Higher Officer Infrastructure Engineer - Stratford Regional Centre - Westfield Avenue

Higher Officer Infrastructure Engineer - Stratford Regional Centre - Westfield Avenue About the job

Job summary

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.

Job description

HMRC is the UK's tax, payments and customs authority and we have a vital purpose: we collect the money that pays for the UK's public services and help families and individuals with targeted financial support.

HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) is responsible for the department's civil and criminal investigations.

FIS provides HMRC with an effective investigation arm to enforce the Department's compliance policies. This enables the Department to deliver against the strategic responsibilities across all the taxes and duties it administers. This includes complex offshore evasion, international smuggling of illicit excise goods, exports of controlled weapons and technology, labour market abuses, VAT and Self-Assessment repayment frauds and a host of other fraud attacks targeted at the tax system.

FIS is home to a wide range of people with a variety of skills and professional backgrounds - including accountants, cybercrime specialists, criminal justice professionals, tax professionals and operational delivery support teams to name but a few. We use a range of powers and approaches to protect funding for UK public services, investigating the most harmful tax cheats and ensuring nobody is beyond our reach.

Covert Operations, Digital Exploitation (CODE) sits within FIS. Working across Law Enforcement and government, CODE provides investigative tools and covert techniques to front-line investigations and works with key partners to develop and provide access to new technology and systems to enable investigators to respond to serious and complex tax evasion and crime.

Person specification

As a member of the HMRC Fraud Investigation Service, CDII, you will:

• Work in a team of infrastructure specialists and engineers, ensuring services are integrated, delivered, and operated as required.
• Manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment including service support and project delivery.
• Work as part of a skilled team sharing ideas but also take the initiative and be able to work with little supervision.
• Play a role in the planning, designing, maintaining and improving FIS Infrastructure services and technologies.
• Work with and support third parties in providing infrastructure and work with technical architects to translate architectural designs into operations and provide supporting documentation.
• Help break a problem down into its component parts to identify and diagnose root causes as well as troubleshoot and identify problems across different technology capabilities.

Essential Criteria

• Knowledge or exposure to virtualisation technologies.
• Experience of Microsoft Windows domains and associated services (A/D, GPOs, domain trusts, DNS, DHCP, PKI etc.).
• Experience with network technologies and evidence that you can build, configure, administer and support infrastructure technologies and solutions. These technologies and solutions can include computing, storage, networking, physical infrastructure, software, commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS), and open-source packages and solutions.
• Experience with supporting the planning, installation, maintenance and improvement of hardware services within a data centre.
• Exposure to, or awareness of scripting or programming languages (Powershell, Python, TypeScript, etc).
• Awareness or knowledge of public cloud technologies or an interest to learn more.
• Ability to break a problem down into its component parts to identify and diagnose root causes as well as troubleshoot and identify problems across different technology capabilities.
• You can demonstrate an awareness of information security and the types of security controls that can be used to mitigate security threats within solutions and services.

Desirable Criteria

• Degree or degree-level qualification in Information Technology or a related field and/or practical experience supporting an IT environment.
• Qualifications and certifications held may include (but are not limited to): MCSE, CCNA, SAA-C03, CompTIA A+, etc. Knowledge or experience of VMWare vSphere or Horizon.
• Knowledge or experience of Cisco ACI or NXOS, Fortigate firewalls. ITIL Foundation Qualification or demonstrable understanding of ITIL Lifecycle Standards.
• Exposure to, or experience working with DevOps processes and practices.
• Experience working with Gitlab or other CI/CD tools.
• Experience working with programming/IaC languages (eg. Powershell, Python, Terraform).
• Exposure to, or experience working with project management tools (eg. Jira, MS Project) Exposure to, or experience with version control systems.

Additional Information - Flexibility Payment

This post attracts a Level 2 Flexibility Payment (FP) that is paid monthly with salary. This FP allows HMRC flexibility to change your work pattern, at short notice, to meet business needs. You will be expected to undertake periods of On Call. You will also be expected to work additional hours, at weekends and outside your normal working hours/days (including bank holidays).

In applying for a position and accepting the FP you agree that you can and will meet those attendance requirements.

FP levels are reviewed annually - on a business need and personal basis - and may be subject to change.

If you currently receive the Flexibility Payment, which may include Transition Protection and/or a Maintained Pension Value, moving to a new role may affect your payments.

Details of the Flexibility Payment can be found in the attached document.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £36,320, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £10,521 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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

Selection process details

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

How to Apply

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following:

• A name-blind CV to include your job history, previous skills and experiences, giving details of key achievements and qualifications.
• A 750-word Personal Statement demonstrating why you are suitable for this role and evidence the Essential Criteria for this role. The Personal Statement should also include details of the work and projects that you have been involved in and your role.

Please evidence any Desirable Criteria where applicable (up to 250 words max). This is not essential for the role but may be considered by the vacancy holder where candidates have the same score at interview.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Sift

In the event of a large number of applications being received, an initial sift may be held on your CV.

At full sift your CV and your 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, you will be assessed on strength-based questions. You will also be asked to do a Technical Test from which you will be asked technical skill-based questions.

You will be asked strength-based questions to explore what you enjoy and your motivations relevant to the job role.

This is an example of a strengths-based question

"It is often said that the customer's needs should come first. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?"

There is no expectation or requirement for you to prepare for the strengths-based questions in advance of the interview, though you may find it helpful to spend some time reflecting on what you enjoy doing and what you do well.

Interviews will take place face to face and dependent on which office you apply for, that is where the interview will take place. This information will be advised nearer the time should you reach this stage.

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. We understand mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days(Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we will not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, please contact us via: [email protected] - Use the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example - 'Please re-open my application - [insert vacancy ref] & vacancy closing date [insert date]'.

To check that you are eligible to apply for this role, please review the eligibility information before submitting your application.

Reserve List

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles - if this applies to you, we'll let you know via your Civil Service Jobs account.

Merit List

After interview, a single merit list will be created, and you will only be considered for posts in locations you have expressed a preference for. Appointments will be made in strict merit order in line with the set number of roles in each location.

Criminal Record Check

Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.

Reasonable Adjustments

We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

Contact the UBS Recruitment team via [email protected] as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the "Assistance required" section in the "Additional requirements" page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Additional Security Information

Please note in addition to the standard pre-employment checks for appointment into the Civil Service, all candidates must also obtain National Security Vetting at Security Check (SC) clearance level for this vacancy. You will normally need to meet the minimum UK residency period as determined by the level of vetting being undertaken, which for SC is 5 years UK residency prior to your vetting application. If you have any questions about this residency requirement, please speak to the vacancy holder for this post.

Important information for existing HMRC contractual homeworkers:

Please note that this role is unsuitable for contractual homeworkers due to the nature and/or requirements of the role.

Terms and Conditions

Customer facing roles in HMRC require the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English and/or Welsh where required. Where this is an essential requirement, this will be tested as part of the selection process.

HMRC has a presence in every region of the UK. For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences.

Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will be investigated and, if proven, the relevant application(s) will be withdrawn from the process.

Recording of interviews is prohibited unless explicit agreement is sought in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulations.

Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

New entrants will join on the minimum of the pay band.

Please note that, if you are applying for roles on a part-time basis, the salary agreed will be pro-rata, reflective of the working hours agreed within your contract.

If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).