Senior Applications Operations Engineer (Database) - Bristol

About the job

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC.

Are you ready to help deliver transformative projects and drive strategic decisions with your analytical expertise? Do you have the vision to identify growth opportunities and the skills to make them a reality in a dynamic, fast-paced environment? If so, this role could be for you!

At HMRC we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us, and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career at HMRC accessible to you.

Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success, and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.

HMRC is building a modern, digital tax administration and runs the biggest digital operation in Government, providing digital services for 45 million individuals and 4.9 million business customers. Our digital programme is multi-award winning and the envy of other government organisations.

The IT Operations profession is made up of professionals, paramount to our digital services. Our vision for the future is to attract people to work and progress in a fast paced, exciting environment whilst ensuring consistency in your training and upskilling.

We are working to have clear career pathways and succession planning, to enable people to see our area as a long-term career with prospects and development opportunities for all roles. We encourage people to interact and fully understand their role and responsibilities in your own area and wider areas to encourage development and knowledge sharing.

Here in Chief Data and Information Office (CDIO) we have a unique view of the information technology infrastructure across borders and trade services which makes us a key player in helping projects and programmes impact, assess and deliver improvements.

The Borders and Trade Delivery Group are responsible for the end-to-end service management and development of over 140 separate services from the generation of Trade Statistics to the administration of Customs and Excise duties.

This is a superb opportunity to join HMRC's IT function Chief Digital Information Office (CDIO) which sets the technology direction for HMRC and delivers the high-level design for all IT solutions across the Organisation. CDIO is responsible for building and running HMRC IT services along with providing IT change and operational support.

An Application Operations Engineer (Database Technical Lead) maintains services and is responsible for conducting user and security administration. They are responsible for development/maintenance and tuning of the department's databases ensuring availability of the department's data and preventing data loss/providing data recovery in event of disaster.

As Application Operations Engineer (Database Technical Lead), you will be expected to:

• Maintain departmental databases ensuring availability, ensuring no data loss, administering access, monitoring and improving performance, ensuring backup and recovery is maintained, providing data extracts and meeting business data exploitation requests.
• Maintain database security and data integrity.
• Incident fix and prevention.
• Deliver change and project deliverables in and out of core hours.
• Support development and test users with test databases and test data.
• Perform 24/7/365 support for priority 1/2 databases incident resolution.

Main Core Duties:

• Database design and administration using MS Azure SQL databases as well as databases on other relational database technologies.
• Extensive experience of relational database design and administration, scripting for database utilities and Azure environments.
• Monitor databases and be accountable for database batch processes.
• In some organisations, carry out the duties of an end user computing engineer, such as fixing technical problems, maintaining hardware, and liaising with the problem or incident manager.

Specific Responsibilities are likely to include:

• The installation, configuration, upgrade, administration, monitoring, and maintenance of databases.
• Providing support for operational databases in production use and for internal or interim purposes such as iterative developments and testing.
• Improving the performance of databases and the tools and processes for database administration (including automation).
• Using database management system software and tools to collect agreed performance statistics.
• Carrying out agreed database maintenance and administration tasks.
• Using database management system software and tools, and knowledge of logical database schemata, to investigate problems and collect performance statistics and create reports.
• Carrying out routine configuration, installation, and reconfiguration of database and related products.
• Developing and configuring tools to enable automation of database administration tasks.
• Identifying problems and issues and recommending corrective actions.
• Developing, maintaining and continuous review and improvement of procedures and documentation for databases.
• Identifying, evaluating, and managing the adoption of appropriate database administration tools and processes, including automation.
• Taking a lead on the setting of standards for definition, security and integrity of database objects and responsibility for ensuring conformance to those standards.
• Managing database configuration including installing and upgrading software and maintaining relevant documentation.
• Monitoring database activity and resource usage.
• Optimising database performance and planning for forecast resource needs.
• Taking a proactive lead on support and development activities leading small teams of DBA's efforts on project and support work including line management of a small team and assuming responsibility for directing delivery and support work.
• Mentoring and supporting less experienced team members and sharing technical knowledge and best practice.

This role is expected to contribute to the 24/7 cover for Live service operation. Depending on the candidate's skills and knowledge there will be the potential for the individual to be asked to undertake on call support as part of a team rota with immediate effect. However, HMRC would anticipate individuals new to the role and Department requiring significant time to become productive in an on-call capacity and would anticipate that acclimatization taking up to 12 months.

On completion of 12 months in post, or upon the demonstration of sufficient capability, the role would be expected to then help provide 24/7 cover as part of a team on-call Rota. It is expected that the successful applicant, once suitable to do so, may be required to be on call for which there is the appropriate additional remuneration of Annual Attendance Allowance (AAA), on call monies and call outs.

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate strong practical knowledge and extensive experience in the following key disciplines:

• Database administration using Azure SQL/MS SQL databases.
• Database design.
• Good understanding of backup and recovery strategies.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong analytical skills.

Desirable Criteria

Ideally, the successful candidate will have experience in the use of some or all of the following:

• Database technologies including Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL, Ingres, Azure SQL.
• Familiarity with and experience working on Windows, Unix and Linux operating systems.
• Some experience of programming in one of the following languages - Unix/Linux shell scripting, SQL, MS PowerApps ecosystem.
• Experience working on traditional on-prem and cloud-based databases in AWS/Azure.
• Leadership and mentoring experience.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of 45,544, HM Revenue and Customs contributes 13,194 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.

We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days. Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary. Family friendly policies. Personal support. Coaching and development.