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Lead DevOps Engineer (Infected Blood Compensation Authority)

  • Public sector
  • Newcastle upon Tyne
  • 12/05/2025
  • £67,126.00 - £71,795.00 /yearly
  • Permanent
Job expired!

Job Overview

Location

Newcastle upon Tyne

Job Type

Permanent

Salary

£67,126 - £71,795 yearly

Date Posted:

12/05/2025

Expiration date:

22/05/2025

Additional Detail

Job ID

26311

Work Location

Office-based

Job Description

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Job summary

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is a new arm's-length body which is being set up, at unprecedented pace, to administer compensation to people whose lives have been impacted by the infected blood scandal. 

Are you driven and ready for an exciting opportunity which will make a real impact? This is a challenging and fulfilling role that requires pace, impact, sensitivity, and compassion.   

The multidisciplinary teams within IBCA's Digital Service Directorate are organised around delivering our mission and priorities:

  • To create a user-centred, empathetic end-to-end service at the heart of IBCA;
  • To provide the means of paying compensation to those eligible;
  • To iterate our service through starting small and scaling fast, through a test and learn approach.

A rare opportunity to apply and embed DevSecOps and Agile engineering methodologies across the breadth of a public service making a real difference. Joining IBCA early in the service lifecycle allows the Lead DevOps Engineer to provide technical leadership, build capability, and ensure platform integrity.

Opportunities to move to the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA).  At the moment all IBCA roles are hosted by Cabinet Office within the Civil Service. However, once IBCA becomes operational, it is anticipated that most of these roles will transfer to IBCA, which is a new Arms Length Body (ALB) separate from the Cabinet Office. Roles that transfer to IBCA from Cabinet Office will maintain the same or substantially the same terms and conditions of employment that are overall no less favourable. It is anticipated that employees who move from Cabinet Office to IBCA will be able to continue to participate in the Civil Service Pension arrangements with no break in their pensionable service. Roles commencing after IBCA has become operational will be with IBCA itself on similar terms and conditions. All successful candidates will receive full details of the terms and conditions of employment for their role with their formal job offer.

Please note that the mission of IBCA means that it is likely to be operational for a period of approximately 5 to 7 years. When IBCA's work begins to wind down, IBCA employees will receive support and practical guidance to find a new role, whether in the Civil Service, another Arms Length Body (ALB), or an external employer.

Job description

IBCA's Lead DevOps Engineer will work with senior stakeholders to define, maintain and own the platform strategy and full life cycle of a cloud-based platforms and applications from designing, through deployment to supporting and enabling value release teams. 

A key part of this role will be to ensure that the technical, delivery and operations impacts of platform design decisions are aligned to the technology strategy and understood by the appropriate stakeholders. To be successful, you will also need to collaborate effectively in a fast paced, transparent, multi-discipline environment.

You will be responsible for underpinning best in class development processes including; managing CI/CD tools and environments, maintaining engineering standards and automating systems to achieve quality outcomes and reduce tech debt. You'll be an expert voice in releasing value early through automation, infrastructure-as-code, containerisation and integration. 

We are looking for someone who can act as a technical platform owner, setting vision and goals for its development and iteration. You will strive to deliver better outcomes and value for money by encouraging and embedding a culture of continuous improvement. Your leadership skills will be used to lead a high performing engineering team, ensuring that solutions are delivered on time, to agreed quality standards, and are operating in an open and collaborative manner. As a leader within the Digital directorate, you will communicate a clear strategy, inspire others and establish a culture that individuals feel proud to be a part of. 

Understanding GDS Service Standards for building great public services is desirable.

Person specification

Essential criteria

You will have the following skills, knowledge, and experience:

  • Proven experience in a lead DevOps role, identifying and applying modern development standards to support complex projects;
  • Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team to jointly develop technical designs which deliver outcomes aligned with business needs and in an iterative way;
  • Practical knowledge of modern cloud-first engineering, leveraging capabilities to design and maintain secure, scalable applications, while mitigating security risks.
  • Can communicate technical concepts for multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders, ensuring mutual understanding and fostering strong relationships, particularly with senior leadership;
  • Demonstrates technical leadership and influencing future direction by successfully guiding design, review and quality assurance to ensure solutions are optimised and engineered to mitigate security threats.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Behaviours

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

  • Seeing the Big Picture
  • Changing and Improving
  • Making Effective Decisions
  • Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

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

  • Container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes); Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform); CI/CD automation (e.g. GitHub Actions); Experience securing platforms on AWS
Alongside your salary of £67,126, Cabinet Office contributes £19,446 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
  • Learning and development tailored to your role.
  • An environment with flexible working options.
  • A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
  • A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
  • A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.

As part of your application you will be required to provide a CV setting out your career history, qualifications and previous skills and experience, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role.

Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria listed in the 'Person Specification' section of the job advert.

You will also be assessed on behaviours and technical skills at application stage.

Should you be successful at sift, you will be invited to attend an interview where you will be assessed on experience, behaviours, technical skills and strengths. 

Expected timeline (subject to change)

Expected sift date - WC 26th May 2025
Expected interview date/s - WC 9th June 2025
Interview location - Your interview will either be conducted face to face or by video. You will be notified of the location if you are selected for interview.

Reasonable adjustments

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. 

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: 

  • Contact Government Recruitment Service via [email protected] as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. 
  • Complete the 'Assistance required' section in the 'Additional requirements' page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Further information

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'contact point for applicants' section.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 3 months, from which further appointments can be made.

Any move to Cabinet Office 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; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing [email protected] stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment. 

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.



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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

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) (opens in a new window)
  • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for 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
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).
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. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

Recruitment team

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then in the first instance you should contact Government Recruitment Service by email at : [email protected]

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission at [email protected]. For further information on the Recruitment Principles and bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, please visit their website at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk.

 
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