DevOps Engineer - Department for Education - SEO

Coventry, West Midlands (England), CV1 2WT : Darlington, North East England, DL1 5QE : Manchester, North West England, M1 2WD : Sheffield, Yorkshire and the Humber, S1 2FJ : City of Westminster, London (region), SW1P 3BT

Help build and run the platforms behind over £85bn of education funding.

The Department for Education (DfE) is recruiting DevOps Engineers (SEO) to support the design, build, and operation of the platforms that underpin one of the largest funding operations in government. Our Funding Services support the allocation and payment of funding to education providers across England, making this a critical national service where reliability, accuracy, and security are essential.

This role sits within the DevOps profession in the Digital & Infrastructure Group and supports a significant transformation of how these services are engineered and operated. We are simplifying a complex estate, moving towards a single Azure tenancy, and adopting containerised platforms (AKS) and modern CI/CD practices to improve consistency, resilience, and delivery across a broad portfolio of internal and public-facing services.

As a DevOps Engineer, you will contribute to the delivery of DevOps and DevSecOps practices through automation, platform capabilities, and engineering standards. You will help implement reusable patterns, support infrastructure and policy as code, and improve the reliability, security, and cost-effectiveness of our live services. This work supports not just the digital platforms themselves, but the wider operational processes and data flows that ensure funding is delivered accurately and on time.

You will work across multiple teams and services, collaborating with Technical Architecture, Cyber Security, and delivery teams to deliver solutions that are operable and supportable. While remaining hands-on with complex systems, you will contribute to improving how funding services are engineered and operated across the Department, supporting both external users and the internal teams who rely on these systems every day.

IMPORTANT - This vacancy is using the Civil Service Numerical and Verbal tests. The deadline for completing the tests is the same as the vacancy closing date. Please ensure you complete the tests with sufficient time to complete the written application.

As a DevOps Engineer (SEO), you will contribute to the delivery and continuous improvement of DevOps practices and tooling. You will support technical decisions that affect live services, delivery pipelines, and operational resilience, balancing delivery pace with risk, security, and compliance.

You will work within multidisciplinary, agile teams and be expected to deliver high-quality engineering outcomes while supporting standardised approaches and continuous improvement.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Supporting the design, build, operation, and continuous improvement of developer platforms and shared DevOps capabilities, including CI/CD pipelines and supporting cloud infrastructure.
• Implementing and following established technical approaches to ensure platforms are secure, resilient, scalable, and cost-effective.
• Working with Technical Architecture and Cyber Security colleagues to implement designs into operable, supportable engineering solutions.
• Supporting the embedding of DevSecOps practices, ensuring security controls are integrated into delivery pipelines and infrastructure in a proportionate, risk-based manner.
• Contributing to the adoption of standardised platform patterns and supporting the migration of services from legacy hosting models to modern, containerised platforms.
• Identifying opportunities to improve ways of working, automation, and platform capabilities, and contributing to their delivery.
• Supporting incident and problem management activities, contributing to root cause analysis and preventative improvement work.
• Working with suppliers and internal stakeholders to support cost-effective and reliable service delivery.
• Following and contributing to engineering standards, policies, and technical guidance across teams and services.

Essential Criteria

• Proven experience delivering DevOps or cloud engineering capabilities, supporting the design, operation, and continuous improvement of platforms, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience contributing to technical decisions for systems, considering reliability, security, delivery pace, cost, and risk.
• Experience working with standardised engineering approaches or platform patterns, supporting consistency and reducing operational complexity.
• Experience embedding DevSecOps principles, including secure configuration, access control, vulnerability management, and integrating security controls into delivery pipelines and infrastructure.
• Experience supporting incident management and service improvement activities, identifying issues and contributing to preventative solutions.
• Experience supporting service transformation or migration initiatives (e.g. legacy to cloud, or to containerised platforms).
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, supporting effective decision-making.

Desirable criteria

• Experience working in government, public sector, or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience working with cloud platforms (particularly Microsoft Azure), including exposure to containerised platforms (e.g. Kubernetes / AKS).
• Experience contributing to internal developer platforms, reusable engineering patterns, or standardised delivery approaches.
• Experience supporting service transformation or migration from legacy hosting models to modern cloud-native architectures.
• Experience working with suppliers and delivery teams to support service delivery and operational outcomes.
• Experience mentoring or supporting other engineers to develop their technical capability.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.