Senior DevOps (Platform Engineer)

About the job

Job summary

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential.

HMRC is transforming the UK's tax system through cutting-edge digital innovation and the Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO) Group is at the heart of that mission.

We are building high-quality digital services that will enhance the customer experience, enable real time interactions, and make tax simpler and more intuitive for everyone. By equipping our colleagues with modern tools and technologies, we are also reshaping how we work - allowing HMRC to focus its resources where they can deliver the greatest impact.

Do you want to help keep critical cloud platforms secure, reliable, and running smoothly for millions of citizens?

We're looking for experienced Senior DevOps Engineers to join HMRC's Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) team, working within product teams to design, build, automate, and operate cloud services.

We are redefining our offerings and growing the team of outstanding people to improve the Cloud Centre of Excellence. We are already a diverse team of 90+ technologists, creating a dynamic and inclusive working environment whose skills cover architecture, platform development, service design, platform operations and governance.

You will play a key role in delivering secure, resilient, and scalable cloud platform services, working closely with engineers and product owners, delivering improvements iteratively, driving automation, and championing modern engineering practices across CI/CD, IaC, and cloud security.

Job description

As a Senior DevOps (Platform Engineer) within HMRC's Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS), you will be pivotal in delivering robust cloud platform services. Working in a product-centric development environment, you will bring extensive DevOps skills and Site Reliability Engineering awareness to build services and bring them into full production operation.

As an experienced DevOps/platform engineer, you will act as a technical specialist and mentor to developers, adopting an agile approach to delivery where new services or improvements are delivered collaboratively and incrementally to realise business value at the earliest opportunity. Your development will be through a broad range of CI/CD technologies including GitLab, Ansible, Artifactory and Jira.

Important: Travel to Telford is required as part of this role, and 60% of your working time will need to be office based.

Additional Security Information

This role requires the successful candidates to hold or be willing to hold Security Check (SC) clearance.

Person specification

Key Responsibilities

• Build, automate and operate cloud platform services using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and an automation first approach.
• Design, standardise and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines, including testing, security scanning, compliance checks and reusable templates.
• Apply cloud security best practice, support audits and ensure services meet compliance requirements.
• Optimise platform performance, reliability, cost and operational efficiency through proactive monitoring and analysis.
• Provide technical guidance, troubleshoot complex engineering issues and share best practice across teams.
• Provide hands on support and mentorship to engineering teams, helping to resolve complex technical challenges.

Mentoring & Technical Leadership

As a Senior DevOps Engineer, you will proactively mentor junior engineers, share knowledge, offer constructive feedback and guide others through complex problems. You will lead by example, communicate clearly, and help build a collaborative, high performing engineering culture.

Critical Thinking & Technical Mindset

We're looking for someone who applies strong critical thinking, challenges assumptions, and makes informed technical decisions. You will navigate ambiguity confidently, analyse root causes, and propose practical, well aligned solutions.

Essential Criteria

• Experience in one or many of the following areas:
• Building enterprise-scale AWS or Azure cloud platforms.
• Delivering CI/CD tooling services (GitLab, Artifactory, Jira, Confluence).
• Implementing security and secrets tooling (Vault, OpsView).
• Building container platforms (AKS, EKS, Kubernetes).
• Delivering machine image pipelines and/or DNS solutions.
• Strong IaC experience (Terraform preferred) plus scripting skills (Python, Go, or Bash).

Desirable Criteria

• Awareness of FinOps and cloud cost management.
• Cloud related certifications
• Familiarity with the principles behind ITIL service operations
• Contributing to training and development pathways for junior engineers

Further Location Information

Please ensure that you only apply for a location that you are willing and able to work from, as we will only make one offer of employment. Any additional notes included in a 'Further Location Preferences (optional)' field within the application form, will not be considered. Please be aware that you cannot change your location preference after submitting your application.

Leeds Location

Moves Adjustment Payment will be available for this role, provided the successful applicant is a current HMRC colleague in Bradford and meets the eligibility requirements outlined in the HMRC's Moves Adjustment Payment guidance.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £58,541, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £16,959 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.

We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.

• Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary.
• Family friendly policies.
• Personal support.
• Coaching and development.

To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it's really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to Apply

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following:

• A name-blind CV including your job history and key achievements from your career which reflects key responsibilities of the role. Provide specific instances from your career detailing successes where you can.
• A 750-word Personal Statement. Your Personal Statement should be used to describe how your skills and experience from your career reflect the essential criteria of the role, using specific examples from your career were you can.

Please evidence any Desirable Criteria where applicable (up to 250 words max). This is not essential for the role but may be considered by the vacancy holder where candidates have the same score at interview.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Sift

In the event of a large number of applications, we may opt to complete a pre-sift on your CV only. Those who pass the initial sift will have their full application reviewed.

At full sift your CV and your Personal Statement will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview.

We may also raise the score required at any stage of the process if we receive a high number of applications.

Interview

The interview will be 45 minutes hour in duration and will be held by a 3-person panel. During the panel interview, you will be asked experience based questions which will reflect the key responsibilities and essential criteria outlined in the job description.

When answering you will be required to provide a specific instance from your career which demonstrates the technical skill, experience or behaviour in question. You would be advised prepare specific examples from you career in advance.

You will be advised to apply the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) technique when delivering examples. You would be encouraged to prepare demonstrable examples of your experience ahead of the interview to ensure meaningfulness and completeness.
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