Lead Cloud and Automation Engineer

Job summary

Right now, within government departments and secure facilities around the world, people are making decisions that protect the UK's interests. They're sharing sensitive intelligence, coordinating responses to emerging threats, and collaborating on work that is imperative to UK interests.

They can do this because of Rosa.

Our work is the foundation for what comes next. The government has committed to a programme that will upgrade Rosa to a modern cloud-first platform. But transformation doesn't happen in a vacuum - it happens because the current service is trusted, reliable, and run by people who understand what government actually needs.

We need your help to deliver Rosa brilliantly today. This is how we earn the right to deliver the next generation capability for working at SECRET. Every improvement we make, every incident we resolve, every user we support builds the credibility and capability that makes transformation possible.

Job description

It’s a very exciting time for the Rosa Service Organisation (RSO). As a unique organisation within Government, we continue to grow and develop. Our people are the single most important element to our success and creating a development offer that encourages and supports career development and progression is critical.

This is a fantastic opportunity to be a part of a growing team in a modern and flexible working environment. This is a varied and exciting role for an experienced, intelligent and enthusiastic individual looking to drive forward the design and delivery of secure capabilities that will transform the Rosa Service.

The successful candidate will need to combine strong technical skills with a consultative approach and lead a matrix team of engineers ensuring services are integrated, delivered, and operated to a high standard.

The role will involve working with on-prem and cloud based infrastructure and developing an understanding of government security guidance to deliver secure infrastructure services.

For this role as well as maintaining operational support to SLA you will also be expected to translate and deliver architectural designs into operational infrastructure, lead the implementation of cloud-based infrastructure and drive the adoption of automation across the engineering function. This role requires a strong user focus and an eye for detail – understanding the technology that is required to facilitate the infrastructure and be able to work with minimal supervision or as part of a larger team.

In this role you will be responsible for:

• Lead the design and implementation of cloud infrastructure (AWS and GCP).
• Architect and maintain CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) solutions.
• Drive automation adoption and initiatives to reduce manual effort and improve system reliability across the engineering function.
• Ensure cloud environments are secure, cost-optimized, and compliant with relevant standards. Designing solutions and services with security controls to mitigate threats included.
• Collaborate with the wider engineering teams and security to align cloud strategies.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote best practices in cloud and automation.
• Monitor system performance and troubleshoot issues across cloud platforms.
• Stay current with emerging technologies and recommend improvements.
• Have a good understanding of Network infrastructure, traffic flow and base infrastructure services.
• Responsible for maintaining operational SLA’s for cloud-based technologies and automation infrastructure.
• Leading cross functional matrix teams in delivery of cloud strategies creating all relevant artefacts.
• Implement strategic and technical roadmaps for the aligned cloud infrastructure and report on these to senior management.
• Ensure that all new components and installations meet or exceed the RSO internal and regulatory requirements.
• Own responsibility for changes across the environment within your technical discipline and ensure they are implemented according to agreed business processes.
• Monitor trends to be able to proactively respond to issues to support the business needs.
• Develop the creation of documentation, processes, and policies to ensure necessary governance and reporting is in place.
• Collaborate with the other Lead Engineers across the Engineering function and support on initiatives as needed.

Person specification

Essential

• Experience in a similar Lead Engineer or Tech team lead role in a complex Hybrid IT Infrastructure.
• Expert in at least one major cloud platform (Azure, AWS, or GCP).
• Acting as a senior technical resource across the engineering function.
• Experience with virtualized networking principles and platforms (VMware/Hyper-V).
• Experience with open-source Ansible automation tooling.
• Experience of systems monitoring infrastructure.
• Strong proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation).
• Solid scripting skills (e.g., PowerShell, Python, Bash, JSON).
• Experience with CI/CD tools (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins).
• Deep understanding of networking, security, and identity management in cloud and on-prem infrastructure.
• Good understanding of containerisation and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills.
• You will have substantial experience working within IT, with a large amount of demonstratable experience in Cloud and Automation.

Desirable

• You will have relevant Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Security or Systems Engineering qualification, or equivalent related qualifications or experience.
• Substantial experience in GCP and AWS.
• Multi cloud experience.
• Cloud certification.
• Experience of cloud governance approaches and management (FinOps).

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

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

• IT Infrastructure
• Troubleshooting and Problem Resolution
• Technical Understanding

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,500, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office contributes £16,657 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).

• We understand that people are at the heart of our success. We promote and encourage all our staff to follow continued professional development, offering our staff access to a range of learning and development opportunities
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• Inclusive environment were all feel valued and respected
• Generous annual leave

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