Site Reliability Engineer

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

Sometimes described as the most strategic programme in government, GOV.UK One Login represents a once in a career opportunity to work on a software product that will be used by the majority of the people living in the UK. It’s a fast paced, dynamic and challenging environment that is sure to offer you career satisfaction as well as a chance to develop and enhance your skills.

GOV.UK One Login is being designed and built for the many, not the few. It will unite services across government, revolutionising the way government departments interact digitally with users. One Login will deliver an accessible and essential function that will change lives and help millions.

If this sounds like the next role for you on your career journey then we’d love to hear from you.

Find out more at the GDS Blog.

Job description

Site Reliability Engineers in One Login develop infrastructure and support application teams. This involves working with a diverse range of other technologists and non-technical stakeholders so communication and empathy are as important as technical capability.

As a Site Reliability Engineer you'll

• be part of one of our multidisciplinary service teams working with and supporting front-end and back-end developers, delivery and product managers, tech writers and architects
• build and maintain resilient, highly available and secure systems to meet the needs of our users
• take responsibility for solving complex and interesting problems
• create infrastructure as code to ensure our infrastructure and deployment pipelines are reusable, repeatable and reliable
• ensure our systems are appropriately monitored and instrumented to enable our teams to identify and respond to operational issues quickly and effectively
• build CI/CD pipelines to enable our developers to get their code into production as quickly and safely as possible
• act as a digital ambassador, sharing experiences through public speaking and blog posts
• participate in our in-hours 2nd line and out-of-hours support rotas to gain empathy for users and awareness of operational concerns
• share knowledge of tools and practices with your wider team and peers to drive consistency and maintain our high engineering standards

Person specification

We're interested in people who have:

• a high level of proficiency in at least one programming language (we use Java, Typescript, and Python), modern development standards, awareness of development process optimisation and strong Git skills
• a working knowledge of Agile best practices, the benefits of focussing on user needs and have used quantitative and qualitative data about users to turn user focus into outcomes
• a deep understanding of Linux operating system internals and are comfortable working with Linux virtual machines or containers, including the ability to identify, locate and fix service faults, capacity management and availability strategies
• strong experience of supporting large production services with infrastructure technologies including databases, web servers, DNS, CDNs, reverse proxies, message queues and load balancers. Systems design experience, working with well understood technology and identifying appropriate patterns. Have established design patterns and iterated them
• extensive experience of building and maintaining services in the cloud (preferably AWS), creating infrastructure as code using Terraform and CloudFormation, and using container orchestration systems like Kubernetes or ECS or serverless application design with AWS Lambda.
• knowledge of setting up pipelines in a CI/CD tool like Github Actions or AWS Codepipeline, and will have built and tested simple interfaces between systems and worked on more complex integrations as part of a wider team
• a good understanding of information security principles and how to keep large operational services secure.

Benefits

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for the King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service 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

Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

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

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 30 minute preliminary interview (conducted over video google-meet conferencing)
• a 90 minute technical interview followed by a 45 minute Civil Service behavioural interview (conducted over video google-meet conferencing). Please note, there will be a 15 minute comfort break between the technical and behavioural sections of the interview

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• a high level of proficiency in at least one programming language (we use Java, Typescript, and Python), modern development standards, awareness of development process optimisation and strong Git skills

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• working together
• changing and improving
• making effective decisions

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the DevOps Engineer role:

• development process optimisation
• information security
• modern standards approach
• programming and build (software engineering)
• service support
• systems design
• systems integration

Want to know more about who Government Digital and Data are? Click Here

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: week commencing Monday 6th April 2026

Preliminary interviews: starting week commencing Monday 13th April 2026

Panel interviews: starting week commencing Monday 4th May

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

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.

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 : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.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, you should contact gds-complaints@dsit.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: info@csc.gov.uk Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.