Site Reliability Engineer

£72,000 GBP
Hybrid WORKING
Location: Leeds, Yorkshire and the Humber - United Kingdom Type: Permanent
An exciting opportunity is available for a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to join a growing engineering team supporting mission-critical applications and services within the UK National Security sector.
This role combines software development, systems engineering, cloud infrastructure and operational expertise to improve the availability, performance, scalability and resilience of essential digital services. Rather than relying on traditional manual operations, the successful candidate will use automation, monitoring and engineering best practices to reduce repetitive tasks, prevent recurring incidents and improve service reliability.
Working alongside product and DevOps teams, the Site Reliability Engineer will identify technical improvements, troubleshoot complex issues and help ensure that critical applications remain stable and dependable. The role offers the opportunity to work with modern technologies, contribute to a wider SRE community and deliver solutions that have a meaningful impact across National Security environments.
The position also provides opportunities to participate in local community engagement and outreach initiatives, helping to develop technology and cyber skills across the region.
Key Responsibilities

• Maintain and improve the availability, performance and stability of essential services supporting mission-critical applications.
• Apply software engineering and systems engineering principles to automate operational processes and reduce manual intervention.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate repetitive support activities, improve efficiency and prevent recurring incidents.
• Work closely with product and development teams to promote reliable system design, engineering best practices and operational readiness.
• Monitor service health and instrument applications where additional monitoring and observability are required.
• Analyse monitoring data and service metrics to demonstrate improvements in system reliability and operational performance.
• Diagnose and resolve complex application and infrastructure issues, including incidents that result in service outages.
• Troubleshoot problems across multiple layers of the technology stack, including applications, databases, operating systems and cloud infrastructure.
• Improve the scalability, resilience and fault tolerance of applications and the infrastructure on which they run.
• Support containerised applications and microservices architectures.
• Contribute to the development and improvement of automation, deployment processes and operational tooling.
• Participate in Agile delivery teams and collaborate with colleagues across the wider DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering community.
• Keep up to date with emerging technologies and identify opportunities to introduce tools and practices that improve service delivery.

A key principle of the role is to prioritise engineering and automation over repetitive manual support. Operational support and incident-related activities should account for no more than 50% of the SRE team's time, with excess support demand returned to the relevant product team until workloads are back within this limit.
Essential Skills and Experience
Candidates should bring experience across a range of the following areas:

• Software development: Experience developing software using Java and web technologies, such as JavaScript and HTML.
• Operating systems and scripting: Familiarity with Linux and Windows command-line environments, including Bash and PowerShell.
• Cloud infrastructure: Hands-on experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or OpenStack.
• Monitoring and observability: Experience monitoring large-scale systems, ideally using technologies such as the ELK Stack.
• Incident management and troubleshooting: Proven ability to diagnose application issues, investigate service outages and resolve technical problems across different layers of the stack.
• Automation and configuration management: Familiarity with deployment and configuration management tools such as Chef and Puppet.
• Agile delivery: Experience working within Agile Scrum teams and using supporting tools such as Jira.
• Database technologies: Familiarity with database and data platforms such as Elasticsearch and MongoDB.
• Service management: An understanding of ITIL terminology and operational service management principles.
• Problem-solving: Strong analytical skills, with the ability to investigate root causes and implement sustainable technical improvements.

Desirable Skills and Experience
Experience in the following areas would be advantageous:

• Containerisation technologies, including Docker.
• Microservices architectures and distributed applications.
• Extending, maintaining or improving open-source software.
• Automated testing frameworks, such as Selenium.
• Improving system reliability through infrastructure automation and software-led operational practices.
• Identifying and evaluating emerging technologies and modern engineering tools.
• Working across development, infrastructure and operations to improve end-to-end service performance.

Candidates do not need to meet every desirable criterion. The ability to learn, adapt and apply engineering principles to unfamiliar technologies will be valuable.
Security and Eligibility Requirements
This position sits within a security-sensitive environment. All applicants must meet the minimum Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), with higher levels of National Security Vetting required for many roles.
Depending on the clearance level, applicants may typically need between five and ten years of continuous UK residency to support the vetting process.
Security and export control restrictions may also affect eligibility based on factors including nationality, previously held nationalities and place of birth. Candidates should be prepared to discuss their eligibility during the recruitment process.