Mid & Senior Site Reliability Engineers - Technology and Security

Job description

We're seeking to hire SREs into the following teams:

• Cloud platform team - 1 Senior, 1 Mid-level.
• Developer Experience and Finops team - 1 Senior.
• Engineering Access Operations team - 2 Senior, 1 Mid-level. 

As a Site Reliability Engineer you will:

• Be part of a multidisciplinary team developing and supporting our central cloud, developer and identity and access platforms
• Write infrastructure as code using terraform to ensure our infrastructure is consistent, reusable and reliable
• Deploy and configure observability tools to enable our teams to identify and respond to operational issues quickly and effectively
• Build CI/CD pipelines to enable the team to get code into production quickly and reliably
• Provide day-to-day support for our platforms and tools to ensure they remain available, secure and robust
• Participate in on-call rotations when necessary
• Solve complex and interesting problems
• Share your knowledge and expertise with your peers and the wider team to drive consistency and develop a culture of openness and learning

In addition to the above, as a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you will:

• line manage 1-2 technologists, supporting their growth and development
• provide technical leadership within a team, working with other team members to identify the best approaches and solutions

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• A deep understanding of Linux operating system internals and are comfortable working with Linux virtual machines or containers
• Strong experience of working with infrastructure technologies such as databases, web servers, DNS, CDNs, reverse proxies, message queues and load balancers
• Experience of building and maintaining services in the cloud (preferably AWS)
• Extensive experience of creating infrastructure as code using Terraform or CloudFormation (preferably Terraform)
• Experience of using container orchestration systems such as Kubernetes, ECS or serverless application design with AWS Lambda
• Experience supporting large production services
• Proficiency in at least one programming language (we use Ruby and Python)
• Strong Git skills
• Experience of creating pipelines in a CI/CD tool like Github Actions or AWS Codepipeline
• A strong understanding of security principles and how to keep large operational services secure

In addition to the above, as a Senior SRE you will have:

• Experience of technical leadership, for example acting as a tech lead for a team or leading a technical initiative
• Experience of line management, mentoring or coaching

If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Benefits

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service 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. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

Things you need to know

Selection process details

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter no more than 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your CV includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 30 minute phone screen
• a 120 minute technical and civil service behavioural interview (conducted over video conferencing)

We currently have six vacancies: two site reliability engineers and four senior site reliability engineers. We're conducting a single campaign and will assign a role based on interview performance and merit.

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

Whilst we value the use of AI technology to enhance our daily work, we also value the personal touch and urge applicants to write responses without the use of AI to emphasise their own unique experiences.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• A deep understanding of Linux operating system internals and are comfortable working with Linux virtual machines or containers

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• working together
• changing and improving
• making effective decisions

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the DevOps engineer and or Senior DevOps role depending on which role you’ve applied for:

• availability and capacity management
• development process optimisation
• information security
• modern development standards
• programming and build (software engineering)
• service support
• systems design
• systems integration

Recruitment Timelines

Role closes: Monday 9th June 2025

Sift completion: Friday 13th June 2025

Phone Interviews: starting Monday 16th June 2025

Panel interviews: starting Monday 7th July 2025

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Other information

In January 2025, it was announced that the Government Digital Service (GDS) will move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a part of a machinery of government change. This change aims to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one central department, presenting exciting opportunities and positioning DSIT to lead the government’s digital agenda.

This role is in scope to transfer to DSIT when the machinery of government change takes place.  As a result,  if you are successful and appointed by Cabinet Office to this role before 1st June 2025, your role will transfer from Cabinet Office to DSIT at the time of the relevant machinery of government change taking place.  If your start date is after 1 June 2025, you will be appointed direct to DSIT and your appointment will be unaffected by the machinery of government change.  We are currently consulting with our Trade Unions on which policies, terms and conditions will apply on transfer.  The statement of changes applied to all other Cabinet Office staff will also apply to you if you are successful.”

We encourage you to apply and look forward to reviewing your application. We will keep you updated throughout the process.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.