Senior Specialist Engineer (Specialist Site Reliability Engineer SRE)

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to join our HPC & SRE engineering team. As an SRE, you will play a critical role in ensuring the stability, scalability, and performance of our services. You will combine software engineering and systems engineering to build, improve and run reliable, scalable production systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Service Reliability & Performance
• Ensure services are stable, scalable, and performant through engineering best practices and system design.
• Proactively identify and address system bottlenecks using advanced problem-solving and performance tuning techniques.
• Conduct capacity planning and implement solutions to ensure systems can support current and future workloads.

Incident Response & Troubleshooting

Respond swiftly to production incidents, ensuring minimal downtime and quick restoration of services.

Perform root cause analysis and postmortems, implementing lessons learned to prevent recurrence.

Monitoring, Alerting & Observability

Contribute to the design and implementation of effective monitoring and alerting systems using tools and dashboards.

Improve observability of services, ensuring issues are identified and addressed before impacting users.

Continuously refine monitoring practices to reduce alert fatigue and improve response times.

Automation & Tooling

Develop automation to eliminate manual, repetitive tasks and improve operational efficiency.

Write clear, maintainable, and well-tested code to support automation efforts and system tooling.

Drive initiatives to reduce operational toil and improve reliability through Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Service Level Objectives (SLOs) & Operational Improvements

Contribute to the definition, tracking, and continuous improvement of SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets.

Identify and prioritize operational improvements that align with business goals and user experience.

SRE Best Practices & Advocacy

Helping to evangelize SRE principles across the organization.

Collaborate with stakeholders to integrate reliability practices into the development lifecycle.

Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing

Work closely with software engineering, DevOps, and infrastructure teams to streamline deployment and operational workflows.

Improve cross-functional collaboration and promote a culture of shared responsibility for service reliability.

Documentation & Training

Maintain accurate technical documentation, runbooks, and post-incident reports.

Provide training and mentorship to engineering teams on best practices and tools.

This list is not exhaustive .

Essential Criteria

• Experience as a Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Operations Engineer or similar role
• Coding skills in programming/scripting languages such as Python, PowerShell or Bash
• Understanding of Linux/Unix & Windows systems, networking, and distributed systems
• Experience with observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog) and alerting systems
• Understanding of infrastructure automation (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Helm)

Excellent communication and collaboration skills

Possesses problem solving skills and the ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands

Desirable criteria

Experience with CI/CD pipelines, cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes)

Experience with post-incident reviews

• Previous involvement in driving adoption of SRE practices across an organization
• Experience delivering training or mentoring junior engineers
• Selection ProcessDetails
• This vacancy is using SuccessProfiles andwill assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Stage 1: Application &Sift Success Profiles - GOV.UK

You willbe requiredto complete an application form. You will be assessed onthe listed 7 essentialcriteria,and this will be in the form ofa:

Application form(Employer/ Activity history section on the application)

1000 wordsupporting statement.

This should outline how you consider your skills,experienceandknowledgeprovide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.You will receive a joint score for your application form and statement. (The application form is the kind of information you would put into your C.V please beadvisedyou will not be able to upload your CV. Please complete the application form in as much detail as possible). Please do not email us your CV.

Longlisting: In the event ofa large number ofapplicationswewilllonglistinto 3 piles of:

Meets all essential criteria

Meets some essential criteria

Meets no essential criteria

If used, the pile(s) Meets all essential criteria willproceedto shortlisting.

Shortlisting

• In the event ofa large number ofapplications wemay conductan initialsift, on the lead criteria of:
• Experience as a Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Operations Engineer or similar role
• Desirable criteria maybeusedin the event ofa large number ofapplications/largeamountof successful candidates.
• If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview & assessment.
• Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

Stage 2:Interview Success Profiles - GOV.UK

You will be invited to a face to faceinterview at Canary Wharf. London.

If face to face interviewsareplanned, in exceptional circumstances, we may be able to offer a remote interview.

Behaviours and technical skills will be tested at interview through questioning and a presentation.

There will be a Presentation required, the subject being

Automating a complex operational process.

The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be

Changing and improving. (Lead behaviour)

Working together.

Managing a quality service.

Delivering at pace.

Interviewdatesareto be confirmed.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Location

This role is being offered as hybrid working based at one of our Core HQ's or Scientific Campuses.

We offer great flexible working opportunities at UKHSA and operate using a hybrid working model where business needs allow. This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata, (averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's core HQs (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London), or scientific campus sites (Colindale, Porton or Chilton).

Our core HQ offices are modern and newly refurbished with excellent city centre transport links and benefit from co-location with other government departments such as the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Security Clearance Level Requirement

Successful candidates must pass a basic disclosure and barring security check before they can be appointed.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Security Check.

For meaningful National Security Vetting checks to be carried out individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 5 years as the role requires Security Check (SC) clearance. UKresidency less than the outlined periods may not necessarily bar you from gaining national security vetting and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed.

Eligibility Criteria

External: This vacancy is open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the CivilService as well as internal applicants.

Salary Information

If you are successful at interview, and are moving from another government department, NHS, or Local Authority, the relevant starting salary principles for level transfers or promotions will apply. Otherwise, roles are offered at the pay scale minimum for the grade, but in exceptional circumstances there may be flexibility if you are able to demonstrate you are already in receipt of an existing, higher salary. Pay increases are through the relevant annual pay award for the role and terms.

Please be aware that the salary is based on the office location.

Senior Executive Officer (SEO)

£41,983- £48,128 (National) (+MPS of up to £5,000 per annum, pro rata)

£44,148- £50,121 (Outer London) (+MPS of up to £5,000 per annum, pro rata)

£46,310- £52,113 (Inner London) (+MPS of up to £5,000 per annum, pro rata)

Market Pay Supplement (MPS) is offered for this role of up to £5,000 per annum, pro rata. This is due to be reviewed 31/3/27. The amount offered in MPS will be dependant on the postholder's capability level. Each post holder would be assessed on entry to the civil service with the majority being placed on the lowest award unless clear evidence can be provided of higher capability level. The MPS bands are:

Developing - up to £2,500 per annum, pro rata

Proficient - up to £3,500 per annum, pro rata

Accomplished - up to £5,000 per annum, pro rata