Senior AWS DevOps Engineer

Job summary

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

We’re looking for an outstanding Senior DevOps Engineer to help lead on the Internal Developer Portal which plays a pivotal role in accelerating delivery for over 2,000 engineers by turning complexity into clarity, and friction into flow. At the core of this role is the ability to design and champion a platform that enables teams to build, deploy, and operate services with confidence and speed - without re-inventing the wheel each time.

By providing a single pane of glass for service ownership, documentation, tooling, and operational insights, the portal empowers engineers to quickly understand the systems they depend on and contribute to. This visibility is not just about convenience - it drives better decisions, improves reliability, and reduces cognitive load across the organisation.

Beyond technical excellence, this role requires leadership. It requires setting standards, shaping best practices, and influencing teams toward a shared vision of modern, scalable engineering. Acting as both a strategic thinker and hands-on enabler, the Senior DevOps Engineer bridges the gap between platform capabilities and developer needs, ensuring the portal evolves alongside the organisation.

This role is ideal for someone passionate about platform engineering, internal developer platforms (IDPs), and modern DevOps practices, with hands-on experience designing and operating tools such as Backstage, Port, or similar.

Ultimately, success in this role is measured by how effectively teams can move - deploying faster, recovering quicker, and collaborating better. By fostering a culture of self-service, transparency, and continuous improvement, the Internal Developer Portal becomes more than a tool; it becomes a catalyst for engineering excellence at scale.

Job description

As a Senior AWS DevOps Engineer, you will:

• Join the Developer Experience team as a Senior DevOps Engineer which acts as a key enabler for DWP’s engineering community. The team develop, maintain and support reusable CI/CD components, software templates, platform integrations, which are all surfaced through our internal developer portal that help delivery teams build and operate services consistently.
• Lead the design and evolution of our internal developer platform, enabling teams to build, deploy, and operate software efficiently through self-service capabilities, standardised workflows, and automation-first practices.
• Understand how service catalogues, ownership metadata, documentation, templates, scorecards and self-service workflows can be used to improve developer experience, reduce duplication and support engineering standards.
• Be using modern tooling to develop CI/CD pipelines and DevOps toolchains where you will strive to put automation at the heart of everything you do.
• Craft and implement solutions that are highly available, resilient, scalable, extensible, and maintainable within AWS cloud environments.
• Be working across the organisation you will be pushing a mindset change to foster engineering ownership, and the importance of the integrity and maintenance of the services we deliver.
• Provide technical leadership, coaching and mentoring to engineers. You can lead knowledge-sharing, documentation and good practice across a wider engineering community, creating an inclusive environment where teams can contribute to shared tooling, standards and platform capabilities.
• Work across product-focused teams to gather requirements, evaluate tools, implementing/updating solutions, provision environments, and assisting with operational issues.

Person specification

See selection process for further details.

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

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Technical Breadth

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £16,786 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).

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 £57,946 to £80,664.

The maximum salary for the grade is £68,205, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,459 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 substantive salary.

See selection process for further details Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase applied to their current substantive salary, whichever is greater.

Any temporary allowances that you are currently in receipt of will not form part of the calculation to determine your pay. Any allowances that are in payment will cease when you move into your new role.

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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of four 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.

3. Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria below:

• Proven experience of writing and maintaining Infrastructure, and Configuration as Code.
• Demonstrable experience of using Unix/Linux/Windows in a support and/or development environment including scripting languages.
• Demonstrable experience of working in a DevOps environment – Continuous Integration & Deployment, Delivery methods and techniques, including agile scrum experience.
• Significant experience in implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Influential, with significant experience of supporting, guiding, and developing Engineers across multi-disciplinary teams in an agile environment.

4. Technical statement (up to 250 words). The following statement is aligned to the required technical skill of Technical Breadth. This statement should be used to provide example(s) of how you meet the criterion below:

• Significant demonstrable experience of designing, implementing, and managing an internal developer portal (e.g., Backstage, Port) that delivers software catalogues, self-service capabilities, and standardised workflows at scale.

Ensure that all examples provided in your statements 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 statements, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide.

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

An initial sift will be conducted using the technical statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift.

If you do progress to a full sift, you will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your employment history 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 or technical statement contain any personal details your application will be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Technical exercise

If you are successful at the sift stage, we will send you a technical exercise to complete remotely.

Please add Digital.EngineeringRecruitment@dwp.gov.uk to your safe senders list or monitor your spam folder to make sure you can receive the technical exercise email.

The exercise will focus on the technical elements listed in the essential criteria in this advert. You must not use any AI or generative tools when completing this.

You will have 5 days to complete the exercise from the date we send it.

If you pass the technical exercise, we will invite you to a video interview via Microsoft Teams.

Stage 3: Interview

If you’re successful at stage 2, you’ll be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. During the interview, you’ll be assessed against the experience criteria listed under both the essential criteria and technical skill.

Interviews will take place from late August 2026. 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.

You must have resided continuously in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years, 2 of which must have been the immediately preceding years from the point of applying for this job.

Further Information

Find out more about Working for DWP

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

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.

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

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 : digitialrecruitment.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)