Senior Software Engineer – DevOps/SRE Focus

This review provides an in-depth look at a Senior Site Reliability Engineer opportunity within the Scottish Widows Digital Channel Servicing Lab, designed to assist potential candidates in understanding the role and its career implications.

Senior Site Reliability Engineer - Scottish Widows

This Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) position presents a compelling opportunity for experienced engineers looking to make a significant impact on the reliability and speed of change within the Scottish Widows digital estate. Operating within a multi-disciplinary team, the successful candidate will play a crucial role in ensuring the stability and scalability of core digital services, directly benefiting a large customer base.

Key Advantages for Candidates:

• Impactful Role: Directly contribute to the core of a major financial institution's digital services, influencing customer experience and operational efficiency.
• Career Growth in SRE: This role is ideal for those seeking to deepen their expertise in SRE principles, including SLI, SLOs, and SLAs, and apply them in a practical, high-stakes environment.
• DevOps and Cloud Focus: Gain extensive experience in cloud-native technologies, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, and advanced monitoring solutions, particularly within a GCP environment (or other major cloud platforms).
• Automation and Efficiency: A strong emphasis is placed on identifying and eliminating "toil" through automation, offering the chance to streamline processes and drive continuous improvement.
• Leadership and Mentorship: Opportunities exist to lead initiatives and mentor junior colleagues, fostering leadership skills and contributing to team development.
• Flexible Working: The role embraces hybrid working, requiring at least two days per week in the Edinburgh office, offering a blend of in-office collaboration and remote flexibility.
• Competitive Compensation: The salary range of £70,929 - £106,394 reflects the seniority and expertise expected for this position.
• Comprehensive Benefits: Lloyds Banking Group offers a generous benefits package, including a substantial pension contribution, annual bonus, share schemes, adaptable lifestyle benefits, ample holiday, and robust wellbeing and parental leave policies.
• Purpose-Driven Organisation: Join a company with a clear mission to help Britain prosper, offering the chance to contribute to shaping the future of financial services.

Key Considerations for Candidates:

• Technical Depth Required: The role demands strong development skills and a proven track record in DevOps/SRE practices. Proficiency in at least one of the specified programming languages (Java, Groovy, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PowerShell, Bash/Shell) is essential.
• Cloud and Kubernetes Expertise: Significant experience with cloud deployments (preferably GCP), Kubernetes administration/development, and cloud security/networking is a core requirement.
• Problem-Solving and Remediation: The ability to investigate, fix, and remediate complex service issues, along with leading post-incident reviews and driving problem resolution, is critical.
• Proactive Mindset: Candidates are expected to be proactive in developing monitoring and observability solutions to preempt issues before they impact customers.
• Adaptability to Financial Sector: While not strictly required, prior experience in the banking and finance industry, and familiarity with Agile working practices (Jira, Confluence), would be advantageous.
• Focus on Continuous Improvement: A strong commitment to continuous improvement and the drive to automate and optimize systems will be key to success in this role.

This Senior SRE role at Scottish Widows offers a significant career advancement opportunity for skilled engineers. It is a chance to work on critical systems, leverage cutting-edge technologies, and contribute to a leading financial institution's digital transformation, all within a supportive and flexible work environment.