Senior DevOps Engineer - APIM

Job Introduction

We’re looking for an exceptional Senior DevOps Engineer - to help us make a difference to our planet.

As our Senior DevOps Engineer the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week. Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
• We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Your world of expertise

As a Senior DevOps Engineer you will join a small team developing and supporting the Met Office's strategic API Management service.

Your key duties

• Take a leading role in defining and developing the work activities that facilitate the continuous improvement and development of the APIM capability
• Work with the Product Manager and Technical Architect to help define how to deliver the stakeholder requirement by:

1. Breaking down and estimating the user stories into manageable chunks to deliver within agreed iterations
2. Providing costed technical options and solutions to meet the business need

• Responsible for all low-level design aspects of the chosen technical solution in line with agreed constraints - time/cost/quality
• Responsible for advising the Tech Lead, Product Manager and Service Owner on how to best maintain operations, considering all aspects, such as running costs
• Work with the Solutions Architect to maintain an acceptable level of supportability and complexity – identifying and managing risks and technical debt
• Responsible for design & code reviews - delegating where possible to aid team development
• Responsible for delivering/maintaining DevOps best practice & tooling in support of lifecycle, automated testing and continuous deployment
• Responsible for providing technical advice and estimations to further adopt APIM capabilities. Identifying additional patterns and documentation to improve self-service on-boarding
• Support the needs of a DevOps team with respect to training, mentoring and technical career development
• Contribute to the development of secure and robust re-usable code / tools including:

1. Developing and extending Python-based AWS Lambda APIs
2. Building new Java classes to extend the APIM platform 

Why join us

Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is accredited as a 'Great Place to Work UK 2023' and in addition has achieved a place on both the UK's 'Best Workplaces in Tech' and 'Best Workplaces for Women' lists.

As our Senior DevOps Engineer your total reward package will be up to £62,939 annually, which includes:

• £41,725 base pay
• An outstanding Civil Service pension, with an average employer contribution of 27%
• Recruitment Retention Allowance (RRA): you will be paid £5,300 per annum as a market supplement to reflect the demand for your skills. Whilst in post, you will be paid this market driven allowance from April 2024 until September 2025 in your monthly pay
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave

Essential Criteria, skills and experience:

1. Highly proficient in Java development and proficient in Python development (We live and breathe it)
2. Demonstrable knowledge of using Amazon AWS services including Lambda, EC2, VPC (networking) and experience of the AWS CodePipeline
3. A working knowledge of implementing or supporting REST APIs using an API Management solution (e.g. WSO2, Apigee) and OpenAPI (Swagger) Definitions (We're experts by nature)
4. Experience of taking requirements and producing either Low Level, or High Level designs and presenting them in a clear manner to different audiences 
5. Experience of working in a live service using DevOps & Agile processes

Desirable Criteria:

We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet our essential criteria, but we’re also keen to discover if you have:

1. Strong teamwork and communications skills
2. Experience with some of the following tools:  git / GitHub, Atlassian toolset, Maven, Java Frameworks, Junit, Jmeter
3. Experience in writing both technical and user facing documentation

How to apply

If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you. Apply below using your CV and a Cover Letter/Supporting Statement with evidence against each of the essential criteria. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills.

Closing date Sunday 12/05/2024 at 23:59 with first stage interviews commencing from 27th May. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.

How we can help

If you are considering applying and need support to do so, please contact us via careers@metoffice.gov.uk . You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us