Senior 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:
- joining up public sector services
- harnessing the power of AI for the public good
- strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
- elevating leadership and investing in talent
- funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
- 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
Job description
The National Data Library is the public sector open data hub where users can search and browse for open data from across the public sector. We have an ambitious agenda to transform the way the public sector makes its data available and reusable. Transforming the National Data Library plays a major role in this agenda as we redesign it into a modern reliable data hub which can provide access to a variety of public sector data.
As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you’ll play a key role in shaping and improving the performance of the National Data Library platform. Read about a day in the life of a GDS Site Reliability Engineer on the GDS blog, and watch our video about Becoming a site reliability engineer at GDS.
As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer you will:
- be part of a multidisciplinary team supporting and maintaining live services for the National Data Library
- provide technical leadership within the team, working with other team members to identify the best approaches and solutions to new cloud-native infrastructure and redesigns
- write infrastructure as code using terraform or CloudFormation to ensure our infrastructure is consistent, reusable and reliable
- deploy and configure observability tools to enable our teams to identify and respond to operational issues quickly and effectively
- build CI/CD pipelines to enable the team to get code into production quickly and reliably
- provide day-to-day support for our platform and tools to ensure they remain available, secure and robust
- share your knowledge and expertise with your peers and the wider team to drive consistency and develop a culture of openness and learning
Person specification
We’re interested in people who can demonstrate:
- systems design – design and manage cloud-native infrastructure (e.g., AWS), using infrastructure as code to deliver consistent, secure, and scalable environments aligned to National Data Library needs
- user focus – collaborate effectives with stakeholders to understand user and service needs, ensuring DevOps solutions enable accessible, performant, and reliable digital services
- availability and capacity management – manage and optimise service performance, ensuring scalable, highly available, and resilient cloud-native platforms that meet user and business demand
- delivery process optimisation – improve and automate delivery pipelines (CI/CD), enabling frequent, reliable, and low-risk releases across the full software lifecycle
- information security – embed security best practices and ensure compliance with government standards (including GDPR), integrating security into development and deployment pipelines
- modern development standards – apply and promote modern engineering standards, including version control, automated testing, continuous integration, and reusable, maintainable code
- programming and build – use scripting and programming (e.g., Python) to automate infrastructure, tooling, and deployment processes, improving developer productivity
- service support – support and maintain live production services, implementing monitoring, alerting, and incident response processes to ensure reliability and rapid recovery
- systems integration – integrate cloud infrastructure, APIs, and data pipelines to enable seamless, secure, and scalable interoperability across platforms supporting the National Data Library
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 500 words. In your cover letter, we will only be assessing against the following skills: ystems design, User Focus & Availability and capacity management. Please ensure you only address these skills in your cover letter.
- a 20 minute technical phone screen
- a 90 minute video interview which will feature a technical task
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:
- Systems design – design and manage cloud-native infrastructure (e.g., AWS), using infrastructure as code to deliver consistent, secure, and scalable environments aligned to National Data Library needs
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:
- making effective decisions
- managing a quality service
- delivering at pace
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 Senior DevOps Engineer role:
- Availability and capacity management
- User focus
- Systems design
Want to know more about who Government Digital and Data are? Click Here
Recruitment Timeline
Sift completion: 17/8/2026
Phone Screens: 24/8/2026 - 27/8/2026
Panel interviews: Starting from 4/9/2026
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.
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
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 : 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.
Salary range
- £64,450 - £76,950 per year