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

More about us

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 pa