Platform Engineer

Job responsibilities

In this role, you are responsible for:

1. Designs, develops, tests, implements and supports the system Infrastructure to meet challenging deadlines, quality standards, business targets and customer requirements.
2. Analyses a wide range of complex business and technical issues in order to gain a thorough understanding of the system environment and proactively identifies and resolves system issues to ensure system availability and capacity for the business.
3. Responsible for the 24/7 system support, of business critical applications in both production and non-production environments.
4. Monitors and reviews the efficient and effective running of hardware, software and system tier services.
5. Evaluates tools including open source products to ensure that the NHSBSA is running products that are most appropriate and in line with the ICT strategy to deliver against the business needs.
6. Install, configure and test new versions of system tier offerings, ensuring that all products are within the NHSBSA End of Life strategy and minimise impact to the business.
7. Produces departmental and project documentation - operating instructions, user guides and reference material at an appropriate level; for technical and a non-technical audience.
8. Works within a multi-disciplinary project team supporting the delivery pipeline creating user stories to document and plan tasks.
9. Plans and manages time effectively, frequently working on a number of systems/tasks in parallel, escalating and managing expectations as appropriate. Responds quickly to change and is able to re-prioritising workload as required.
10. Analyses a wide range of data e.g. technical manuals, business process documentation, system specifications and statistical performance data and resolves conflicting requirements, taking responsibility to update processes and documentation where changes are made.
11. Uses initiative to make decisions on complex technical matters and make recommendations which influence key decisions to project and DevOps team.
12. Communicates effectively at all levels, verbally and in writing to establish and maintain communication with individuals and groups, internally and externally. Explains complex concepts and technical issues in a manner that is appropriate for the target audience.
13. Conducts and participates in meetings, workshops and quality reviews with customers and colleagues in relation to all responsibilities and duties.
14. Contributes towards the development of future work plans and requirements. Assists the planning process by producing time and resource estimates.
15. Operates in a quality-oriented environment and continually seeks to improve customer service by examining, recommending and implementing changes to procedures, policies and services.
16. Carries out research and development work to support future business needs e.g. pilots, evaluation and trials of new technologies, hardware and software.
17. Creates automated processes for the building and configuring of server platforms and the releasing and deploying of our software
18. Analyses our existing processes to identify opportunities for improvement using automation and new technologies
19. Creates dashboards and other tools for day-to-day monitoring and troubleshooting
20. Uses monitoring tools to find problems, and work with the relevant area to resolve them quickly.
21. Delivery of incidents, service requests, project work and associated work within SLAs and KPIs

In addition to the above accountabilities, as post holder you are expected to:

Undertake additional duties and responsibilities in line with the overall purpose of your role and as agreed by your line manager.

Demonstrate NHSBSA values and core capabilities in all aspects of your work.

Foster an environment where your own and colleagues safety and well-being is promoted.

Contribute to a culture which values diversity and inclusion.

Comply with NHSBSA policies, procedures and protocols as they apply to your role.

Have SC clearance or willing to undergo clearance following appointment to post

Working relationships

Responsible to: Application Platform Manager

Key relationships and connections: Lead Platform Engineer, Programme and Project Managers, Operations Platform staff, ICT Project teams, Business Solutions and Service Operations staff, Third Party suppliers, internal and external stakeholders

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Plans work within own area of responsibility to meet objectives and deadlines.
• Uses own initiative and is fully accountable for own work, with substantial personal responsibility and autonomy.
• Considers the impact of customers when making decisions
• Ability to absorb complex technical and business information
• Able to work with and communicate with a broad range of people both at all levels within and outside of the organisation and maintain positive working relationships with all them
• Able to formulate plans related to a broad range of work and re-prioritises workload or adjust those plans to meet business requirements
• Able to lead and capable of managing resources to deliver results, whilst having ability to respond quickly to change as required
• Able to review and produce complex and, at times sensitive reports utilising MS Office packages
• Able to analyse information to identify and assess a range of options and their potential impacts making recommendations
• Works collaboratively and cross functionally to achieve common goals
• Excellent Analytical skills with a systematic approach to problem solving
• Flexible approach in delivering consistently high quality products

Desirable

• Able to learn new technologies and quickly grasp complex problems

Experience

Essential

• Programming skills within a system tier environment. The individual will have strong Unix/Linux administration and language skills: Shell scripting and Jython scripting
• Deploying and configuring servers in a cloud environment (Terraform, Fog).
• Configuration management (Puppet, Chef, Ansible).
• Continuous Integration Engine (Jenkins, Travis-CI).
• Continuous Inspection (SonarQube).
• Virtualisation (VMWare, Amazon EC2).
• Networking Concepts, technologies and protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, DNS).
• Monitoring (Sensu, Consul).
• Penetration testing (OWASP ZAP)

Desirable

• WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
• WebSphere MQ
• IBM HTTP Server
• Experience and knowledge of installation and management of one or more of the following Open Source software products: JBoss Application Server, Apache Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, Rabbit MQ
• IBM Webseal
• Windows Powershell scripting
• IBM Tivoli Access Manager
• LDAP - Novell e-directory
• Achieve Forms
• IIS
• K2 Blackpearl
• Meridio
• GitLab, GitHub
• JIRA
• Docker

Qualifications

Essential

• IT related degree or equivalent
• Demonstrable experience in developing and /or supporting IT systems

Desirable

• Professionally recognised certification at appropriate level in area of specialism.
• Recent practical experience in development and administering system tier applications

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).