Senior DevOps Engineer

Job summary

We’re responsible for Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Disposals Tax. Our work raises revenue to support public services, like the NHS and schools, in communities across Wales. But that’s not all, we're also involved with and support future tax design for Wales.

Join a place with purpose
You’ll join a team of 100+ talented people from across 14 different professions. Our culture is best described as innovative, collaborative and kind. By working together, we’ll deliver a fair tax system for Wales.

Our people
You’ll be working with people from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. From Operations, Policy, Digital and Data, HR, Communications to Finance – there’s a place for you in our friendly team.

You’ll be our greatest asset

You’ll be joining an inclusive organisation and be part of a team where you can thrive, be rewarded and heard.

We’re recognised as one of the top organisations for people engagement in the Civil Service People Survey. Inclusion and fairness are one of our strongest areas, as well as pay and benefits – our People Survey results say it all!

We’re also recognised for being innovative and a digital, ‘cloud-based’ organisation that supports hybrid and flexible working enabling a great work-life balance.

More about working for us, our roles and our Corporate Plan 2025 - 2028 .

Job description

The Senior DevOps Engineer is a new role, focussed around ensuring WRA’s digital teams deliver systems smoothly, securely, and efficiently. This position exists to connect different teams – development, operations, and security and make sure they work together effectively. The role focuses on improving how software and systems are developed, deployed, maintained and assured so that services are reliable and meet organisational needs.

The main purpose is to create processes that make delivering new systems and updates faster and more consistent, while keeping security at the heart of everything. This means reducing risks, protecting sensitive information, and ensuring systems are robust and compliant with regulations.

The role also helps the organisation plan for the future by supporting IT strategy and ensuring systems can grow and adapt as needed.

Beyond technical work, the Senior DevOps Engineer plays an important part in shaping how the organisation’s technology strategy develops. They encourage collaboration, share knowledge, and mentor less experienced staff. They also help maintain clear documentation and guidance so that teams can work effectively and follow best practice.

Ultimately, this role exists to give WRA confidence in its technology. By improving processes, embedding security, and supporting strong governance, the Senior DevOps Engineer helps the organisation deliver reliable, high-quality services that meet business objectives and support WRA’s mission.

“This is a new role working between IT Operations and our developers to improve our DevSecOps processes and ensure they’re helping us meet our needs as a cloud-native organisation.

It’s a great time to join the WRA and the Digital team in particular as we look to grow our portfolio of digital Services and produce an Easy, Fair and Sustainable tax system fit for the future.”

John Vinall, Head of IT Operations and Security

Person specification

DevSecOps Engineering

• Design, build, optimise and automate CI/CD pipelines for multiple Azure environments with Azure Devops
• Embed security into development workflows, championing DevSecOps best practices.
• Define and enforce Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage credentials securely across WRA environments.
• Develop Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) templates (Bicep) for consistency, resiliency and scalability.
• Design and deploy secure Azure services with secure networking via Bicep and Azure Devops
• Integrate CI/CD tools with WRA processes (e.g., IT Change Management).
• Enable full automation of CI and testing across environments.
• Create onboarding documentation and runbooks for development and operations teams.
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues across the CI/CD pipeline from development to production.
• Write and maintain build/deployment scripts and mentor engineers in creating reusable scripts.
• Collaborate with the Solution Architect, Head of IT Operations and Security, Lead Developer, Test Manager, and CDO to shape DevSecOps strategy and maintain architecture artefacts.
• Curate DevSecOps knowledge and guidance in Confluence.

Infrastructure Engineering

• Support the Head of IT Operations and Security and the Chief Digital Officer in developing WRA’s IT strategy and technical roadmap.
• Support disaster recovery planning and testing to ensure CI and CD pipelines are integrated with procedures.
• Identify and manage IT system risks and ensure compliance with IT processes, policies, and controls.
• Ensure integrity and security of WRA IT solutions through proactive management and updates.
• Maintain governance artefacts and ensure compliance with IT policies.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure systems are secure, resilient, and compliant with regulatory standards.
• Implement security testing within CI/CD pipelines.
• Support accreditation and audit activities.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Work closely with developers, testers, infrastructure engineers, and security teams.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote knowledge sharing across the organisation.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders and present technical information clearly.
• Other activities as directed by Head of IT Operations and Security to ensure robust, reliable IT services for WRA.

Candidate information Sessions

If this seems like a role you’d be interested in, join us for our virtual Candidate Information Sessions. You’ll meet the Line Manager, get an overview of the role as well a feeling for what it’s like to work at the WRA. We’ll also talk through our benefits and provide helpful tips for your application with us. Please register for one of the sessions below:

28 January 2026 – 12.30pm Register here: Business Wales Events Finder - Candidate Information Session - Senior DevOps Engineer

28 January 2026 – 4.00pm Register here: Business Wales Events Finder - Candidate Information Session - Senior DevOps Engineer

Languages

We’ve undertaken an objective assessment of the Welsh language skills needed to undertake the duties of this role. For this role:

Welsh language skills
Welsh skills are not essential. This means that you do not need Welsh language skills to undertake this role and these skills won’t be assessed during the recruitment process. However, we actively encourage all staff to learn or improve their Welsh language skills and offer a range of opportunities to suit every-one.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £47,675, Welsh Revenue Authority contributes £13,811 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 31 days annual leave + Bank holidays, and 2 Privilege days
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Generous employer pension schemes with a contribution of upto 28.97%
• Tusker car scheme
• Vivup Cycle2Work and advances of salary for season Travel Tickets
• Lifestyle Benefits offering discounts on shopping, restaurants and entertainment
• Wellbeing hour each week
• Access to subsidised sports groups
• Generous family-friendly leave policies
• Free Welsh language courses and time off to learn
• Access to a range of staff diversity networks
• Free counselling and support service via our Vivup Employee Assistance Programme and Your Care Health platform
• A thriving culture that’s described as innovative, collaborative and kind.

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

We’ll always be clear about how we assess your application, at each stage of the process. This will usually include:

• Assessment of your Application Form and CV against the relevant Success Criteria
• A panel interview (if you’re successful at the initial sift stage)
• If any additional assessments are needed for this role, such as a test or presentation at interview, we’ll let you know in advance.
• Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift will be conducted using the lead behaviour, Managing a Quality Service.

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Leader so we’ll ask you if you need any adjustments at each stage of the recruitment process. So that we can support you in a way that works for you, we’ll offer a pre-interview accessibility chat to anyone that declares a disability or needs any adjustments. This will take place with someone who is independent of the recruitment process and you won’t be placed at any disadvantage as a result of needing adjustments.

Whilst the use of Generative AI (GenAI) isn’t prohibited, it must be used carefully and your application must be factually accurate. It should be noted that presenting ideas and experience generated by artificial intelligence as your own, may be considered plagiarism.

A reserve list may be held for this role for applicants that have scored above the appointable threshold at interview. This means that if a similar vacancy becomes available in the next 12 months we may contact you to offer you the role.

Success criteria

Behaviours

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Managing a Quality Service

Deliver customer and user service objectives with professional excellence, expertise and efficiency, taking account of diverse customer needs. Establish ways to find and respond to feedback about the services provided.

Yes

Yes

Delivering at Pace

Take responsibility for delivering timely and quality results with focus and drive.

No

Yes

Working Together

Form effective partnerships and relationships with people both internally and externally, from a range of diverse backgrounds, sharing information, resources and support.

No

Yes

Strengths

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Problem Solver

You take a positive approach to tackling problems and find ways to identify suitable solutions.

No

Yes

Improver

You look for better ways of doing things and enjoy coming up with new and original ideas.

No

Yes

Experience

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Proven experience with DevSecOps methodologies and CI/CD tools (such as Azure DevOps).

Yes

Yes

Experience embedding security into DevSecOps pipelines and managing RBAC

Yes

No

Technical Knowledge

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Strong knowledge of cloud platforms (eg Azure), IaC (such as Terraform, ARM templates, Bicep), and container orchestration (for example Docker, Kubernetes).

No

Yes

Skilled in version control systems and scripting/programming languages (Ideally PowerShell, C#, TypeScript).

Yes

No

Ability to troubleshoot across diverse technology stacks and lead incident resolution.

No

Yes

Qualifications

Criteria

Assessed in personal statement and CV

Assessed during interview or assessment

Current certifications or equivalent experience relevant for DecSecOps infrastructure

Yes

No

Academic or industry qualifications in software engineering, cyber security or related fields

Yes

No

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

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 : Luke Cox, Yolk Recruitment
• Email : luke.cox@yolkrecruitment.com
• Telephone : 07458 160 673

Recruitment team

• Email : luke.cox@yolkrecruitment.com

Further information

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. See the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles where this is set out.
If you feel your application has not been treated in line with the recruitment principles, and you wish to complain, you should contact the Head of HR.
Email: hr@wra.gov.wales
If you’re not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

Attachments

Job description - English - DevSecOps Engineer (FINAL) Opens in new window (pdf, 337kB)Disgrifiad swydd -Uwch Beiriannydd Gweithrediadau Datblygu -cy_gb -(FINAL) Opens in new window (pdf, 333kB)