Department for work and Pensions (DWP Digital)

Practitioner - Senior Dev Ops Engineer

2 Incomplete applications

2 SME, 0 large

8 SME, 1 large

Specialist role: Developer
Off-payroll (IR35) determination: Supply of resource: the off-payroll rules will apply to any workers engaged through a qualifying intermediary, such as their own limited company
Summary of the work: The specialist will need to be a highly experienced (Practitioner level) Senior Dev Ops Engineer. Managing day to day support, technical guidance, creating a DevOps culture and implementing automation best practices. Upholding DWP values and working within Government Digital Standards.
Latest start date: Monday 31 January 2022
Expected contract length: 6 months with an optional extension period of up to 6 weeks.
Location: No specific location, for example they can work remotely
Organisation the work is for: Department for work and Pensions (DWP Digital)
Maximum day rate: Up to £675 per day. Standard 8 hour working day, includes expenses to base location agreed with DWP. This role is Inside IR35.

Early market engagement
Who the specialist will work with: The resource will work with the existing DWP BPS Technical Service environment team. This team has a lead Technical Delivery Manager and 6 Dev Ops and is supported by DWP technical services.
What the specialist will work on: Senior Lead a DevOps Engineering team providing support, technical guidance, creating a DevOps culture and implementing automation best practices. This will include coaching, mentoring and supporting your team members, taking responsibility for their decision-making and their professional development.

• Responsible for large blocks of work, employees in varied disciplines and with a wide span of leadership, breaking down user stories into tasks.
• Design and manage the tactics for building reusable libraries, templates and services and own the development of medium-long term strategies for product lines within your Functional and Professional Communities

Address where the work will take place: North East - Longbenton, Newcastle. North West - Peel Park, Blackpool.
Working arrangements: Specialist will work 5 working days per work remotely until further notice as per current COVID working conditions.
Security clearance: All suppliers must BPSS cleared and On-Shore.

Additional terms and conditions: It is essential that the Department (DWP) holds copies of and rights to all source code developed and accompanying intellectual property rights to the code to develop further or make changes as it sees fit.

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

Essential skills and experience: Provide experience of working in a large scale organisation and/or Public Sector within dev ops area especially AWS utilising various tools and packages such as Ansible, Puppet (giving worked examples)

Demonstrate 3+ years in a practical DevOps role, with examples of assignments and key outcomes

Confirm Expert level AWS infrastructure build and operate experience, with examples of assignments and key outcomes

Demonstrable experience building secure solutions AWS - state solutions which were built

Demonstrate practical experience with RedHat Linux, shared worked examples of experience and successful outcomes

Demonstrate experience of managing infrastructure as code, catering for multiple environment differences, using Puppet, Ansible within a government organisation - share key objectives and goals reached

Demonstrable experience delivering CI/CD pipelines - state involvement in design/build/maintenance with examples

Demonstrate mentoring colleagues in automation, security, and reliability, within a DevOps context - explain a scenario and key outcome

Show experience of managing infrastructure as code, catering for multiple environment differences - state deployments which have been worked on, with examples
Nice-to-have skills and experience: Demonstrate they have worked in regulated and controlled government environments - explain and give examples of governance structures and adherence to such

All suppliers will be asked to provide a work history.

How many specialists to evaluate

Cultural fit criteria

Work well as the lead of a team and keep the team motivated to perform well.
Transfer knowledge gained through the team and be willing to share experiences across the wider department.
Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions
Is accountable and takes responsibility for their work
Can work with colleagues with little or no technical knowledge

Additional assessment methods

Evaluation weighting

Technical competence

70%

Cultural fit

Price

25%

1. Is there any incumbent?: No, this is a new opportunity.
2. ‘Specialist will work 5 working days per work remotely until further notice as per current COVID working conditions.’ Will the location remain as ‘No specific location, for example, they can work remotely’ or will days on-site (either North East – Longbenton, Newcastle or North West – Peel Park, Blackpool.) be expected if working conditions change?": The team is split between Newcastle and Peel Park. Remote working for now but if conditions change we will be working towards 40% of time in the office as per DWP guidelines.
3. Please could you confirm a few details regarding interviews: 1) When are interviews likely to take place? 2) What is the structure for the interviews? 3) When can we expect the award decision to be made?: 1) Interviews will take place w/c 17th Jan and are held via a video call on Teams.

2) The interview itself is to test technical expertise and the questions are around scenarios put to the candidates in terms of how they would resolve/build in particular circumstances.

3) Decision will be made as soon as interviews are completed.