Lead Platform Engineer (Specialist) in RTGS - CNI Platforms

Lead Platform Engineer (Specialist) in RTGS

Scale EPermanent, full-timeLocation: Leeds 

Flexible Working Options  This role is open to flexible working patterns, these may include: 

Flexible start and end time to each day (when not on-call)

Ability to adapt calendar as needed, this could be to fit in the school run, gym, or appointments 

A 50% in-office attendance requirement can be spread across the month to accommodate diverse working patterns, such as the flexibility to purchase a weekly train ticket for certain weeks 

Opportunities In Leeds

We’re excited to be growing our presence in Leeds, a city we’ve been connected to for nearly 200 years! Our modern, accessible office in the City Centre offers a supportive, flexible working environment. The majority of roles, including this one, are now available in Leeds, giving you the chance to build a meaningful career outside of London while contributing to our mission from a dynamic and growing location. You’ll work collaboratively with London-based colleagues in a hybrid model, with regular opportunities to travel into the London office to meet and connect together in person. 

Want to learn more? Discover what makes our Leeds office such a dynamic place to work by visiting our Leeds page for more details. 

A Day in the Role 

CNI Platform hosts RTGS, which settles more than £800billion a day, and is essential to the UK economy. Each day brings new challenges and opportunities, creating an environment suited for those who work well in a fast-paced setting. An individual whose approach is getting it “right” in tight timescales can make a real difference.

A typical day would start with the team’s stand-up meeting for the current sprint where you’ll discuss your workload and any blockers, or you may attend a major incident management meeting where, as the senior engineer on call, you have worked on problem root cause and resolution.

Next, you may be working on something new or a problem fix or project related activity. As this role includes support, you may have tickets to resolve requiring detailed knowledge on a range of services hosted on a variety of technology stacks. 

You may draft and raise a change request through the Bank’s formal processes or attend an audit representing technology. You will work collaboratively with architects, security experts, and other engineering teams in your daily work.

As a lead engineer, you may hold learning/master class sessions so that colleagues in your team, and more widely, better understand the tools/applications you support.

Depending on the cover rota you are on, it could mean supporting out of hours activities, e.g. upgrades, releases. For other weeks, you will not be on a rota so can dedicate time to new features and improvements for existing and new services, including toolchain.

Role Requirements

• You are a dedicated DevOps engineer within an Agile environment and meet the minimum criteria. You have a clear collaborative approach to working with others, and keen to share knowledge with colleagues.
• You also understand that the CNI Platform and RTGS is critical to the UK Payments Systems which requires a methodical approach and flexibility to work outside core hours when required.
• You use best practice in Continuous Improvement/Continuous Development and to manage environments - safely promoting code from pre-production to live across a range of technology stacks, helping to develop and test operational procedures as required.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams ensuring teams understand the deployment process, have access to the necessary tools, and are aligned toward the same goals.
• Development and maintenance of technology roadmaps and ensuring the sequence of change for the estate is kept refreshed with the roadmaps.

Minimum Criteria

We’re looking for someone who has the following key skills and experience:

• Experience of building effective working relationships with others and provide challenge where appropriate 
• Uses initiative and can self-start, upskill in new technologies, with a keen eye for detail
• Researching and developing solutions that expand, modernise or improve the service and technology portfolios, automate IT operations, reduce costs or increase levels of service, to demonstrate technical ownership 
• Practical expertise in complex problem solving
• Demonstrated experience supporting production services 24/7

Essential Criteria

We are interested in hearing from candidates who have the following capabilities:  

• Tooling, e.g. Jenkins, Git, Jira/ Confluence, Ansible.
• IaC, e.g. Ansible, Terraform, Packer
• Containers, e.g. Docker, Podman
• Orchestration, e.g. OCP, Kubernetes
• Operating System e.g. Linux. 
• Monitoring, e.g. Splunk, ELK, 
• Scripting, e.g. Bash, Groovy, Python
• Experience with automated build and deployment, test driven development, continuous integration, and release management tools.
• Experience working across the DevOps lifecycle from design through development, test, and operations.

Desirable Criteria

• Security: knowledge of standard security practices and technologies, e.g. PKI, secrets management, access controls.
• Workload Automation, e.g. BMC Control-M, IBM TWS
• Virtualisation, e.g. VMWare vSphere / ESXi
• Networks Basics, e.g. DNS, load balancers, proxies, ports and protocols
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software or Electronic Engineering or other related discipline.

You'll be supporting critical Bank services and there will be times where you'll need to work evenings and weekends to perform certain tasks, especially on live systems. Payment for this is in addition to base salary.

How This Role Fits into the Wider Bank 

This role is part of the wider Markets, Banking, Payments & Resolution division within the Bank of England. It’s part of the Technology RTGS Operations – CNI Platforms domain.

Our Approach to Inclusion The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve. 
  At the Bank of England, we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it’s by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we’ll continue to make the best decisions for the public.
  We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.
  For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month.  Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.
  Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.
  Salary and Benefits Information We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements.  Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.   Leeds: £72,320 - £81,360 
  In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• Currently a non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/80th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/65th) or decrease (to 1/105th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.  The Bank has the discretion to vary standard accrual rates and dial up and dial down rates at any time and to withdraw dial up and dial down options at any time.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• An 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.   
• 26 days’ annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits. 
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy.  Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice.
 

The Bank of England welcomes applications from all candidates, but as a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approved sponsor, we have a responsibility to comply with the Immigration Rules and guidance.  As such, our ability to employ individuals who require sponsorship for immigration purposes is limited.  The Bank cannot guarantee that you and / or the role you are applying for will be eligible for sponsorship and that any application made to UKVI will be successful.  Eligibility will therefore be considered on a case by case basis.

  The Application Process Important: Please ensure that you complete the ‘work history’ section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It’s therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.
  The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages. 
  This role closes on Sunday 12 October.
  Please apply online, ensuring that you complete your work history and answer ALL the application questions fully and in detail as your application will not be considered if all mandatory questions are not fully completed.