Lead Database Engineer

Job summary

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see 'Selection process details'.

Can you lead and inspire a team to deliver secure, scalable database platforms that impact millions of people?

Do you want to work on one of Europe’s largest digital transformations and make a real difference?

If so, come and join us at DWP Digital.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join DWP Hybrid Cloud Services and to be part of the one the biggest digital transformations in Europe, implementing leading edge technologies with the user at the centre of everything we do, we create innovative digital solutions that make a difference to the lives of our 22 million users.

We are looking for a Lead Database Engineer to join our HCS Database Platforms team who support critical services that directly affect the daily lives of UK citizens.

The Database Specialists and Engineers working within this highly motivated team ensure DWP services are designed, delivered into production and maintained, using agile methodology, supported with robust delivery practices.

Our business driver is to move towards cloud-based technologies from on-premise hosting. Automation is always preferred to allow more time to innovate and find new solutions to existing problems.

Please Note:

There will be a contractual requirement to join an “on-call” rota providing out-of-hours incident cover 16:00-08:00 on weekdays and with occasional shifts 08:00-08:00 Saturday or Sunday. The cover is shared around the team and would normally equate to one shift per week but could occasionally be more.

You may also be expected to participate in planned out-of-hours work including at times on weekends.

Job description

As a Lead Database Engineer, your roles and responsibilities would include:

• Leading Infrastructure Services/Solutions ensuring they are aligned to achieve IT and Departmental strategy and delivered aligned to departmental and user needs, deliver value for money and are technically stable.
• Be an expert in your field, skilled in multiple disciplines, a role model in Infrastructure operations and have proven experience in the design, development and support of infrastructure services.
• Define medium to long term strategies for product lines, defining guidelines for the Engineering community and leading their adoption across teams to deliver quality Infrastructure Solutions.
• Own the operational relationships with suppliers ensuring services and products are delivered aligned to industry best practice, regulatory and contractual requirements.
• Leading delivery of architectural and roadmap developments within responsible area.
• Act as a major incident manager and escalation point for all service-related incidents.
• Drive innovation in ways of working throughout the team and encourage experimentation where opportunities arise.
• Responsibility of the leading a team of Senior Engineers, providing expert advice or dealing with complex problems and providing specialist service/solution technical support and assistance to junior staff and users.
• Responsible for the development of management information reporting aligned to best practice to ensure standard in support of service, financial management and decision making is of high quality.
• Own the risk register for individual technical area, ensuring appropriate management and mitigation plans and actions are implemented.
• Act as a Department representative acting as a liaison with external bodies and third parties, promoting good practice and process, and encouraging adoption across the engineering community.
• Make complex decisions, involving a wide range of solutions, possibly affecting several work areas within the organisation.
• Work closely with other senior leaders and teams, sharing information, providing advice and support around technical choices and implementation approach.
• Providing specialist knowledge and experience to input into the wider digital infrastructure strategy and development roadmap.

Person specification

When completing your employment history and personal statement, ensure you clearly demonstrate your expert experience in relation to the essential criteria outlined below:

• Building and developing centralised Data Platforms for collecting and analysing large sets of data originating from disparate sources.
• Oracle Database technologies (RAC, Dataguard, RMAN Backup and Recovery) and Public Cloud Technologies (particularly OCI and AWS).
• Providing technical leadership and support within a team of Infrastructure Engineers with a proactive approach to self-development and teamwork.
• Ability to apply Agile principles to infrastructure delivery, fostering collaboration, iterative improvement, and adaptability to changing priorities.
• Influential, able to communicate and lead with impact across a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, tailoring messages to ensure that it is right for the audience.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,026, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,735 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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.

Hybrid Working

This 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.

If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.

If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £75,026 to £80,267.

The maximum salary for the grade is £80,267, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance 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 will maintain their current salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase in salary, whichever is greater.

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

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of three parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed based on the essential criteria.

3. Personal statement - up to 1250 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria listed in the Person specification.

Ensure that all examples provided in your statement are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statement, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide.

The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria.

You will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your CV and Personal Statement.

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
• If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will 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 do a 10 minute presentation to further assess your experience. Your presentation should focus on the following:

• Describe how you would plan and architect the migration of a large, business‑critical Oracle database to a cloud environment, outlining how you would interpret business and technical requirements, shape an approach that minimises downtime, make key design and tooling decisions, apply appropriate architectural principles, and collaborate with delivery teams throughout the migration lifecycle.

Interviews will take place from late February/early March. Interview dates to be confirmed.

Other information:

If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.

For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed.

Security Clearance Requirement

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

Applicants for this post must have lived in the UK for 5 years or more during their lifetime for DWP to accept National Security Vetting applications at the Security Check (SC) level. Requests to apply for SC will always be supported where people have lived in the UK for the last 5 years but will be subject to a pre-assessment if they have lived outside the UK during this period.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

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.

Find out more about Working for DWP

A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.

Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location.

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.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

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

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

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).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Richard Hanley
• Email : Richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.

Attachments

DWP Terms and Conditions January 2024 Opens in new window (docx, 17kB)Success-Profiles-Candidate-Overview Opens in new window (pdf, 635kB)