DWP seeks CTO to fill £135,000-a-year role
DWP looking for a CTO with a track record of enterprise transition from ageing mainframes to next-gen technology
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is on the hunt for a chief technology officer (CTO) with a track record of transitioning a large enterprise from aging mainframe to next-gen technologies using "infrastructure-as-code".
The £135,000-a-year role would be suited to a person who is passionate about technology with "the personal stature and gravitas to inspire", according to the director general of digital technology at DWP, Mayank Prakash, who took over the responsibilities of former CIO Andy Nelson in September 2014.
"We use diverse technologies from mainframe to Node.js, MongoDB and Hadoop running on several thousand servers," Prakash stated.
He added that DWP runs Europe's largest VoIP contact centre and securely transacts the majority of UK's BACS banking transactions.
According to DWP, the successful candidate will need to have a track record of integrating and simplifying complex architecture - both current and legacy - for a large, multi-divisional enterprise. They must also demonstrate the ability to design user experiences and deliver web-based services/APIs with hands-on expertise in either Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, .NET or JavaScript on the server-side.
He or she must also have experience with Unix/Linux infrastructure, and delivery experience including open source ESB, big data analytics and visualisation, and deploying "infrastructure-as-code".
Prakash said he is looking forward to working with a colleague who has "the knack of building partnerships with both technology start-ups and established technology vendors".
"You would naturally prioritise user needs over processes and tools; have a bias for action resulting in frequent iterative working software delivery over programme governance; favour infrastructure as a utility service; be a champion for simplicity as well as security; and be comfortable operating in an egalitarian working environment which celebrates depth of expertise over hierarchy," Prakash said of the selection criteria.
The CTO will have the unenviable task of dealing with the DWP's problematic Universal Credit system. Former CIO Andy Nelson resigned for unknown reasons in March 2014, having arrived at the department just as the system was getting off the ground. The programme has been plagued with issues and delays.