Senior Cloud Configuration Specialist

The role Natural Resources Wales is looking for an experienced Senior Azure Engineer to play a critical role in designing, building and operating the cloud platforms that enable our organisation to protect and enhance Wales's environment. This is a senior technical engineering role within our Digital, Data and Technology function. You will lead the design, implementation and continuous improvement of our Microsoft Azure estate, ensuring it is secure, resilient, scalable and aligned to NRW's cloud-first strategy. Your work will underpin the delivery of customer-facing digital services, internal business systems and major transformation initiatives.

Working closely with architects, product teams and service colleagues, you will translate architectural principles into robust, reusable platform components and engineering standards. You will take ownership of key areas of our Azure environment such as landing zones, networking, identity, security, automation and platform reliability ensuring they are built and operated to enterprise standards. The role combines hands-on technical delivery with engineering leadership. You will help define and implement Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines and automation patterns that enable consistent and repeatable deployments. You will contribute to platform roadmaps, reduce technical debt, and improve operational maturity across our cloud services.

You will be part of a highly skilled technical community within DDaT, providing senior-level expertise across the full lifecycle of cloud services from initial build and transition into live, through to optimisation, resilience and continuous improvement. While the role has no direct line management responsibility, it carries significant technical influence, setting engineering standards and guiding both internal specialists and third-party suppliers. As an organisation we support flexible working. You will be contracted to your nearest NRW office and a suitable hybrid working pattern will be agreed on appointment. Travel between Bangor and Cardiff may be required, any face to face meetings or training will be planned in advance. You will need to work as part of a flexible shift pattern to cover service hours of 8am to 6pm. There are also requirements for weekend working when required to meet the business needs. You will need to work on a time specific rota providing an 'Out of Hours' ICT Service to an agreed level, and perform overtime as required to meet the business needs.

What you will do:

• Lead and be accountable for the implementation of solution designs, architecture, and strategic technical building blocks of NRW's Microsoft Modern Management services across Azure PaaS, IaaS and SaaS.
• Direct, oversee, co-ordinate and action Azure / Microsoft Modern Management implementation and configuration work packages that are your own or others.
• Act as a technical advisor authority and as one of several escalation points for other lines of service, taking part in major incident management and mentoring where appropriate.
• Work closely with the Principal Architect, jointly owning, creating, and maintaining NRW ICT principles, blueprints, reference designs and artefacts.
• Engage with the Principal Architect and Senior members of ICT on strategic discussions which include technology and assist in the development of portfolio services in line with the principles set out in the TOM and the associated roadmap.
• Remain technically competent in rapidly emerging Cloud technologies, following closely the industries declared plans, product updates and advancements.
• Be responsible and accountable for ensuring all implementations meet security best practices and policies, identifying areas of improvement or concern and working proactively with the Security Team to resolve.
• Work closely with NRW developers, PMs, BAs, support teams, stakeholders, and the business to ensure the quality of the solution in all stages of the system life cycle, supporting the foundation of an agile and efficient enterprise.
• Develop and maintain low level designs, supporting documentation knowledge bases and wikis.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post.
• Be committed to Natural Resources Wales Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy, together with an understanding of how it operates within the responsibilities of the post.
• Be committed to your own development and that of your staff through the effective use of your personal development plan (known as Sgwrs).
• Required to take part in incident response activities.
• Any other reasonable duties requested commensurate with the grade of this role.

Your qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills:

• Degree or equivalent experience in a technical ICT based discipline and extensive relevant experience such as background in cloud, development; application, integration and/or data development.
• Extensive Azure IaaS and PaaS solution management, tooling, automation, scripting, and implementation experience.
• Extensive Intune and Autopilot solution management and implementation experience.
• Extensive knowledge of the evergreen, Modern Management ecosystem, deployment and supporting devices.
• Experience of leading and working with technical and expert staff, directly and indirectly, through professional and matrix structures.
• Strong analytic, visualisation and communication skills with the ability to translate business requirements using analysis methods and requirements gathering.
• Understanding and experience of the AGILE software development and ITIL support & service frameworks.
• Knowledge and skills that are both broad and deep and must be able to work across complex heterogeneous systems and environments.
• Responsibility for remaining technically competent of emerging technologies.

Welsh Language level requirements:

• Essential: Level A1 - Entry level Welsh language levels. Please note if you do not meet the A1 requirement i.e., ability to understand basic phrases and ability to pronounce Welsh names correctly, then NRW offers a variety of learning options and staff support to help you meet these minimal requirements during the course of your employment with us.

Additional information:

• Due to the nature of the work the successful candidate must be eligible for Security Check (SC) clearance. This generally requires five years' continuous residency in the UK.
• Offers will also be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS) check.
• This role meets the criteria for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route. Natural Resources Wales welcomes applications from non-UK citizens who are eligible to apply under this route, subject to confirmation by the Home Office.
• Please note that while we may be able to support the Certificate of Sponsorship required for a visa application, the organisation does not cover the cost of the visa itself, including any associated fees for dependants.

Benefits:

• Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 28.97% (successful internal staff will remain in their current pension scheme).
• 28 days annual leave, rising to 33 days generous leave entitlements for all your life needs.
• Commitment to professional development.
• Health and wellbeing benefits and support weekly wellbeing hour to use as you choose.

We are passionate about creating a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. We are committed to equal opportunities, and we guarantee interviews for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. We want to attract and retain talented and highly skilled staff, so we make sure that our pay scales remain competitive. We advertise the full pay scale on our job descriptions. Appointed candidates start at the first point of the pay scale and annual increments are paid each year. We want our staff to grow professionally and personally. From leadership development to access to further and higher education courses, our staff have opportunities to expand their knowledge on variety of topics, stay current in their field and continue to learn as their career progresses. We are a Bilingual organisation which complies with the Welsh Language Standards. Welsh language skills are considered an asset to NRW, and we encourage and support staff to learn, develop and use their Welsh language skills.