Power SPPA’s cloud-first operational excellence with your expertise!

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency is an Agency of the Scottish Government. Our principal role is to administer the pensions for employees in the National Health Service, Teachers’, Police and Fire-fighters’ pension schemes in Scotland.

This role is central to enabling SPPA’s secure, reliable and modern cloud services by leading the design, implementation and ongoing management of critical infrastructure across Azure and wider platforms. Working closely with colleagues, suppliers and partners, you will drive the development of scalable, secure solutions using modern standards, scripting tools (such as Python and DevOps platforms) and infrastructure-as-code approaches, while ensuring robust governance, effective problem resolution, system integration and continuous improvement across SPPA’s technology landscape.

• Lead and line manage the SPPA Infrastructure/Cloud Engineering team.
• Build and maintain knowledge and awareness of best practice of cloud and IT infrastructure management. An in-depth knowledge of MS Azure is critical to this role, as is knowledge of the wider Microsoft product suite and Linux. Oracle knowledge, or the ability to acquire it rapidly, would be advantageous to the postholder. Knowledge of securely integrating MS Azure with other cloud platforms is essential.
• Work closely with SPPA colleagues, suppliers, and managed service providers to deliver the design, implementation and ongoing maintenance of critical cloud services. This should include a deep cloud expertise, including key IaaS, PaaS and SaaS technologies such as IAM, Networking, Storage, Compute and Governance.
• Manage the environment and ensure quick and easy deployments using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) via Terraform and have some experience using and supporting scripting and software tools, in particular a knowledge of Python and MS DevOps platforms would be beneficial.
• Design and implement infrastructure solutions and services, for example, networking and physical infrastructure, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, open-source packages and solutions, or virtual and cloud computing.
• Use information security practices and available security controls to contribute to protecting solutions and services.
• Shape contributions to IT Change and Architecture Boards in the capacity of trusted advisor, and/or present to them, to ensure compliant and secure services are developed in line with best practice and architectural principles.
• Own an issue until a new owner has been found or the problem has been mitigated or resolved and consult specialists where required determine the appropriate resolution and assist with its implementation, initiating and monitoring actions to investigate patterns and trends to resolve problems and determine future preventative measures.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

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

• Technical Understanding - Practitioner
• Systems Design - Practitioner
• Systems Integration - Practitioner
• Modern Development Standards - Practitioner
• Troubleshooting and Problem Resolution - Practitioner

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Job contact :

• Name : Philip Smith
• Email : Philip.Smith@gov.scot

Recruitment team

• Email : scottishgovernmentrecruitment@gov.scot