DevOps Engineer

Job summary

The DevOps Engineer role is part of the Technical Live Services team within Cabinet Office Digital. Help shape the future of UK Government Digital Services as a DevOps Engineer, pushing the boundaries of technology to make a tangible difference to the lives of millions. The Cabinet Office sits at the heart of the UK Government, driving a ground-breaking digital transformation to set a new global benchmark for public services. Over the next three years, our mission is to deliver world-class digital offerings, making public services digital by default, simpler, clearer, and faster to use.

As a DevOps Engineer in CO Digital, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and implementing high-quality, customised digital solutions that support critical business functions and deliver on key project objectives. You will work closely with multidisciplinary teams, technical architects, and diverse stakeholders to gather requirements, integrate complex systems, and ensure the resilience, security, and scalability of our infrastructure.

In this role, you will help the government manage and reduce its reliance on legacy technology while establishing robust continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. You will champion modern agile methods, advocate for best practices in software development, and foster an open, collaborative environment.

We value both breadth and depth of technical capability. Above all, you will be motivated by truly important work that puts users first, possessing a proactive approach to problem-solving and a passion for building robust, user-centric public services.

Our business support hours are 8 am to 6 pm, and we ask that you are flexible with your shifts to cover these hours.

Curious about Government Digital and Data? Dive into the Candidate Pack to learn more.

Job description

This vacancy is open for 2 Senior Executive Officer grade DevOps Engineers.

As a DevOps Engineer, your core responsibilities will include:

• Supporting, operating, and maintaining software in live production environments, utilising modern tools to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve faults
• Designing, implementing, and maintaining development and deployment pipelines (CI/CD) for new, existing, and previously unsupported services
• Writing clean, secure, and well-tested code—including comprehensive commentary and supporting documentation
• Adhering to and promoting internal software development standards, processes, and procedures across multidisciplinary teams
• Providing integrated, user-focused solutions that align strategically across multiple platforms and meet business needs
• Packaging and deploying software updates with precision, adhering to change management procedures (occasional deployment activities may fall outside core office hours)
• Travelling between sites for meetings, events, and collaborative working sessions as required

Curious about Government Digital and Data? Dive into the Candidate Pack to learn more.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

To be successful in this role, you must be able to demonstrate:

• Proven working experience of cloud platforms (specifically AWS) and cloud service integration.
• Experience developing related technical stories using modern tools, techniques, and practices such as TDD, CI/CD, and DevOps.
• A holistic understanding of whole-system architecture and experience operating, maintaining, and enhancing the production services you build.
• Proficiency in main programming languages, such as Python and JavaScript, alongside web frameworks (e.g., Django, Node/Next.js).
• Knowledge of at least one relational database management system (RDBMS), such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle.
• Ability to quickly research, evaluate, and adopt new programming tools, frameworks, and techniques.
• Good communication skills with a proven ability to bridge understanding between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Good understanding of common security vulnerabilities, threat mitigation, and application/server hardening best practices.
• Experience working within enterprise IT environments and following change management processes.
• Experience with Terraform, CloudFormation, and process automation tools.

Desirable Criteria

It is desirable that you also have:

• Experience with mainstream content management systems (such as Wagtail or WordPress) and custom content workflow integrations.
• Familiarity implementing monitoring, logging, alerting, and production support services.
• Understanding and experienced with incident management techniques, root cause analysis, and response processes.
• Experience working within high-security environments using tools and frameworks that support secure coding practices.

Technical Skills

Candidates will be evaluated against the following technical domains aligned with the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework:

• CI/CD & Source Control: Skilled in GitHub Actions, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline, CodeBuild, branch management policies, and release workflows.
• Cloud Architecture & AWS Ecosystem: Expertise in core AWS services, including VPC, IAM, Security Groups, NACLs, Load Balancing, Autoscaling, Lambda (Serverless), OpenSearch, and Lightsail.
• Databases & Runtimes: Knowledge of PostgreSQL, Aurora, MySQL, and runtimes including Python (Django) and JavaScript (NodeJS).
• Monitoring, Logging & Observability: Experience with CloudWatch or similar, Splunk, availability tooling, and health check configurations.
• Security, Caching & Content Delivery: Knowledge of WAF, AWS Shield, CloudFront CDN, GuardDuty, Memcached, and vulnerability remediation strategies.
• Technical Authoring & Practices: Knowledge of creating runbooks, technical manuals, threat models, and working within Agile/Kanban delivery frameworks.

Additional information:

Cabinet Office policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%. Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Behaviours

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

• Delivering at Pace
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

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

• Programming and Build
• System Integration
• Service Support
• Information Security
• Systems Design

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Things you need to know

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