Lead Systems Engineer

Our Organisation

We share the core values set out in the NHS Constitution, which all colleagues are expected to demonstrate.

We support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you and your colleagues. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement, whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern.

Job overview

A Lead Systems Engineer is typically the technical lead for multidisciplinary teams delivering and operating multiple components for a system.

We work on national, highly available distributed systems being built and run by in house teams. The systems can differ in size, scale and purpose, but an example system would:

• Have a round-the-clock requirement to be available to a level of 99.9% or higher
• Have a national-scale impact on unavailability, and cope with the load associated with a daily transactional user-base of more than one hundred thousand people
• Adopt modern Cloud best-practices and open standards to support interoperability and re-usability
• Achieve high availability through operational simplicity.
• Provide flexible low-cost horizontal scale out to handle expected and unexpected variations in load.
• Handle the architectural trade-offs necessary to avoid logical bottlenecks
• Provide security controls appropriate for the storage of large volumes of sensitive data - hundreds of millions of records and documents.
• Have a direct clinical impact on patient care.

We have an exciting opportunity to join our Demographics team in Products and Platforms, which builds and operates services including the Personal Demographics Service (PDS), GP Registration and Single Unique Identifier (SUI) capability.

These national critical systems enable safe, reliable identification across health and care — supporting services used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.

• Developing, building and operating national, highly available distributed systems being built and run within NHS England.
• Operating within and contributing to the NHS England engineering principles.
• Have technical ownership across the system space, including application, environments, infrastructure and networks, pipelines and operational tools.
• Engaged in peer-to-peer collaboration to solve engineering problems and drive-up organisation engineering standards. This is a significant part of the Lead Systems Engineer role, in the order of 25% of time.
• Responsible for Engineering maturity within the team.
• Coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team.
• Candidates will need to demonstrate experience of the following:
• Experience working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
• Implementing quality-focussed development practices and testing techniques
• Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions or managing stakeholders effectively.
• Experience of driving and implementing improvements within a product or team.
• Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way

Working for our organisation

Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.

Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms — including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.

We lead the NHS in England by:

• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
• Delivering value for money

Earlier this year, the Government announced that NHS England will gradually merge with the Department of Health and Social Care, leading to full integration. The aim is to create a smaller, more strategic centre that reduces duplication and eliminates waste.

You may opt out at any stage of the recruitment process.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

The post of Lead Systems Engineer has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 20% per annum.

Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.

On-call

Participation in a shared on-call rota is required to support a 24/7/365 service, this rota covers evenings, weekends, and public holidays.

Person specification

Skills and Knowledge

• Implementing quality-focussed development practices and testing techniques
• Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way

Experience

• Experience working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
• Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions or managing stakeholders effectively.
• Experience of driving and implementing improvements within a product or team.

Qualifications

• Masters or equivalent qualification, specifically in a computer, scientific or mathematical subject or equivalent experience.

Our commitments to you

We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better patient outcomes.

We strive to ensure our people feel trusted, valued and empowered. When you join us, we want you to grow and excel, and we offer many opportunities for you to do that.

We welcome your talent and enthusiasm irrespective of age, disability, neuro-divergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances.

We ensure all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process. This includes considering reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability and/or who are neuro-divergent.

We welcome applications from disabled candidates. If you meet all the essential criteria, you will be guaranteed an interview.

Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate how you meet the requirements of the role. While we appreciate you may have had some support with your application (for example, using AI technology or guidance from a trusted individual), it’s important all the information you provide in it reflects your own knowledge, skills and experience and we trust that you apply on that basis.

If you’re applying for this role on a secondment basis, please get agreement from your current line manager before you apply.

We don’t accept applications via recruitment agencies, and we cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.

To comply with the HM Government Functional Standard GovS 007, and specifically the Personnel Security Standards 2024, individuals employed or contracted by NHS England may be required to undergo a Baseline Personnel Security Standards check, dependent on the role.

NHS Business Services Authority is responsible for processing your application; our privacy can be accessed directly on the application page when you select to apply.

If you are appointed to a post, your information will also be transferred into the NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

If you have a query about your application, please contact the recruitment team: [email protected] or 0300 330 1369.

NHS England