Job summary
You will work in the Data Engineering and Enablement Division that reports into the Data Operations Directorate. Its an exciting time to join as we seek to create leading Health Protection data capabilities that enable data scientists and data analysts to develop insights that inform public health decisions with resilience platforms and curated data assets. The core activities of Engineering and Enablement include the ingestion of data sources, building data pipelines, curated data views and data capabilities fused from data, models and software that enable the exploitation of data by analysts, data scientists and MI teams. We are seeking to mature our advanced platform capabilities with standardised practices, machine learning and agility needed to pro-active detect and respond to new public health issues. We are looking for a Lead Platform Engineer to work as part of the Engineering and Enablement team to support the operation and the development of our Enterprise Data and Analytics platform
Main duties of the job
Lead and manage up to 2x Senior Platform Engineers, providing guidance and support to ensure their growth and professional development.
Lead the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and highly available infrastructure solutions, while continuously monitoring, maintaining, and optimising existing infrastructure for performance and reliability.
Develop automation scripts and tools to streamline deployment, configuration, and monitoring processes, and implement configuration management systems for environment consistency.
Establish and enhance CI/CD pipelines to automate software delivery, testing, and deployment, managing code integration for rapid and reliable releases.
Implement security best practices including access control, vulnerability scanning, and threat detection, and ensure infrastructure compliance with industry standards and regulations.
Identify and address performance bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities within the infrastructure stack and conduct load testing and capacity planning for anticipated increased workloads.
Set up monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and resolution and troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-related incidents promptly.
Create comprehensive documentation for infrastructure, processes, and procedures, ensuring it remains up-to-date and accessible to team members.
About us
Job title Lead Data Platform Engineer Profession- Digital Data & Technology
Directorate Data Operations
Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours
No of Roles 2
Contract Type Permanent
Location Home Based
Working Pattern Full Time / Flexible Working / Hybrid Working
Grade & Salary Grade 7. National banding -£51,824- £61,414 per annum. Outer London -£53,812- £63,252 per annum. Inner London - £55,799- £65,089 per annum.
This role comes with a Market Pay Supplement of up to £10,000
New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.
This role is to be appointed under Civil Service Terms & Conditions. Full details on the T&Cs are found https://www.ukhsa.reed.com/.
Closing Date 17/03/2024. 23:55pm. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered
Interview Date W/C 01/04/2024 18/08/2023 Please note, these dates are subject to change.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Skills & experience
Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as developers and system administrators, and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry best practices in platform engineering and DevOps, introducing innovative solutions to enhance infrastructure and processes.
Encourage and develop a diverse range of people, promote business objectives, and model the behaviours and standards expected of an experienced civil service member.
Lead the decision-making throughout the product life cycle and phases of product delivery, from stakeholder engagement to analysis, development of platform designs, and implementation.
Act as a DevOps champion, taking responsibility for specific deliverables, promoting DevOps and Agile best practices with passion.
Be a team player, empowering team members for success, recognising the bigger picture, and going the extra mile for high quality delivery in a high-performing organisation.
Interpret the needs of technical and business stakeholders into technical requirements, manage stakeholder expectations, and facilitate challenging discussions. Apply detailed knowledge of techniques and concepts required for the role, liaise with other technical teams for seamless service delivery, and identify areas for impactful innovation in data tools and techniques.
Advance engineering excellence across the Agency through the development and leadership of our engineering community of practice, focusing on sharing knowledge, enhancing standards, and providing a foundation for technical growth.
Other
Desirable Criteria
Data Modelling: A strong understanding of data modelling concepts and principles and can produce relevant data models. Have established enterprise-scale data integration procedures and ensure adherence. Experience managing resources for effective enterprise-level data services.
Data Ingestion: Experience with enterprise-scale data ingestion processes. Can manage resources for effective data services at scale. Have contributed to data sharing agreements and Data Protection Impact Assessments.
Metadata Management: Working knowledge of tools for storing and working with metadata. Be able to lead the design of metadata repositories and manage changes to existing repositories.
Data Analysis & Analytics: Advanced expertise in business intelligence tools, applications, and systems. Can apply a range of statistical practices and advise on best practice. Experience converting advanced analysis results into business decision-making insights.
Monitoring and Logging: Skill in setting up monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions to proactively identify and address issues, ensuring high availability and performance.
Project Management: Experience in working with project management tools like JIRA, Azure DevOps, or similar tools within an Agile/Scrum development environment.
Lifecycle Management: Knowledge or understanding of software and data lifecycle management, ensuring efficient and structured data handling processes.
Change Management: Expertise in change management processes to facilitate the transition of technology changes into production environments.
Compliance
Security Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). This role is Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants. Appointments to roles within UKHSA will be made in accordance with the Civil Service nationality rules. These can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK Nationals of the Republic of Ireland Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
Selection Process
This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Strengths
Stage 1: Application & Sift
As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a Statement of Suitability in no more than 750 words. This should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the experience criteria or the essential criteria (outlined in the person specification section). You will also be asked to provide information within the Employer/ Activity history section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history. Note: both your Statement of Suitability and Employment History sections will be scored with equal weight in the sifting process.
You must complete both to progress. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview
Stage 2: Panel Interview Prior to the interview, a coding test assessing the essential criteria in the Technical skills, knowledge, or equivalent experience will be sent to the candidates that are successful at the SIFT stage. The coding test needs to be completed within 48h. Note that submissions that are sent past the 48h deadline will not be considered. All applicants that progress to interview will be assessed based on Behaviours in the Civil Service Success Profiles. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles. The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be:
Communicating and Influencing
Delivering at Pace
Managing a Quality Service
Making Effective Decisions
Changing and Improving
Additionally, the candidates will be asked a number of questions based on the Coding test.
Benefits
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £51,824, UK Health Security Agency contributes £13,992 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.- https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/joining-the-pension-scheme/benefits-of-the-pension-scheme/
Learning and development tailored to your role
An environment with flexible working options
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
Range of health and wellbeing support
Any move to UKHSA 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.
Reserve List:
Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available. If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.
DBS - People working with government systems must complete Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks which includes a disclosure and barring security check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed for this role is BPSS however there may be a requirement for this role to be SC cleared and you should familiarise yourself with the criteria of security clearance.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Skills & experience
Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as developers and system administrators, and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry best practices in platform engineering and DevOps, introducing innovative solutions to enhance infrastructure and processes.
Encourage and develop a diverse range of people, promote business objectives, and model the behaviours and standards expected of an experienced civil service member.
Lead the decision-making throughout the product life cycle and phases of product delivery, from stakeholder engagement to analysis, development of platform designs, and implementation.
Act as a DevOps champion, taking responsibility for specific deliverables, promoting DevOps and Agile best practices with passion.
Be a team player, empowering team members for success, recognising the bigger picture, and going the extra mile for high quality delivery in a high-performing organisation.
Interpret the needs of technical and business stakeholders into technical requirements, manage stakeholder expectations, and facilitate challenging discussions. Apply detailed knowledge of techniques and concepts required for the role, liaise with other technical teams for seamless service delivery, and identify areas for impactful innovation in data tools and techniques.
Advance engineering excellence across the Agency through the development and leadership of our engineering community of practice, focusing on sharing knowledge, enhancing standards, and providing a foundation for technical growth.
Other
Desirable Criteria
Data Modelling: A strong understanding of data modelling concepts and principles and can produce relevant data models. Have established enterprise-scale data integration procedures and ensure adherence. Experience managing resources for effective enterprise-level data services.
Data Ingestion: Experience with enterprise-scale data ingestion processes. Can manage resources for effective data services at scale. Have contributed to data sharing agreements and Data Protection Impact Assessments.
Metadata Management: Working knowledge of tools for storing and working with metadata. Be able to lead the design of metadata repositories and manage changes to existing repositories.
Data Analysis & Analytics: Advanced expertise in business intelligence tools, applications, and systems. Can apply a range of statistical practices and advise on best practice. Experience converting advanced analysis results into business decision-making insights.
Monitoring and Logging: Skill in setting up monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions to proactively identify and address issues, ensuring high availability and performance.
Project Management: Experience in working with project management tools like JIRA, Azure DevOps, or similar tools within an Agile/Scrum development environment.
Lifecycle Management: Knowledge or understanding of software and data lifecycle management, ensuring efficient and structured data handling processes.
Change Management: Expertise in change management processes to facilitate the transition of technology changes into production environments.
Compliance
Security Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). This role is Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants. Appointments to roles within UKHSA will be made in accordance with the Civil Service nationality rules. These can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK Nationals of the Republic of Ireland Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
Selection Process
This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Strengths
Stage 1: Application & Sift
As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a Statement of Suitability in no more than 750 words. This should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the experience criteria or the essential criteria (outlined in the person specification section). You will also be asked to provide information within the Employer/ Activity history section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history. Note: both your Statement of Suitability and Employment History sections will be scored with equal weight in the sifting process.
You must complete both to progress. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview
Stage 2: Panel Interview Prior to the interview, a coding test assessing the essential criteria in the Technical skills, knowledge, or equivalent experience will be sent to the candidates that are successful at the SIFT stage. The coding test needs to be completed within 48h. Note that submissions that are sent past the 48h deadline will not be considered. All applicants that progress to interview will be assessed based on Behaviours in the Civil Service Success Profiles. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles. The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be:
Communicating and Influencing
Delivering at Pace
Managing a Quality Service
Making Effective Decisions
Changing and Improving
Additionally, the candidates will be asked a number of questions based on the Coding test.
Benefits
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £51,824, UK Health Security Agency contributes £13,992 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.- https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/joining-the-pension-scheme/benefits-of-the-pension-scheme/
Learning and development tailored to your role
An environment with flexible working options
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
Range of health and wellbeing support
Any move to UKHSA 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.
Reserve List:
Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available. If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.
DBS - People working with government systems must complete Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks which includes a disclosure and barring security check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed for this role is BPSS however there may be a requirement for this role to be SC cleared and you should familiarise yourself with the criteria of security clearance.
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Proficiency in designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, demonstrating a deep understanding of IaC principles to ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
- AWS Expertise: Extensive hands-on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), including but not limited to EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, Redshift, and VPC configurations, along with a thorough understanding of AWS best practices. Azure experience is also applicable.
- Git/GitHub: Strong command of Git/GitHub for version control, including creating and managing repositories, setting up branching strategies, and implementing CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions. Azure DevOps expectance is also applicable.
- DevOps Methodologies: In-depth knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, with the ability to orchestrate and automate end-to-end CI/CD pipelines for software deployment, testing, and monitoring.
- Scripting and Programming: Proficient in multiple programming languages (e.g., Python, Scala, R, Bash). Able to design, code, test, correct, and document programs and scripts. Experience reviewing specifications and defining test conditions and procedures. Have directed code reviews and promote refactoring techniques to enhance an enterprise level application codebase.
- Disaster Recovery and High Availability: Experience in designing and implementing disaster recovery plans, as well as strategies for achieving high availability and fault tolerance.
- Containerisation and Orchestration: Working knowledge of containerisation technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, enabling efficient deployment and scaling of containerised applications.
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Proficiency in designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, demonstrating a deep understanding of IaC principles to ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
- AWS Expertise: Extensive hands-on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), including but not limited to EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, Redshift, and VPC configurations, along with a thorough understanding of AWS best practices. Azure experience is also applicable.
- Git/GitHub: Strong command of Git/GitHub for version control, including creating and managing repositories, setting up branching strategies, and implementing CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions. Azure DevOps expectance is also applicable.
- DevOps Methodologies: In-depth knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, with the ability to orchestrate and automate end-to-end CI/CD pipelines for software deployment, testing, and monitoring.
- Scripting and Programming: Proficient in multiple programming languages (e.g., Python, Scala, R, Bash). Able to design, code, test, correct, and document programs and scripts. Experience reviewing specifications and defining test conditions and procedures. Have directed code reviews and promote refactoring techniques to enhance an enterprise level application codebase.
- Disaster Recovery and High Availability: Experience in designing and implementing disaster recovery plans, as well as strategies for achieving high availability and fault tolerance.
- Containerisation and Orchestration: Working knowledge of containerisation technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, enabling efficient deployment and scaling of containerised applications.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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).
