Senior DevOps Engineer

Senior DevOps Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 4th October

1st-stage Interviews (subject to change): w/c 19th October

Grade: 7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary**:

National: £58,511 - £65,329 (which may include an allowance of up to £6,339)

London: £63,343 - £70,725 (which may include an allowance of up to £6,207)

Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of vacancies: 8

Vacancy number: 22440

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP

Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.

The Role

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. Please click on the link for details.

We’re recruiting for multiple Senior DevOps Engineers here at Justice Digital, Data and Science, to be part of our warm and collaborative Hosting Platform Teams.

This role aligns against the Senior DevOps Engineer role from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

• The MoJ’s strategic hosting platforms are transforming the department’s ability to deliver digital services, by providing hosting services with ops tools and best practices embedded. The value the teams deliver is multiplied across hundreds of services that make the justice system better for users. We use modern best practices like DevOps, agile and GitOps. We work in the open and prefer modern open source tools. We have a Platform dedicated to hosting new applications using cloud native architectures, and platforms in AWS and Azure, designed to enable legacy applications to benefit from the same, modern approach to public cloud hosting, optimising costs and environmental impact. You can find some of our repos Cloud Platform, Modernisation Platform and Data Platform
• About Us: At Justice Digital, Data and Science, we're dedicated to leveraging technology to drive impactful change across the justice system. As a Senior DevOps Engineer, you'll play a pivotal role in enhancing access to justice and improving outcomes for users through innovative digital solutions.
• Responsibilities: You’ll be working on our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything, helping us transform Government for the future. Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you’ll be helping define how we do what we do, and making sure that our systems are built to be changed rapidly.

• Collaboration: You’ll collaborate closely with software developers, product managers, designers, delivery managers, technical architects and content specialists who share our vision of leveraging technology to transform government services.

You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:

• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.
• Employees are allocated 10% of their working time for personal and professional development.
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best-in-class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!

You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.

Key Responsibilities

As a Senior DevOps engineer, you will:

Technical:

• Help build and run user-centred, open-source, secure web systems to serve a variety of citizen and government needs
• Be responsible for automating the deployment of systems that follow standard patterns, or components of systems that are more complex
• Manage infrastructure for multiple environments through code
• Build tools to automate infrastructure management tasks
• Support delivery teams by maintaining infrastructure-as-code patterns and automation that are repeatable, auditable, and easy to adopt
• Identify sources of friction in build, deployment and operational workflows and address them through improvements to tooling, defaults and self-service patterns

People:

• Share knowledge of tools and techniques with the wider team and community, both developers and non-developers, and maintain DevOps culture.
• Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance
• Help with hiring, taking part in recruitment of other web operations engineers and technical staff
• Participate in the professional development of themselves and support the growth of others
• Participate in 2nd line support during office hours, and sometimes out of hours (for which you’ll be paid an allowance and further hourly payment when on-call)

Person Specification

You will have:

• A systematic approach to solving problems.
• Experience managing infrastructure as code using tools such as Terraform.
• Experience of version control technologies such as Git.
• Experience with cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience with a programming language such as Go, Python, Ruby or Javascript.
• Experience working and leading tasks in a mixed skillset team.
• Experience of working with container orchestration.
• Experience of continuous delivery methods and deployment processes.
• Engaging people: Building capability for all.

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

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.

Salary Information**

Base salary for this role is from £58,511 to £65,329 (National) or from £63,343 to £70,725 (London).

• New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
• Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
• Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
• Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £6,207 per year (London) or £6,339 (National). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.

The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.

Why JDDS?

Over the past year, we have strengthened our focus on attracting and retaining women and non-binary people in technical roles across the Ministry of Justice. We have steadily been increasing representation through targeted activity, including community forums, support and mentoring, and visible senior allyship committed to sustained improvement.

We’re proud to back this up with action. Our internal Women in Digital, Data and Science Forum builds community for women and non-binary colleagues across all grades, creating space to share experiences, grow confidence, and shape practical changes. We also support cross-government work to remove barriers for women and girls entering and progressing in tech, and we offer routes in through apprenticeships and structured development.

We’re proud that this work is recognised externally too: Justice Digital, Data and Science (Ministry of Justice) was named Best Employer of the Year at the Women in Tech Excellence Awards 2025.

Read more about our work and culture in the blog posts below:

• Six Months in – Building the Women in Engineering Working Group, by Rosie Brigham, Deputy Head of Profession for Engineering.
• Designing Digital Services for Everyone: Why LGBTQ+ History Still Matters, by Mark Stanley, Deputy Director for Prisons.
• It started with a Quiz: Discovering a Different Kind of Strength, by Eva Horvathova, Capability Manager.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and foster an inclusive culture in our workplace.

How to Apply

In Justice Digital, Data and Science, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We shall assess a combination of your Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours during the assessment process.

Stage 1 - Application and sift:

To apply for this position, you must submit the following as part of your application:

• A CV detailing your career history (including any relevant qualifications). Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined within the Person Specification of this advert.
• A Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) which should outline your experience and skills, giving clear examples of work undertaken. It should specifically address the following 2 criteria listed below, using a separate paragraph for each.
• A systematic approach to solving problems.
• Experience with cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.

A diverse sift panel will review the information in your CV and Personal Statement to assess the sift criteria specified above. We operate an anonymous shortlisting process. Please ensure your CV and Personal Statement do not include your name or any other identifying details.

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply - Application Guidance

Stage 2 - Interviews:

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to the 1st-stage, virtual interview via Teams, which will assess your “Experience of working with container orchestration” and your “Experience of continuous delivery methods and deployment processes”.

Successful candidates that pass the first interview will be invited to the final, 2nd-stage interview, a panel interview held via video conference.

This stage will cover both technical and behavioural criteria.

Success Profile elements - Experience, Technical and the following Behaviours:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• Developing Self and Others

Appointments are made strictly in merit order. In the event that two or more candidates receive identical interview scores, the Technical Skills will be applied as the primary lead criterion to determine the final merit order.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Use of 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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact