Lead DevOps Engineer (DevOps Specialist Lead) - Newport in Canford Heath

About the job

Job summary

Are you passionate about collaborative working and problem solving? Do you enjoy using your technical skills to help teams work more effectively, and get software into the hands of users with speed and stability? Are you looking for a new role in an organisation that treats you as an individual and supports you on your professional and career development journey? Then this is the role for you!

We have an exciting opportunity for a Lead DevOps Engineer, within the Platform Engineering group, during the IPO digital transformation journey. Working within an established team, this role provides an opportunity to turn innovative ideas into customer value using a range of technologies and delivery platforms.

Key Tech: Azure DevOps YAML Pipelines CICD, Azure, OpenTofu / Terraform, AKS, scripting, deploying to Azure, and a wide variety of workloads we deploy within Azure such as Azure ML and much more.

Working Style: This role will be carried out in-line with IPO Hybrid working arrangements where staff are currently expected to spend at least 20% of their time working onsite from one of our offices. The successful candidate must attend office every Wednesday, and the last Tuesday monthly. This role is based in our Newport Office. The requirement for attendance at an office location can vary by role so we would encourage candidates to discuss working arrangements with the recruiting manager to agree a reasonable balance between working from home and the office.

The IPO holds a visa sponsor licence however; this role is not eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route. Candidates will therefore need to have an existing right to work in the UK at the time of application.

Job description

The Lead DevOps Engineer role can be divided into three distinct responsibilities:

• Provide hands-on technical leadership and guidance through coaching and mentoring.
• Lead the sharing of knowledge and good practice.
• If applicable, act as a technical product owner, developing medium to long term strategies for product lines.

Managing: Line management duties for 3-4 DevOps engineers. A lead DevOps engineer leads one or a small number of related project teams and contributes to the development of the strategic direction.

Main duties consist of but are not limited to:

• Work in one or many cross-functional teams to lead DevOps expertise and decision making across the whole software delivery lifecycle.
• Produce and assure DevOps technical designs based on business needs and providing justification for decision-making in chosen technical design.
• Providing deep DevOps technical expertise and DevOps technical leadership to project delivery teams, identifying and selecting appropriate DevOps technical solutions based on user needs and business requirements.
• Play an integral part in the DevOps Community of Practice sharing expertise to build the overall capability of the team.
• Analyse the impact of DevOps technical choices on business processes.
• Enable the reuse of patterns, tools, and components across the DevOps profession.
• Provides DevOps technical leadership, guidance, and support for the broader DevOps community.
• Assure that DevOps technical solutions follow all agreed processes and best practices, particularly around security and governance.
• Mentor one or more DevOps Engineers supporting them in their professional development as well as using your expertise to guide them in key and critical decision making.
• When needed, light line management duties for DevOps engineers.
• Lead on developing, implementing, enhancing and managing technical DevOps practices into the DevOps and Engineering profession.
• Leading on alignment of DevOps approaches across the department.
• Collaborate with the broader DevOps and Architecture community to ensure that solutions align with target architectures and technology roadmaps.
• Contribute to the overall technology strategy and roadmap for both individual projects and IT.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, providing direction and challenge to proposals impacting DevOps principles.
• Contributing to decisions and directions in a collaborative team environment, including but not limited to estimations, product planning, user stories (requirement) creation.
• Applying a continuous improvement mindset to identify and explore opportunities to improve processes and ways of working.
• Engage with Leads across IT, to drive the department strategic vision and collaborate on wider initiatives.
• Horizon scanning and continuous research on emerging DevOps principles and best practices.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Strong understanding of DevOps principles and experience of working in a DevOps or iterative development culture.
• Excellent knowledge and proven experience implementing continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) processes and tools, including pipeline design and administration.
• Experience with automated testing and embedding this in CI/CD pipelines.
• Demonstrable experience in service support including troubleshooting and incident resolution.
• Experience in identification and tracking of risks and issues.
• Excellent communication skills and experience of knowledge sharing and mentoring junior members of the team.
• Experience in leading DevOps expertise and decision making across the whole software delivery lifecycle.
• Experience in identifying and selecting appropriate DevOps technical solutions based on user needs and business requirements.

Technical Essential:

• Substantial experience in administration and configuration of Azure DevOps Pipelines (preferred), GitHub Actions or other CI/CD orchestration tools.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code such as OpenTofu (preferred) or Terraform.
• Experience of deploying workloads to, and consuming cloud platform resources (Microsoft Azure preferred).
• Substantial experience supporting the build and deployment of, or coding in one or more of the following or equivalent: Python, .Net Core / C#, NextJs / Node frontend.
• Substantial experience in software development process and tools, and development or scripting experience in one or more of the following: Python, Bash, PowerShell.
• Experience in containerisation technologies and platforms such as Docker, AKS or Azure container services such as Azure App Services, Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps or Azure Container Registry or equivalent.
• Experience in managing and supporting distributed source code repositories including Git.

How to Apply:

Click the 'Apply now' button and complete the application form by providing the following:

• Your CV - Upload an anonymised copy of your current CV. Please remove all identifying markers such as name, title, education institution etc. Make sure it clearly shows how you meet the essential criteria listed in the Person Specification.

For further information on the sift and interview stages of this recruitment campaign, please head to our 'Things you need to know' section below.

If you require job-specific information, please contact Alex Morgan.

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

• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Leadership

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

• At first stage interview you will be assessed on technical criteria.
• At second stage interview you will be assessed on technical criteria.

Benefits: Alongside your salary of 66,162, Intellectual Property Office contributes 19,167 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Unlimited Pluralsight video learning access.

Access to Microsoft's ESI training suite.

Hybrid working with no core hours.

Substantial support for career progression.

25 days annual leave moving to 30 days in annual increments.

You will also get 8 days public leave and 1 day privilege leave.

For more information about what's on offer at the Intellectual Property Office please review our IPO benefit pack attached to the bottom of this advert.

Please note that benefits may be subject to change.

Things you need to know:

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.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Additional details on security and vetting: Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check and if successful you must also hold, or be willing to obtain, a higher Security Clearance. For meaningful checks to be carried out individuals will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, depending on the level of clearance, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. For this role the successful individual will need to have consistently lived in the UK for a minimum of 5 years in order to meet the relevant security clearance.

Further information on the vetting process can be found at National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK.

If you have questions regarding this or are unsure if you meet the eligibility criteria, please contact.

The assessment process will comprise of the following:

• Stage 1 - Sift: An initial sift of applications will be carried out to create a shortlist. This will be based on the evidence provided for the following Success Profile elements: Experience. Your CV will be used to assess your suitability for the role.
• Stage 2 - Interviews: If successful at sift candidates will then be invited to an interview where you will be assessed on Behaviours and Technical. Please note candidates that proceed to the interview stage will be required to complete an online assessment. Details will be provided in the invite to interview information. Interviews will be carried out virtually via Microsoft Teams (video).
• Stage 3 - Interviews: If invited to interview Experience and Technical based questioning will be used. Specific information regarding the Success Profile elements that will be assessed at interview will be contained within the interview invitation. Interviews will be carried out in person at our Newport Office.

This recruitment campaign will keep a reserve list for 12 months. If you meet the requirements for this role but aren't offered after passing the interview, you'll be placed on the reserve list. If a suitable position opens up during this time, we will reach out to individuals in merit order. The successful candidate would be expected to remain in the role for a minimum of 12 months before applying for another role.

The Recruitment team operational hours are 09:00 to 17:00 Monday - Friday excluding bank holidays. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes and candidates should refer to the specific assessment criteria referred to in the job advert.

Applicants to note: CVs sent direct to the IPO will not be accepted. There may be important information contained within the job role profile candidates may also wish to refer to. We recommend candidates download and save a copy of the role profile for reference.

This post is being advertised to Internal, across Government and external candidates at the same time. Incomplete and/or late submissions will not be accepted or considered. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

We do not routinely reimburse travel expenses for candidates, however if participating in the selection process would cause you undue financial hardship or if it restricts your ability to participate, please contact the recruitment team for more information.

In line with Government guidance, successfully appointed candidates will need to provide documents for our Right to Work checks. Information on this will be sent within the invite to interview text.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, then please let the recruitment team know.

In the event of a high volume of applications, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) reserves the right to raise the minimum qualifying score at sift to manage volumes and ensure a proportionate and fair assessment process. Please be aware that only one application per candidate is permitted for each recruitment campaign. Multiple applications, including those made using different accounts, may result in your application being withdrawn or rejected at any stage of the process.

For more information on the IPO's terms and conditions, please review the attached IPO Modernised Terms and Conditions document attached to the bottom of this advert. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security: Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. See our vetting charter.

Nationality requirements: This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals, nationals of the Republic of Ireland, nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK, nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS), individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020, Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service.

Working for the Civil Service: The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion: The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found.