Lead Platform Engineer

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employer pension contribution 28.97%

25 days annual leave + 8 bank holidays

Flexible working options

Job summary

Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is seeking a Lead Platform Engineer to shape the technical strategy for large-scale digital services, ensuring security, resilience, scalability and cost effectiveness. You will lead a code-first infrastructure approach, driving cloud standards, automation and platform delivery across multiple teams.

Working with the Principal Cloud Engineer, you will provide technical leadership, build engineering capability and help teams deliver high-quality services

Qualifications

• Experience in championing CI/CD, DevOps principles and IaC.
• Strong leadership, coaching and stakeholder management skills.
• Hands-on AWS, Linux, Docker, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Puppet.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership and align DevOps work with strategy.
• Lead standardisation and governance of IaC, CI/CD with security controls.
• Mentor engineers and testers to uplift capability and delivery.
• Design secure, resilient cloud architectures on AWS and Azure.
• Drive infrastructure automation using Terraform, Puppet, Ansible.
• Own end-to-end delivery from concept to live deployment.

Skills

CI/CD

DevOps

Leadership

Mentoring

Stakeholder management

Cloud strategy

Hands-on cloud

Tools

AWS

Linux

Docker

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Puppet

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

DVSA is seeking a Lead Platform Engineer to help shape and deliver the technical strategy for large-scale digital services, ensuring they remain secure, resilient, scalable and cost-effective. Working closely with the Principal Cloud Engineer, you will lead a code-first approach to infrastructure, driving cloud engineering standards, automation and platform delivery across multiple teams. You will provide technical leadership, build engineering capability and help teams deliver high-quality services through consistent practices and a streamlined path to live. Our primary platform is AWS, with experience of Azure, GitHub Actions and SaaS integrations desirable.

Key Requirements

• Champion CI/CD, DevOps principles and Infrastructure as Code?
• Lead and support multiple teams to deliver against engineering standards?
• Mentor engineers and testers to improve capability and delivery?
• Someone with strong hands‑on experience of AWS, Linux, Docker, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Puppet and AWS Landing Zone?
• Someone with excellent leadership, coaching and stakeholder management skills?
• Someone with experience of cloud and SaaS integration within complex environments?
• Delivered standardised, automated cloud platforms at scale?
• Designed secure, resilient and cost-effective cloud infrastructure?
• Shaped technical strategy with senior stakeholders?

About DVSA and the Team The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is a public sector body responsible for maintaining road safety and improving standards for drivers, vehicles, and driving instructors across Great Britain. Our Digital Delivery function is at the forefront of this mission, transforming legacy systems into modern, agile, and user-centric digital services that are used by millions. You will join our collaborative Digital Services division, working specifically within the Digital team. This team delivers mission‑critical services, operating at scale in the cloud to ensure citizens can easily access essential government services, from booking driving tests to managing vehicle compliance.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary.
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King's birthday.
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren't limited to:

• Hands-On Technical Leadership & Strategic Alignment: Provide hands‑on technical direction and influence to multiple DevOps teams, ensuring their work is consistently aligned with the Principal Cloud Engineer's technical strategy and Civil Service values.
• Standardisation & Governance: Lead the establishment, definition, and enforcement of DevOps standards and procedures across the lifecycle (IaC, CI/CD), rigorously reviewing and hands‑on assuring the designs of others to embed security controls and high standards.
• Team Guidance and Capability Uplift: Act as a Subject Matter Expert to proactively guide, mentor, and upskill team members and colleagues of varying maturity levels, fostering a continuous learning environment and providing practical, technical support.
• Hands-On Cloud Architecture & Security Design: Personally design and architect highly available, cost-effective, and secure services on major cloud platforms (specifically AWS, with Azure awareness), ensuring solutions meet performance targets and business needs.
• Infrastructure Automation (IaC) Implementation: Drive the code-first implementation and hands‑on automation of infrastructure using configuration management tools like Terraform, Puppet, and Ansible, prioritising and executing automation opportunities to improve delivery efficiency.
• End-to-End Delivery and Environment Ownership: Take hands‑on technical ownership of the service journey from concept to live deployment, including the management, maintenance, and patching of pre-production environments to ensure a smooth, secure, and effective path‑to‑live.
• Live Service Resolution & Support: Act as a recognised Subject Matter Expert to provide technical guidance and work hands‑on with Service Management functions, leading the resolution of complex live technical issues and managing maintenance programs.
• Process Optimisation & Stakeholder Engagement: Actively participate in Agile ceremonies and delivery processes, collaborating with senior stakeholders, Product Owners, and cross‑functional CSLs to align technical solutions with business goals and drive continuous process optimisation.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only – whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.