Department for work and pensions (dwp)
Senior Technical Lead
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Engineering
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About the job
Job summary
Are you an experienced Technical Leader with a passion for automation excellence?
Would you love the opportunity to promote technical evolution within the organisation across multiple teams?
If so, come join us as a Senior Technical Lead!
Within DWP’s Working Age Services Digital we are responsible for a number of existing services which support the core of society including the department’s highest profile benefit service, Universal Credit.
As part of the Universal Credit programme, we continue to seek ways to transform how we deliver for the citizen with its circa 6 million citizens. As part of this we have several key platform capabilities which we are looking to evolve to support the wider departmental ambitions. All of which have large data persistence footprints and need a high level of load testing assurance. This role will be vital in supporting all these aims and more.
We’re looking for an outstanding Senior Technical Lead, who wants to contribute to demanding and exciting digital services for the UK Government. The products we build are changing the face of public services, with the potential to dramatically transform the future of millions of people.
We need a driven and passionate Senior Technical Lead who would like to be part of teams delivering real value to people that need help during the difficult times of their lives.
The candidate will act as a leader across the Working Age Services space, with line management responsibility of Senior Engineers. You will support increasing capability, standards and practices across the organisation.
As a seasoned Senior Technical Lead, you will spearhead the data persistence strategy for Universal Credit, New Style JSA/ESA (Job Seeker’s Allowance/Employment Support Allowance) plus various other smaller systems. The role will focus on architecting and implementing scalable data lifecycle management processes, including backups and retention policies, while ensuring system resilience and security. Alongside the overall messaging stack to support event management outcomes.
Additionally, you will lead performance testing initiatives to ensure workload stability, guaranteeing seamless service operations. Your expertise in data management, backup/recovery strategies, and performance engineering will drive key decisions in shaping our data capability that underpins these critical systems.
Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see ‘Selection process details’.
Job description
As Senior Technical Lead, as well as being a hands-on engineer, you will:
- Work across multiple teams as an engineering specialist defining and refining engineering standards and setting direction in line with overarching strategy (which you will influence).
- Push a mindset change within the organisation to foster engineering ownership of infrastructure development including software engineering activities.
- Define and implement the data persistence and event strategy for Working Age Services, including Universal Credit.
- Create capability, through definition of training opportunities, pastoral care, and Practice alignment.
- Be responsible for recruitment, mentoring and support of engineers and trainee engineers alongside other Lead engineer community members.
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Person specification
When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:
Lead criterion: Significant experience of leading engineering teams providing technical leadership and guidance, and coaching and mentoring to support team member development opportunities including in a complex, multidisciplinary environment, delivering products within specific time-scales and engaging with multiple stakeholders, for example to optimize data storage, retrieval, and query efficiency.*- Significant experience of the full life cycle of a cloud-based platforms and applications from designing, through deployment to supporting and patching (in particular AWS).
- Significant experience of version control systems as well as building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines e.g. git with GitLab CI or Jenkins.
- Significant experience of Infrastructure-as-code and configuration of code for one or more cloud providers.
- Significant experience of ensuring adherence to industry standards for data security, disaster recovery, and compliance.
- Significant experience of leading data lifecycle management (both at rest and as events), including automated backup processes, archival, and retention, using modern database technologies and cloud-based data storage solutions.
- Significant experience of measuring system performance through automation load testing and recommending enhancements.
- An initial sift may be conducted using the lead criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift.
If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk.
Benefits
We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:
- Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
- Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
- Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
- Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
- Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
- Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
- An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.
This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.
Salary Information
London pay for this role is from £78,843 to £89,995.
The maximum salary for the grade is £83,957, however a Digital Allowance of up to £6,038 per annum is available for exceptional candidates.
Regional pay for this role is from £72,664 to £89,995.
The maximum salary for the grade is £77,740, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 per annum is available for exceptional candidates.
The Digital Allowance for both London pay and regional pay is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed.
Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview.
Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer should maintain their current salary.
Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion may move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Stage 1: Application
Applications must include:
1. A completed Personal Details application form.
2. A curriculum vitae including education, professional qualifications and full employment history, giving details of key achievements in line with essential criteria listed in the Person Specification.
When uploading your CV, do not include personal information or links to any webpages or profiles that identifies you. This means we can recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity. Take out references to your name/title, age, sex, email address, postal address, telephone number or nationality/immigration status.
When giving details of your redacted CV, you should therefore include details of the work and projects that you have been involved in, and your role therein.
Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign.
Important information
- Please attach your redacted CV as a separate additional document in either PDF or word format.
- If your CV contains any personal details your application may be withdrawn.
Stage 2: Interview
If you’re successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria.
You will be asked to deliver a presentation prior to your interview on a specific topic which will be used as a discussion topic at your interview. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.
Interviews will take place from mid-February 2025. Interview dates to be confirmed.
Other information:
All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.
Security Clearance Requirement
You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.
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.
Further information:
Find out more about Working for DWP
For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.
A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting
The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.
Reasonable Adjustment
At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.
We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” 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.
For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
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
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).
Diversity and Inclusion
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
Recruitment team