Lead DevOps Engineer in RTGS Technology

Background

The Real Time Gross Settlement service (RTGS) and CHAPS, the wholesale payment service, are key to the UK’s economy. Over £775 billion is settled each day across this critical national infrastructure. We are in the process of an exciting and transformational programme to renew RTGS, enhancing not just resilience but also promoting completion and innovation. And we are leading policy work to understand future demand for payments and international efforts to enhance cross-border payments.  

 Job Description  

 The Senior DevOps engineer, reporting to a Team Leader, will be accountable for a range of activities undertaken on-premise, including: 

• Supporting, maintaining and developing changes to the Bank’s solution 
• Provide coaching and mentoring to colleagues in applying best practice to their work. 
• Gives guidance to solution designers with regard to product roadmaps and end-to-end architecture of the Domain.  
• Informs skills and knowledge needed across the domain and works with team leaders to develop the domain wide training plan so the right skills are available to deliver new services. 
• Supporting and maintaining the tool chain and wider technical estate, 
• Using best practice in Continuous Improvement/Continuous Development,  
• Managing Environments - safe promotion of code from pre-production to live including day to day procedures and recovery procedures when required, 
• Model Agile behaviours in day-to-day activities and promoting Agile best practice. 
• Working closely with cross-functional teams ensuring teams understand the deployment process, have access to the necessary tools, and is aligned toward the same goals. 
• Development and maintenance of technology roadmaps and ensuring the sequence of change for the estate is kept refreshed with the roadmaps. 
• Provide in and out of hours support to the 24/7 production environment, resolving issues as they arise. This includes start of day and end of day working patterns. 

Role Requirements 

Minimum Criteria  

• Hands-on experience of Agile/Scrum and Dev Ops Practices. 
• Provide in and out of hours support to the 24/7 production environment, resolving issues as they arise. This includes start of day and end of day working pattern. 
• Analytical thinking with proven ability for troubleshooting technical problems with precision. 
• In-depth experience of using many of the following, or similar: 
• Tooling: e.g. Jenkins, Ansible, Jira/ Confluence, Git, CMDB, Splunk, CtrlM, Docker, Terraform, Bash scripting. 
• OpenShift 
• Operating System: RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Linux, Windows Server.  
• Database: Oracle Database and MS SQL Server, preferable knowledge of NoSQL databases.  
• Languages: Java, PowerShell, Python, SQL, etc.  
• Middleware: IBM ACE or JMS/web services experience. 
• Message orchestration platform such as Kafka  
• Kibana, ELK, Elastic Search 

Essential Criteria 

• Practical expertise in performance tuning and optimization, problems analysis. A passion for understanding of how things work. 
• Experience with automated build and deployment, test driven development, continuous integration, and release management tools. 
• Experience with working in different parts of the software stack (integration/messaging layer, API, UI, etc). 
• Security skills: must have knowledge of modern security practices and technologies to ensure the security of applications and infrastructure. 
• Capable of articulating complex designs, code and applications for large scale projects into modular deliverable chunks. 
• Passionate about technology with an inspiring, motivating and positive attitude. 
• Self motivated and able to work independently or as part of a team with minimal supervision. 

Desirable Criteria 

• Broad experience with financial, accounting or payments systems, products and services supporting the payment services in the financial industry. 
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software or Electronic Engineering or other related discipline. 
• Relevant industry qualifications for example from Oracle, Redhat, Microsoft, Kafka.. 

Our Approach to Inclusion

The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve. 

At the Bank of England, we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it’s by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we’ll continue to make the best decisions for the public.

We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month.  Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.

Salary and Benefits Information

We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements.  Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

We offer a salary as follows:

Leeds circa £62,640 - £70,470

London circa £69,600 - £78,300

In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• A 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.   
• 26 days’ annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits. 
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process

Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy.  Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice.

The Bank of England welcomes applications from all candidates, but as a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approved sponsor, we have a responsibility to comply with the Immigration Rules and guidance.  As such, our ability to employ individuals who require sponsorship for immigration purposes is limited.  The Bank cannot guarantee that you and / or the role you are applying for will be eligible for sponsorship and that any application made to UKVI will be successful.  Eligibility will therefore be considered on a case by case basis.

The Application Process

Important: Please ensure that you complete the ‘work history’ section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It’s therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.

This role closes on Thursday 20 March. 

The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages.  

Please apply online, ensuring that you complete your work history and answer ALL the application questions fully and in detail as your application will not be considered if all mandatory questions are not fully completed.