Platform Reliability and Release Engineer (Enterprise Data Warehouse) - Hybrid

Salary: From £38,000 per annum negotiable depending on experience

Hours: 35 hours per week

Contract: Permanent 

Reports into: Data Engineering Manager

Location: Hybrid - A blend of working from home and your nominated hub office, we have hubs in London, Bristol, Manchester and Oxford. Specific patterns for working in the office are not mandated, and the frequency of time worked in the office is agreed with your manager. Meeting in person is something we value so you may need to travel on occasion to any of our hub offices.

About the role:

This role sits within Internal IT, in the Data Engineering team. The team provide a set of well-managed, reliable data platforms, associated data access technologies, data assets and advice to help gain business value from them. These assets are also used to help fulfil the company’s traditional statutory reporting obligations.

About Jisc:

Jisc is the UK digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research, and innovation. We are a not-for-profit organisation with a big ambition to improve lives through education and research by providing hardware, software, and networking solutions. Our talented people bring their own unique skills and experience to empower our members and customers with the technology they need to succeed. Take your next career step with us and you can make a real difference to the education and research sectors.

What you will be doing: 

You will support the overall release and environment strategy for the Platform(s) at Jisc, driving continuous improvement of these processes to optimise efficiency and quality and supporting all aspects of the release management lifecycle to deliver effective change.

You will also support the day to day running and integrity of hybrid and cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse systems, Data Lakes, ETL Tooling, Integration fabric, Business Intelligence, Analytics and ML/AI integrations for the totality of Jisc’s internal data flows.

Please note: (Platform; in this role we define Platform as the hardware and software used to deliver service(s) to our customers).

Other responsibilities will include:

• Support the day-to-day running and integrity of the Databricks and Tableau Cloud Platforms, including planning and managing short-term stability and long-term scalability and bridging the gap between development and operations, maintaining large-scale Platforms effectively.
• Support the leveraging of software engineering practices to automate operational tasks, for example, managing production systems, handling incidents and responding to emergencies.
• Support the consistent delivery or timely releases to drive customer satisfaction and adoption, delivering new features, improvements, and bug fixes promptly and thereby enhancing the overall experience with the Platforms.
• Work closely with the Platform Reliability and Release Manager and development teams to facilitate timely releases and handle responsibilities such as continuous improvement to process including release guidelines and maintaining documentation.

Key Skills and Experience: 

• Previous experience in application or platform release and environment management (development, sandbox, testing and production) for some/all of the Platform(s).
• Demonstrable experience in some of the following related areas:

• • Troubleshooting, diagnosis, and problem solving
  • Change management/ change advisory board (CAB)
  • Sandbox management and data refresh strategies
  • Data migration between environments
  • Deployment of meta-data changes between environments
  • Release management/ CI/CD tools and concepts

• Demonstrable experience in (some of) the following technologies:
  • • Linux, Windows or Cloud-based systems administration
    • Scripting language
    • Database management
    • Extract Transfer Load (ETL) tooling
    • DevOps tooling
• Ability to create, develop and maintain policies, processes and procedures.
• Understanding of handling of personal and confidential data in a commercial setting.
• Understanding of the commercial uses and value associated with the Platform(s).
• Passion and drive to learn new software and/or business process techniques and apply them to solve business problems.

We are constantly changing and evolving at Jisc, so this job description just gives a flavour of what the role involves. It will change as our operations develop.

Don’t meet every single requirement?

We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can’t tick every box, so we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet 100% of the requirements, but you feel this role is perfect for you. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles!

Why work for us?

At Jisc, everyone plays a key role and gets the chance to feel part of it, that to us is the definition of a meaningful career. We want to create a culture of lifelong learning. You can look forward to a rewarding job with opportunities to develop and make a real difference to the education and research sectors.

We believe a balance between your personal and professional life is essential to your happiness and fulfilment. We work flexibly at Jisc and focus on outputs rather than presenteeism and are open to a whole range of ways of working.

It isn’t about how many hours you spend at home or at work; it’s about the flow you establish that brings energy to both parts of your life. Our hybrid working policy is flexible, and the frequency of time spent in your nominated office will vary across teams and job roles.

Take a look at our fantastic benefits! We offer:

• Flexible work pattern, which can adapt to suit your schedules and personal commitments
• 31 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) that includes an additional three closure days over Christmas plus the opportunity to buy up to an additional 5 days
• Generous flexible pension schemes
• Protection benefit – life cover
• Annual Jisc performance award
• A range of wellbeing lifestyle benefits including company paid health care cash plan, employee assistance programme, mental health first aiders and support
• A generous budget to support you with external learning and Continuous professional development
• Allocated allowance of up to £250 to equip your home office
• Financial well-being support including access to preferential loan and savings plans, mortgage advice, will writing tools and support and resources to help you make the most of your money
• The opportunity to donate to charity tax-free with our Payroll Giving benefit
• Electric Car Lease Scheme and option to purchase SmartTech – spreading the cost of your everyday white goods and technology
• A wide range of discounts from retailers and big-name high-street stores and CSSC membership
• Family friendly policies including enhanced parental, maternity and paternity leave and opportunity for career breaks
• Support your volunteering with up to 3 days volunteer leave
• Cycle to work scheme and eye care scheme including free eye test vouchers and £70 towards new glasses for VDU use
• Free flu vaccinations
• Employee recognition awards and travel loans
• A company culture which supports and promotes personal learning and development, including access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning

Equity, diversity and inclusion:

At Jisc, we don’t look for ‘sameness’, but to truly include people who can add unique perspectives and experiences to our culture, and we are working hard to achieve progressive change. ‘Always inclusive’ is one of our six guiding principles which actively encourages us to bring our whole authentic selves to work. We believe that our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion is fundamental to our success.

Jisc believes our people make all the difference in cultivating an inclusive culture that welcomes ideas, encourages innovation, and values belonging. We work with passionate colleagues to strengthen knowledge and awareness, provide learning and development opportunities, and foster multiple employee networks which create a sense of community and influence our policies and practice.

We work hard to create an equitable experience for our candidates and workforce which embraces all aspects of their identity including race and ethnicity, religion and belief, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, trans identities, age, class, disability, neurodivergence, or veteran status.

Application process:

We want you to showcase your talent throughout the recruitment process. Please let us know how we can best support you to do that; for example, if there are any reasonable adjustments we may be able to put in place. We will be happy to help you.

Just so you know, we review CVs as soon as we can and aim to provide an update on your application within 4 weeks of receiving it.  However, you may hear from us a lot sooner, so please keep an eye out for our emails or calls! 

We advertised this role on 22/08/2024

Jisc has an active sponsor licence to recruit on a Skilled worker visa basis. Candidates wishing to apply who require sponsorship should determine the likelihood of obtaining a Certificate of Sponsorship for the role by assessing their circumstances against the relevant Home Office criteria. Jisc does not offer any financial re-imbursement towards the applicant costs, such as re-location, skilled worker visa and dependant costs or the immigration health