The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has a clear mission - to grow the economy. Our role is to help businesses invest, grow and export to create jobs and opportunities right across the country. We do this in three ways.
Firstly, we help to build a strong, competitive business environment, where consumers are protected and companies rewarded for treating their employees properly.
Secondly, we open international markets and ensure resilient supply chains. This can be through Free Trade Agreements, trade facilitation and multilateral agreements.
Finally, we work in partnership with businesses every day, providing advance, finance and deal-making support to those looking to start up, invest, export and grow.
The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate develops and operates tools and services to support us in this mission.
About the role
As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer Manager, you will lead the design, delivery and continuous improvement of reliable, scalable and secure platform services that underpin critical DBT digital products. Working closely with multidisciplinary, agile teams, youll ensure development teams have the tools and support they need from observability and monitoring through to CI/CD pipelines, so services are resilient, performant and centred around user needs. Youll champion good engineering practices, helping teams adopt service-level thinking using metrics, service-level indicators (SLIs), objectives (SLOs) and error budgets to support informed, collaborative decision making.
This is a people-focused leadership role where you will create an environment in which engineers can do their best work. You will line manage and develop a team of Site Reliability Engineers, supporting their growth and wellbeing, while also acting as a senior technical leader across the wider DDaT community. Youll work in partnership with product managers, architects and delivery colleagues to shape platform strategy, improve reliability and reduce operational burden. Alongside hands-on engineering, you will help build and scale our global platform, support live services through an on-call rota, and lead improvements such as enhancing observability and streamlining deployment processes to improve service quality and delivery outcomes.
You will:
What tech will you be using?
It is essential that you have:
How to apply
As part of the application process you will be asked to upload a 2-page CV which outlines your experience, skills and fit for the role, and go through a multi-stage screening process. If youre longlisted, youll be asked to complete a short, pre-recorded video screening interview (alternately you can provide written answers to questions). Inspire People will assess your full application against the essential criteria listed above to compile a shortlist of applications, which will then be sifted by DBT hiring managers. If you are successful, you will be invited to interview.
It is likely that the sift will take place 1-2 weeks after the closing date and interviews 3-5 weeks after the closing date, though this is subject to change.
How we interview
At the interview stage for this role, you will be asked to demonstrate relevant Technical Skills and Behaviours from the Success Profiles framework. A role-specific list of these can be found below.
The technical element within the interview, where you will be asked a series of questions to demonstrate your specific professional skills and knowledge related directly to the job role and context, will assess against capabilities which are outlined under DevOps engineer within the DDaT framework which can be found here. As part of this process, you will be asked to complete a technical problem-solving exercise during your interview. Further details will be provided following sift.
Technical Skills
Behaviours
How we offer
Offers may be made in merit order based on location preferences. If you pass the bar at interview but are not the highest scoring you will be held on a 12-month reserve list in case a role becomes available. If you are judged a near miss at interview, you may be offered a post at the grade below the one you applied for.
This role requires SC clearance. DBTs requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet this requirement will result in your application being rejected and your offer will be withdrawn.
Checks will also be made against:
More about us
This role can only be worked from within the UK, not overseas. If you are based in London, you will receive London weighting. DBT employees are contracted to work in a hybrid pattern, spending 2-3 days a week (pro rata) in the office. Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DBT, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.
You can find out more about our office locations, how we calculate salaries, our diversity statement and reasonable adjustments, the Recruitment Principles, the Civil Service code and our complaints procedure on our website.
Find out more about life at DBT, our benefits and meet the team by watching our video or reading our blog!
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
Docker
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
CI/CD
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
HR Operations
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
SQL
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
Python
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
Process Improvement
Required — add evidence in Lab OS
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