Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Team Leader

Job Reference: metoffice/TP/925/1326

Permanent - Full Time

Working Hours: 37

Location (City/Town): Exeter

Closing Date: 21/06/2026

Profession:

Region / Division: UK Region

Careers website category: Technology

We're looking for an exceptional Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Team Leader to help us make a difference to our planet.

As our Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Team Leader, the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week. Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We're a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We're experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision making
• We're better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity makes us greater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Your world of expertise

This position is within National Capability Technology. National Capability encompasses the science and technology required to deliver the data which underpins weather and climate services.

The Supercomputer Support Team supports, monitors and manages the supercomputer users and systems which support the running of our meteorological forecast and climate prediction models. This involves working with the user community to advise them on the appropriate use of the system and support their needs. The team is responsible for managing the operating systems and core application software of the Met Office supercomputer complex. This is alongside our 24x7 colleagues in IT Operations and our delivery partners Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

As the Senior Infrastructure Engineer Team Leader, you are responsible for a team that builds, manages and supports the infrastructure services that underpin all internal user services and services to the public.

• Ensure delivery of the Supercomputer service.
• Lead the team focusing on Lean ways of working and maintaining focus on Continuous Improvement of tools and processes.
• Support the team by removing impediments and actively dealing with delivery risks.
• Lead continual planning process with the team.
• Communicate effectively with team members and stakeholders.
• Identify and address issues that might negatively impact team dynamics.

As our Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Team Leader, your total reward package will be up to £65,568 annually, which includes:

• An outstanding Civil Service pension, with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
• Recruitment Retention Allowance (RRA) - you will be paid £5,300 per annum as a market supplement to reflect the demand for your skills. Whilst in post, you will be paid this market driven allowance from April 2026 until March 2027 in your monthly pay.
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave.

Essential Criteria, skills and experience:

• Lead Criteria: Technical Leadership - Proven ability to lead and line-manage technical teams, driving performance and accountability.
• People Development & Continuous Improvement: Experience coaching individuals and continuous service improvement using techniques such as Agile/Lean practices.
• Service Management & Reliability: Experience maintaining reliable and high-availability services, using ITIL/service management principles, including incident, problem, and change management.
• Systems & Platform Expertise: Knowledge of Linux/Unix, system administration, and production infrastructure/services.
• Experience in scientific or meteorological systems.
• Experience in HPC/supercomputing environments, and parallel computing tools (e.g., schedulers PBS, Slurm ; parallel filesystems Lustre, GPFS ; etc.).

We understand that great minds don't always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible; 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.