Senior Software Engineer (Cloud Platform)

The Senior Software Engineer (Cloud Platform) role (known internally as Senior Engineer, DevOps) sits within the Cloud Platform team, focused on building, operating, and continuously improving shared cloud infrastructure and services that enable delivery teams across the organisation. The role emphasises platform operation, reliability, automation and security, and involves working closely with engineering and product teams to provide guardrails, tooling, and enablement on Microsoft Azure. You will contribute to a build run own operating model, supporting live services, participating in incident and on call rotations, and helping teams deploy and operate safely and efficiently at scale.

The role will focus on:

• Building and operating shared Azure cloud platform capabilities.
• Automating infrastructure and deployments using Infrastructure as Code.
• Enabling delivery teams through CI/CD pipelines, guardrails, and tooling.
• Improving reliability, observability, security and resilience of cloud services.
• Supporting live services through incident, problem and on call rotations.
• Promoting DevOps and SRE practices through continuous improvement.

• Lead Software Development Projects: Guide the design, development, and implementation of software solutions, ensuring they are robust, scalable, and aligned with The Open University objectives. Provide technical leadership and mentorship, and may include line management, to junior team members.
• Architect and Design Systems: Develop and refine system architectures and software designs that meet requirements and technical specifications. Ensure that all designs are maintainable, secure, and optimised for performance, and systems are designed to be observable, supportable, and resilient in live operation, with appropriate monitoring, alerting, and operational documentation in place.
• Drive Technical Excellence: Champion best practices in software development, including coding standards, TDD and automated testing approaches (e.g. unit and integration), and version control, to ensure the delivery of high quality, scalable and maintainable software products.
• Oversee System Integration: Manage the integration of multiple software components, ensuring seamless interaction and functionality across the system.
• Data Management and Analysis: Lead efforts in data modelling, database design and business intelligence to support data driven decision making and improve system performance.
• Enhance User Experience: Collaborate with UX designers to ensure that user experience is a key consideration in the development process. Translate user needs into functional software features that deliver value.
• Monitor and Assess Emerging Technologies: Stay informed about new and emerging technologies, evaluating their potential to enhance current and future projects.
• Implement Security and Compliance Standards: Ensure that software solutions comply with security standards and industry regulations. Implement best practices to protect data and maintain system integrity.
• Quality Assurance and Testing: Oversee comprehensive testing strategies, including functional, non functional and security testing, to ensure software reliability and performance.
• Support Operational Excellence: Contribute to the stability and performance of software applications by supporting incident and problem management, utilising observability data, as part of a build run own approach, including out of hours as required, as well as service level and capacity planning.
• Conduct Services, Products and Requirements Analysis: Work closely with stakeholders to understand their needs, define technical requirements, and assess the feasibility of proposed solutions. Document and manage requirements to ensure alignment with project goals.
• Resource and Supplier Management: Assist in managing resource allocation and collaborate with external vendors to ensure project needs are met effectively and efficiently.

• Proven Software Engineering Expertise: Extensive experience in software development (coding, test writing and debugging), reviewing other people's work, with a deep understanding of programming, system design, and testing practices.
• Strong System and Software Design Skills: Ability to design scalable and efficient systems, ensuring architectural integrity and alignment with The Open University objectives, with experience contributing to systems built using modern architectural patterns such as microservices, API first design and cloud native platforms.
• Advanced Data Management: Skilled in data modelling, database design and implementing business intelligence solutions to support analytics and decision making.
• User Centric Development: Experience in integrating user experience design principles into the software development process to create intuitive and effective user interfaces.
• Emerging Technology Enthusiast: Passion for exploring and integrating new technologies to enhance software solutions and business capabilities.
• Security and Compliance Focus: Knowledgeable in implementing security protocols and ensuring compliance with industry standards to protect systems and data.
• Quality Assurance Leader: Strong focus on quality, with experience in leading comprehensive testing strategies to ensure the reliability and performance of software products.
• Effective Analysis and Requirement Management: Proven ability to translate user needs into technical requirements and assess the feasibility of proposed solutions.
• Operational and Resource Management: Experience in managing resources, supporting application operations and working with external suppliers to meet project demands.
• Modern Engineering Practices and AI Enablement: Experience working in a modern engineering environment, applying practices such as automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, cloud native development and DevOps ways of working. Demonstrates effective use of AI assisted development tools to enhance productivity, improve code quality, support testing and documentation, and enable faster delivery, while being mindful of governance, security and cost considerations.

• Leadership and Mentorship: You lead by example, providing guidance and support to team members, and fostering a collaborative, inclusive team environment.
• Analytical and Strategic Thinking: You are capable of understanding complex business challenges and developing strategic technical solutions to address them.
• Proactive and Innovative: You actively seek out opportunities for improvement and are eager to integrate new technologies and methodologies into your work.
• Attention to Detail: You ensure accuracy and quality in all aspects of your work, from coding and testing to documentation and analysis.
• Effective Communicator: You are able to convey technical concepts to both technical and non technical stakeholders, ensuring clear understanding and alignment.

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page.

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it's a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you. It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We'd anticipate this to be on average once per month.