Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

Job description

We are designing and building the UK Public Data Infrastructure (UKPDI) to improve how data is found, accessed, shared and reused across government. You will initially work on the Data Discovery Platform and contribute to other Shared Core Data Platforms as UKPDI develops.

You will work closely with the Head of Data Infrastructure & Engineering, architects, software engineers, data engineers, security specialists, product managers and delivery colleagues. You will translate architectural designs and service requirements into secure, resilient and operable infrastructure, while helping establish reusable technical patterns, delivery pipelines and operational practices across the UKPDI platform portfolio.

This is an opportunity to shape the technical foundations of new cross-government data infrastructure and help develop shared platforms that can operate securely, reliably and at scale across the public sector

As a Senior Infrastructure Engineer you’ll:

• design, build and maintain cloud infrastructure for shared government data platforms, using Infrastructure as Code and automation to ensure environments are consistent, repeatable and reliable
• build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automating testing, security checks and controls, deployment and rollback
• build and operate container platforms and support serverless and compute workloads
• ensure infrastructure is secure, cost-effective and designed for appropriate levels of availability, recovery and operational resilience
• implement monitoring, logging, alerting and operational tooling, and troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues, contributing to incident response, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement
• develop and maintain shell scripts, automation tooling and code in appropriate languages, and operational runbooks to support infrastructure operations, deployment and developer workflows
• provide technical leadership in infrastructure engineering, working with architects, software engineers and other specialists, and contribute to technical standards and engineering practices across the team

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have skills in:

• cloud infrastructure: experience designing, building and operating secure, scalable, resilient and cost-effective infrastructure in AWS, including containerised platforms using Amazon EKS and Docker. Ability to translate architectural and service requirements into effective infrastructure solutions
• infrastructure as code and automation: experience using Terraform to create reusable, tested and maintainable Infrastructure as Code, together with strong experience writing automation and operational tooling using Bash, Python or equivalent
• continuous integration and delivery: experience designing and maintaining secure CI/CD pipelines, preferably using GitHub and GitHub Actions, to automate testing, validation and the safe deployment and rollback of changes
• secure and reliable service operation: experience operating production or business-critical services, including cloud networking, identity and access management, monitoring, logging, incident response, root-cause analysis, service recovery and continuous improvement
• testing: experience defining and applying appropriate tests for infrastructure solutions and services, identifying risks and analysing results against functional and non-functional requirements

Benefits

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for the King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

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 pro