Senior Data Platform Engineer inHome Working inHome Working PUBLISHED MON 16 DEC 2024

The UKHSA Digital and Data Directorate provides strategic leadership and oversight for developing and managing a common and bespoke suite of performant, modern, secure, data and analytical tools, services, platforms and applications, ensuring access to high quality data and analyticsservices, internally and externally.

You will work in the Data Engineering and Enablement Division that reports into the Digital and Data Directorate. It's an exciting time to join as we seek to create leading Health Protection data capabilities that enable data scientists and data analysts to develop insights that inform public health decisions with resilience platforms and curated data assets.

The core activities of Engineering and Enablement include the ingestion of data sources, building data pipelines, curated data views and data capabilities fused from data, models and software that enable the exploitation of data by analysts, data scientists and MI teams.

We are seeking to mature our advanced platform capabilities with standardised practices, machine learning and agility needed to pro-active detect and respond to new public health issues. We are looking for a Senior Data Platform Engineer to work as part of the Engineering and Enablement team to support the operation and the development of our Enterprise Data and Analytics platform, specifically:

• Work on the design and maintenance of scalable and reliable infrastructure, ensuringoptimal performance and continuous optimisation.
• Develop and maintain tools and scripts for automating deployment and monitoring, whilst managing systems to maintain environment consistency.
• Enhance CI/CD pipelines for automated software delivery, ensuring rapid and reliable code integration and deployment.
• Apply security best practices, including access control and threat detection, and ensure compliance with industry standards.Address performance bottlenecks in the infrastructure, conducting load testing and capacity planning for increased workloads.
• Improve monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and quickly troubleshoot infrastructure-related incidents.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Contribute and review our comprehensive documentation for infrastructure and processes.

About us

• Working on the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and highly available infrastructure solutions, while continuously monitoring, maintaining, and optimising existing infrastructure for performance and reliability.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools to streamline deployment, configuration, and monitoring processes, and implement configuration management systems for environment consistency.
• Enhance CI/CD pipelines to automate software delivery, testing, and deployment, managing code integration for rapid and reliable releases.
• Apply security best practices including access control, vulnerability scanning, and threat detection, and ensure infrastructure compliance with industry standards and regulations.
• Address performance bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities within the infrastructure stack, and conduct load testing and capacity planning for anticipated increased workloads.
• Improve monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and resolution and troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-related incidents promptly.
• Contribute to our comprehensive documentation for infrastructure, processes, and procedures, ensuring it remains up-to-date and accessible to team members.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as developers and system administrators, and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Contribute to the decision-making throughout the product life cycle and phases of product delivery, from stakeholder engagement to analysis, development of platform designs, and implementation.
• Act as a DevOps champion and promote DevOps and Agile best practices with passion.
• Be a team player, support team members for success, recognising the bigger picture, and going the extra mile for high quality delivery in a high-performing organisation.
• Understand the needs of technical and business stakeholders into technical requirements, manage stakeholder expectations, and contribute to challenging discussions.
• Apply knowledge of techniques and concepts required for the role, liaise with other technical teams for seamless service delivery, and identify areas for impactful innovation in data tools and techniques.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The Job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

Essential Criteria:

• Working knowledge with designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, and of IaC principles that ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
• Hands on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), including but not limited to EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM and Redshift, along with an understanding of AWS best practices. Azure experience is also applicable.
• Experience using Git/GitHub for version control, including creating and managing repositories, setting up branching strategies. Azure DevOps experience is also applicable.
• Knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, with an understanding of how to orchestrate and automate end-to-end CI/CD pipelines for software deployment, testing, and monitoring.
• Extensive experience with programming languages (e.g., Python, Terraform). Able to code, test, correct, and document programs and scripts. Facilitated code reviews and applied refactoring techniques to enhance an applications codebase.
• Experience with using containerisation technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, to enable efficient deployment and scaling of containerised applications.
• Working knowledge of security in cloud and infrastructure management, and the need for robust security measures and compliance standards within the environment.
• Experience in both routine business operations and projects addressing data processing and advanced analytic challenges.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Strengths.

Stage 1 - Application & Sift:

You will be required to complete an application form. You will be assessed on the above listed 8essential criteria which have been selected from the job description, and this will be in the form of an:

• Application form(Employer/ Activity history section on the application

• 1000 word Statement of Suitability

This should outline how you consider your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.

The application form and statement of suitability will be marked together, and you must pass both to progress.

Please do not exceed1000 words. We will not consider any words over and above this number. If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered.

Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

Stage 2: Technical Test

If you are successful at the sifting stage, you will be asked to complete a coding test within 72 hours, if you meet the pass mark will progress to an interview.

Stage 3: Interview (success profiles)

You will be invited to a (single) remote interview.

Behaviour's and strengths will be tested at interview.

The Behaviour's tested during the interview stage will be:

• Communicating and Influencing (lead)
• Delivering at Pace
• Managing a Quality Service
• Making Effective Decisions
• Changing and Improving

Interviews will be held week commencing 27th January. Please note, these dates are subject to change.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Location

Homebased

Eligibility Criteria

Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants).

Security Clearance Level Requirement

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Successful candidates will require Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) as a minimum with willingness and capability to work towards Security Check (SC).