Defence Business Services - DBS - DDaT Senior Technical Architect
Ministry of Defence
Apply before 11:55 pm on Wednesday 25th September 2024
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Job summary
Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?
Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence?
Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.
- Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
- Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability.
DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society.
We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.
DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026
Come and join the DBS community today!
Job description
Automation Garage Senior Technical Architect
Within the Government Digital Service (GDS), the Senior technical architect provides technical leadership and architectural design for digital services.
As a GDS Technical Architect in the Defence Business Services (DBS) Automation Garage you will work collaboratively in small, multi-disciplinary agile scrum teams to ensure the appropriate infrastructure is specified to enable the smooth running of the Automation Garage teams and services.
Responsibilities
- Work closely with the Automation Garage teams to solve architectural problems and advise on any changes required to the MOD D2S platform, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) or MS Power Platform
- Create and maintain detailed solution documents to support a wide range of applications, infrastructure, data, security, integration and operations;
- Evolve and define governance, taking responsibility for collaborating and supporting other staff in wider governance. You know how to assure services delivered by technical architects across sets of services, particularly in relation to compliance with the GDS Service Standard.
- Fulfil the role of lead technical architect at GDS assessments, demonstrating how services have met the GDS Service Standard to senior stakeholders and specialists from across Government.
- Work with stakeholders from across the business to solve complex technical problems across both internal and external platforms and ensure services have the correct level of technical assurance in line with the Government Technology Strategy, GDS Design Manual and MOD by Design standards.
- Ensure that presented use cases are suitable for implementation;
- Understand the GDS Service Standard and design patterns to ensure services meet them
- Responsible for the overall solution design for Automation Garage processes, ensuring they meet both customers' business and operational requirements are robust and supportable;
- Responsible for the identification and implementation of upgrade and Patching requirements for the Applications and of the Databases;
- Oversee investigation and analysis of incidents and process exceptions with a view to resolving and improving the service;
- Ensure the relevant service monitoring is in place;
- Advise on test strategy including Pen Testing, Performance Testing, Accessibility Audits;
- Identify and complete migration activities between environments to enable controlled go live;
- Identify key project risks and issues and identify mitigating actions;
- Support the development team through the implementation of the processes;
- Be an advocate of Digital Services, User Centred Design, the GDS Service Standard, Automation and the Automation Garage.
A technical architect is responsible for the design and build of technical architecture. At this level, you will:
- Undertake structured analysis of technical issues, translating this analysis into technical designs that describe a solution
- Be consulted about design and provide design patterns
- Identify deeper issues that need fixing
- Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse components, communicating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Skills needed for this role
- Bridging the gap between the technical and non-technical. You can speak on behalf of technical teams and facilitate relationships with indirect stakeholders. (Relevant skill level: working)
- Governance. You understand how governance works and what governance is required. You can take responsibility for the assurance of parts of a service and know what risks need to be managed. (Relevant skill level: working)
- Making and guiding decisions. You can make decisions characterised by managed levels of risk and complexity and recommend decisions as risk and complexity increase. You can resolve technical disputes between peers and indirect stakeholders, taking into account all views and opinions. (Relevant skill level: working)
- Strategy. You can apply strategy, using patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. You can challenge them and provide guidance. (Relevant skill level: working)
- Turning business problems into technical design. You can design systems characterised by managed levels of risk, manageable business, and technical complexity and meaningful impact. You can work with well understood technology and identify appropriate patterns. (Relevant skill level: working)
- Understanding the whole context. You can understand trends and practices outside your team and how these will impact your work. You can see how your work fits into the broader strategy and historical context. You can consider the patterns and interactions on a larger scale. (Relevant skill level: working)
Person specification
Essential:
- Experience in creating technical design documents;
- Experience in network designs and an ability to provide advice and guidance in this area;
- Experience in virtualisation and an ability to provide advice and guidance in this area;
- Experience in Active Directory and Database interactions and an ability to implement and maintain Databases;
- The ability to work as part of a small agile team, and across multiple teams in the wider Automation Garage;
- The ability to work within the constraints of best practice, GDS Service Manual and Standards and Automation Garage standards, whilst also retaining an enquiring mind and a willingness to challenge when appropriate;
- Attention to detail;
- Proven ability to communicate – both written and verbal;
- Highly motivated and resilient;
- An ability to communicate technical issues to a non-technical audience.
Desirable:
- PHP and Javascript application design,
- Experience in Blue Prism or another RPA tool;
- Experience in cloud architecture;
- Knowledge of packaging, analytics/reporting solutions and CITRIX hosting
- Experience of GDS projects
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect) - Senior technical architect
- Turning business problems into technical design - Senior technical architect
- Understanding the whole context - Senior technical architect
- Governance and Assurance - Senior technical architect
Benefits
- 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 additional to 8 public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for HM The Sovereign's birthday
- Hybrid working where role permits
- An opportunity to be considered for Reward and 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 average employer contribution of 27%
Allowances
The post does not offer relocation expenses.
Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.
External recruits who join the MOD who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.
This post is eligible for a Digital Skills Allowance of up to £11,400 per annum. Eligibility for this allowance will be assessed at interview against the 4 core technical skills only and reviewed annually in line with departmental policy.
Employment Hours
This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience.
Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.
Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted on your
Primary: Experience - Personal statement. In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview.
At application stage you will be assessed against the following:
Experience:
- CV
- Personal Statement
At interview you will be assessed against the following:
Behaviours:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
Technical: Senior Technical Architect
- Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
- Turning business problems into technical design
- Understanding the whole context
- Governance and Assurance
In the rare case where individuals have exact matching scores, the order of merit will be determined based on the behaviour scores at interview in the following order:
- Technical - Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
- Technical - Turning business problems into technical design
- Technical - Understanding the whole context
- Technical - Governance and Assurance
- Behaviour - Leadership
- Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing
If candidate scores are still exact, the merit order will then be determined on the sift score in the below order or priority:
- Experience - CV
- Experience - Personal statement
We want to offer opportunities to all who are successful at interview for our roles, but this isn’t always possible, so we do hold candidates on an active reserve list for 12 months.
Application sifting to take place week commencing: 02/10/24
Interviews are currently taking place via Ms Teams and will be conducted week commencing: 09/10/24
A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.We endeavour to stick to these dates, but these are subject to change around business needs.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk
MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights.
As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.
The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.
To assist with your application please find attached -
DBS Candidate Information Guide - Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
(26) UK Ministry of Defence: Life , LinkedIn https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/index.htm
Defence Business Services (DBS) - Digital, Information and Technology (DIT) -
Digital, Information, Technology - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
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Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Amanda Moran
- Email : Amanda.Moran637@mod.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk
Further information
