Senior Infrastructure Engineer (Database Specialist)

HMRC; Stafford; On-site; GBP 46,000 - 52,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Civil Service Pension

Flexible working

Hybrid working

25 days leave

Career development

Job summary

HMRC in the United Kingdom is seeking a Senior Infrastructure Engineer (Database Specialist) to design, deliver and support Oracle-based database products in on-prem and cloud environments. You will guide teams on best practices, ensure availability, and manage critical platforms with a focus on performance and security.

The role requires leadership in connecting Oracle database engineering with DevOps, automation, and cloud migrations, across large enterprise-scale systems and services.

Qualifications

• Expertise in Oracle Database (19c+), Grid Infrastructure, RMAN, Data Guard.
• Experience in managing databases in large, enterprise environments.
• Provisioning databases on Linux platforms; backups and migrations.
• Knowledge of cloud migrations related to Oracle.
• Proficiency with DevOps tools and automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical guidance and mentoring within Database Engineering.
• Manage databases across development to production in on-prem and cloud IaaS/PaaS.
• Monitor health, performance, and automate routine tasks.
• Support architects and developers to meet performance goals.
• Analyze and resolve issues end-to-end with rapid responses.
• Drive automation and documentation of changes.

Skills

Oracle Database

Database Administration

SQL Optimisation

Linux scripting

Cloud Infrastructure

DevOps practices

Tools

AWS

Azure

Terraform

Ansible

Git

Job description

About the job

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential.

As a Senior Infrastructure Engineer (Database Specialist), you will work in an Agile, fast-paced environment helping to design, deliver and support database products and solutions. Already a skilled Practitioner and role model, you will ensure best practices are adhered to and guide teams on how to deliver and support quality database products.

In addition, you will be responsible for the design, implementation, configuration, maintenance of critical database platforms in the cloud and on-premise, to ensure the availability and consistent performance of our products and services within agreed service levels.

Job summary

The ideal candidate will have a proven track record as a Database Infrastructure Engineer or Database Administrator, and you will have experience of:

• Providing effective database management and support gained in very large, highly available, enterprise-class environments.
• Technical experience should include, but not limited to, database provisioning, security, backups and restores and on-premise to cloud migrations, with an emphasis on Oracle technology.

Person specification

• Proactively contribute to the Database Engineering Community of Practice by providing technical leadership and mentorship to less experienced team members.
• Manage databases through multiple product lifecycle environments, from development to mission-critical production systems on-premise and Cloud IaaS and PaaS environments.
• Configure and maintain database servers, including monitoring of system health and performance, to ensure optimum levels of performance, availability, security, and automation.
• Support architects and developers to ensure design, development and implementation support efforts meet integration and performance expectations.
• Independently analyse, tackle, and correct issues in real time, providing problem resolution end‑to‑end.
• Refine and automate regular processes, track issues, and document changes.
• Assist developers with complex query tuning, schema refinement and cloud migration approaches.

Essential Criteria

• Expertise in Oracle Database (19c and above), including Grid Infrastructure, Recovery Manager, Data Guard
• Expertise in database management, performance tuning and SQL optimisation
• Expertise in provisioning databases on Linux platforms
• Practitioner level knowledge of Cloud infrastructure technologies such as AWS and Microsoft Azure, IaaS- and PaaS-based database solutions
• Practitioner level skills in Linux OS and scripting
• Working knowledge of DevOps practices, continuous delivery tooling (for example, Terraform, Ansible, Git) and database automation using the aforementioned tools

Desirable Criteria

• Practitioner level knowledge of one of the following database technologies: SQL Server or PostgreSQL
• Working knowledge of Agile deliveries, collaborative tooling and techniques, including Jira and Kanban
• Working knowledge of ITIL4 processes
• Understanding of government or public sector technology requirements

Further Location Information

Please ensure that you only apply for a location that you are willing and able to work from, as we will only make one offer of employment. Any additional notes included in a 'Further Location Preferences (optional)' field within the application form, will not be considered. Please be aware that you cannot change your location preference after submitting your application.

Office Closures

If your location preference is for the following site, it's important to note that this is not long-term site for HMRC and we will require you to move to a new building in the future, subject to our location strategy and the applicable employee policies at that time.

For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations (opens in a new window)

This site is:

• Telford Plaza, Telford - moving to Parkside Court, Telford

You will be given more information about what this means at the job offer stage.

Leeds Location

Moves Adjustment Payment will be available for this role, provided the successful applicant is a current HMRC colleague in Bradford and meets the eligibility requirements outlined in the HMRC's Moves Adjustment Payment guidance.

Behaviours

• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

• Oracle Database Engineering
• Cloud Infrastructure Engineering
• Database Migration

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £45,544, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £13,194 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.

We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.

• Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary.
• Family friendly policies.
• Personal support.
• Coaching and development.

To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it's really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Sift

At full sift your CV and Personal Statement will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview.

We may also raise the score required at any stage of the process if we receive a high number of applications.

Interview

During the panel interview, your experience and behaviours will be assessed, in order to determine your suitability for the role.

You will also be asked technical questions on the following topics:

• Oracle Database Engineering
• Cloud Infrastructure Engineering
• Database Migration

Interviews will take place via video link. Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Eligibility

Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form. Mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we may not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, or have withdrawn yourself in error and need your application reinstated whilst the campaign is still live, please contact us via: - Use the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example - 'Please re-open my application - insert vacancy ref & vacancy closing date insert date.