Senior DevOps engineer

Band 7 · DevOps engineer · 477 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Senior DevOps engineer

Most often performed at Civil Service grade SEO or G7.

A senior DevOps engineer delivers and integrates software to form a complete DevOps toolchain. They are responsible for planning and designing large groups of stories.
At this role level, you will:
transform technical requirements into an effective DevOps toolchain to enable product delivery
provide coaching and mentoring to more junior colleagues
ensure that deployment strategies for products are repeatable, scalable and highly available
have deep technical knowledge, providing support to delivery teams and solving complex problems
There are 2 different roles at this level - a technical role and a management role.

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

Responsibilities

Lead the design of the delivery toolchain and platform for a product or group of services.
Set standards for releases, so that deployments to clinical services are repeatable, reversible, and well evidenced.
Agree availability, recovery time, and recovery point targets with service owners and clinical leads, and design to meet them.
Lead technical incident response and post-incident reviews for the platforms the team runs.
Make sure platforms meet security and information governance requirements, including access control and audit logging.
Coach and develop DevOps engineers in the team.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Availability and capacity managementUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and key performance indicators (KPIs)
Development process optimisationUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: work under guidance to identify process optimisation opportunities contribute to the implementation of proposed solutions
Information securityUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: design solutions and services with security controls included, specifically engineered to mitigate security threats
Modern development standardsUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: apply modern development standards and support others in applying them
Programming and build (software engineering)UK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools
PrototypingUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with others establish design patterns and iterate them use a variety of prototyping methods and choose the most appropriate
Service supportUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: identify, locate and fix complex service faults advise others on different methodologies and types of service support
Systems designUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, and ensure they are applied effectively review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology
Systems integrationUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: define the integration build co-ordinate build activities across systems understand how to undertake and support integration testing activities
User focusUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user champion user research to focus on all users prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Working (2)	You can: explain the clinical and care workflows your work supports use common health care terms correctly with clinical and care colleagues recognise when a change could affect patient care and raise it
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: take part in hazard workshops and contribute to a hazard log follow the clinical risk management process for your work provide evidence for a clinical safety case, such as test results
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead data protection impact assessments and information sharing agreements advise teams on lawful basis, consent, confidentiality, and retention investigate incidents and recommend improvements
Vulnerability managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: prioritise vulnerabilities by risk, including to patient services scope and manage penetration tests and remediation
Identity and access managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: create, change, and remove user accounts and access rights check access against role-based access rules
Security operationsThis reference	Working (2)	You can: monitor alerts and triage them using runbooks gather evidence and escalate events tune simple detection rules under guidance

Typical qualifications and experience

Substantial experience of designing and running delivery toolchains and platforms, at a level equivalent to a master's degree.

Band 7 outline

Knowledge: Highly developed specialist knowledge, typically to master's level or equivalent experience.
Autonomy: Works to organisational policy; decides how results are achieved; is the expert others consult.
Scope: Several products or services, or a specialist function.
Leadership: Leads a team or a professional practice area.
Accountability: Delivery of a service or specialist function, and its budget if held.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	4	Gives complex, sensitive, or contentious information needing persuasion, negotiation, or training skills, or highly complex information.	32
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	4	Judgements on complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	42
Planning and organisational skills	3	Plans several complex activities, adjusting plans as needed.	27
Physical skills	3	Developed skills needing speed or accuracy, such as advanced keyboard use.	27
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	3	Implements policies for own area and proposes changes that affect other areas.	21
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	1	Takes personal care of equipment and resources used in own work.	5
Responsibility for people	2	Supervises or coordinates staff day to day, trains others regularly, or gives basic HR advice.	12
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	2	Regularly does research, development, trials, or equipment and system testing as part of the job.	12
Freedom to act	4	Results are defined, but the job holder decides how to achieve them, within broad policy.	32
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	1	Rare exposure, or occasional indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	5
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 7: 466 to 539)			477