Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Job summary

Help safeguard the nation’s digital memory
The National Archives is the UK government’s archive. Our Digital Archiving services are live and evolving—supporting the transfer, preservation and access of government records at national scale. Robust, secure cloud foundations are essential to keep these services reliable and safe. As our Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer (AWS), you’ll take technical ownership of those foundations and raise our cloud engineering maturity across teams.

Job description

What you’ll do
• Design and improve secure AWS infrastructure that underpins Digital Archiving services—making change safe, repeatable and auditable with Terraform and automation.
• Create “secure by default” patterns and shared, repeatable environments that multiple teams can use with confidence.
• Bridge Digital Archiving, IT Operations and Security—turning constraints into practical guardrails and clear, plain English guidance.
• Mentor two DevOps apprentices and help build the next generation of cloud skills at TNA.
Team culture—how we work
• Our culture is shaped by staff and focuses on connection, belonging and meaningful recognition. You’ll see this in cross organisation culture work, EVP development and recognition initiatives.
• We take hybrid/flexible working seriously and design roles so people can do their best work while meeting service needs.
• We’re embedding Secure by Design across teams—early threat modelling, open design reviews, and practical guardrails that make secure the default. You’ll help turn policy into usable
• Regular department sessions (demos, lunch and learns) and cross team updates keep work visible and encourage healthy challenge.
• We invest in early career talent (DevOps apprenticeships) and expect seniors to mentor—pairing on real work, building habits around IaC, reviews and clear documentation.

Why this is a great place to do this work
• Your decisions protect public trust and access to the record in a digital age—and sit at the heart of our 2025–2030 strategy to renew our technology and become the living digital archive of the state.
• We’re strengthening cyber resilience and embedding Secure by Design ways of working; your craft directly shapes safer, more resilient services.
• Inclusion, wellbeing and recognition are part of how we work, not bolt ons.

Person specification

Who this role would suit
• A senior AWS/platform/DevOps engineer who enjoys hands-on build as much as shaping patterns and guardrails.
• Someone who balances risk and usability, can explain trade offs clearly, and is comfortable influencing across teams.
• A natural coach or mentor who wants to help apprentices grow while lifting engineering standards department wide

SC clearance/willingness to obtain SC clearance will be required for this role. This requires candidates to have been resident in the UK for at least the past three years. Please do not apply if you have been resident in the UK for less than three years as your application will be rejected.

Working pattern & location
Hybrid working with an expectation of being on-site at Kew around 60% of the time (more initially while you get set up).

Application process:
Interviews: Interviews will be held on site and will include a technical test. It is likely that they will be held week commencing 4th May.
Application: Please submit your work history and a response to the scenario question below (max 800 words). Use concrete examples and show your judgement.

Scenario
A team has recently built AWS infrastructure for a new service as part of a four-week spike. As this was a prototype, the environment was created manually to save time, with members of the team have broad access. The prototype was a success, and the team have now been asked to productionise this service. You have been brought into the team to help them achieve this. Security has asked all teams to tighten IAM and avoid drift from Infrastructure as Code. Budgets are tight. You can involve others if essential, but there’s no time for a large programme of work.
What would you do? In your answer, demonstrate:
1. how you’d balance speed vs risk (what you’d do now vs later);
2. how you’d use Terraform/IaC to keep the environment repeatable and auditable (avoiding one offs);
3. a pragmatic access design (least privilege, auditable access; whether you’d allow a time boxed break glass and how you’d control it);
4. how you’d communicate the plan and trade offs to the team and security so everyone stays aligned.
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Essentials we’ll look for in your application
Significant experience in cloud infrastructure / platform / DevOps engineering, with a strong focus on secure practices (e.g. least privilege access, secure configuration by default, automation with guardrails).
Cloud architecture decision making experience: able to describe trade offs between approaches/services (e.g. reliability vs cost, managed vs self managed, speed vs risk) and how security considerations influenced the outcome.
Hands-on AWS experience, including identity and access management patterns (e.g. access design, roles/policies, SSO/IAM patterns) and how you keep access auditable and maintainable.
Infrastructure as Code and automation: strong proficiency with Terraform and scripting/automation (Python, Bash, or PowerShell), with an emphasis on repeatability and maintainability (e.g. modules, testing approaches, code review habits).
Strong incident diagnosis/troubleshooting: confident tracing and debugging issues across cloud services, including where logs/metrics/traces go, what you look for, and how you work with teams to identify root cause and fix forward (not just quick patches).
Ability to work across teams and stakeholders, influencing decisions and improving ways of working (e.g. introducing shared patterns, raising maturity, removing friction safely).
Strong communication skills — explain technical concepts and security implications clearly to mixed audiences and produce usable guidance/documentation

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 visit the Civil Service Careers website where you can find further information on the use of AI in the application guidance section.

Sponsorship: We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

Benefits

Generous benefits package, including pension, sports and social club facilities, onsite gym, discounted rates at our on-site cafe and opportunities for training and development.

Any move to The National Archives from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk;

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

Reasonable adjustments

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact The National Archives via careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs

• Complete the ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ section 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

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.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 : Talent Acquisition Team
• Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact The National Archives via email: careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…