Defence Business Services (DBS) Senior DevOps Engineer

at  Ministry of Defence

JOB DESCRIPTION

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Defence Business Services (DBS), Armed Forces and Veterans Services (AFVS), Development & Change (DevChg) DevOps Team. You will lead a small DevOps (Development and Operations) team of Oracle Analytics Server (OAS) technical specialists, who provide development and support activities to a central AFVS data analytical service within the MoD. Analytical services provide statistical and detailed AFVS reports and dashboards, either directly or by self-serve, to enable the MoD to make informed decisions on military strength or investments, as well as a multitude of other business purposes related to people e.g. recruitment, training, health, pay, allowances, unit, assignment, etc.
DBS AFVS are collaborating with their commercial partners to deliver a major transformation programme aimed at providing a more robust and coherent IT/infrastructure using the latest Oracle Analytical and Data Integration products which will migrate to Cloud based services, offering many benefits, including a better customer experience.
As the successful candidate you will provide senior DevOps engineering skills and leadership of a small DevOps team of data modellers and OAS technical specialists, who provide business enhancement to a major reporting service within the MoD. You will provide OAS technical support, maintenance, and development activities on a large enterprise data warehouse reporting application. You will be part of a wider group responsible for DevChg of the IT capabilities used for AFVS.
The role is primarily to lead the full software delivery lifecycle of change and incident resolution of the MI Reporting Platform Database, currently OAS, with a DevOps and agile delivery focused team.
There are opportunities for training and development to further develop you within the role.
To succeed in this role, you should enjoy working as part of a team, be confident with IT, have excellent organisational and interpersonal skills and be an effective communicator. In return this role will provide you with the opportunity to expand your knowledge and develop your skills to a higher level.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:-

You must have demonstrable skills and experience of developing and supporting an Oracle data warehouse technical platform with Oracle Analytics Server (or Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)) providing analytical insights and reporting.
Some experience and exposure to working with Human Resources Enterprise Resource Planning applications such as Oracle e-Business Suite (EBS), where that is used as a data source for the data warehouse and analytical reporting.
Strong database skills for dimensional data modelling (data-mart or star schema constructs) for data warehousing on Oracle databases (or an equivalent).

DESIRABLE SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Working within Agile Teams.
• ITIL experience and/or certification.
• Practical experience of Extract, Transform & Load (ETL) development and support using Oracle products

QUALIFICATIONS

Oracle Database SQL or equivalent experience

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Programming and Build (Software Engineering)
• Prototyping
• Systems Design
• Systems Integration

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £44,590, Ministry of Defence contributes £12,917 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• An environment with flexible working options Monday-Friday
• 25 days paid annual leave rising (1 day per year) to 30 days upon completion of 5 years’ service (pro rata). In addition to 8 public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for the King’s birthday
• Hybrid working, where role permits
• An opportunity to be considered for Reward & Recognition- £250-£5000 per year.
• Family friendly policies including parental leave and adoption leave
• Learning and development tailored to your role
• Professional and personal development of skills
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• Minimum of 15 days special leave in a rolling 12 month period for volunteer reserve commitments
• Special paid leave to volunteer up to 6 days per year
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

EXPERIENCE:

• CV
• Personal Statement. In no more than 1250 words, please detail your experience of the following. Please provide information of how you meet the criteria set out in the job description. You may wish to further include examples of how you have tackled similar tasks or demonstrated the skills outlines in the job advert
  At interview you will be assessed against the following:

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES IN THIS ROLE.

• Mentoring and providing practical support for other team members on all areas of the OAS product and related technical matters.
• Service Operational support of a large enterprise reporting application, working within an ITIL aligned service management framework.
• As part of a resolver team for OAS incidents, respond efficiently and effectively to service tickets raised, as well as ensuring the team is managing the ticket workload.
• Undertake service improvements with fully documented responses to new business requirements, problem remediation and improvement activities.
• Develop full software capabilities within OAS with full testing and deployment, making use of agile methodologies.
• Represent and champion the AFVS Analytics business area in technical meetings and discussions with the Contractor, product vendor and other MoD departments.
• Collaborate closely with the Contractor resources and technical teams to ensure coherent and effective solutions are developed and support routine monitoring activities.
• Build, maintain, and review technical design documentation for the reporting platform, applying appropriate standards and ensuring high service quality.