DWP offers up to £140k for a new CTO

New CTO will have to lead architecture design, DevOps, engineering and QA

The Department for Work and Pensions is offering up to £140,000-a-year for a new chief technology officer (CTO) to join the organisation - just over two years after it hired its last one, on a salary of £135,000.

According to the DWP, the role is a "critical hands-on leadership role, with responsibility for creating the next generation enterprise-wide architecture design and infrastructure on which millions users and hundreds of products rely".

The new CTO will have to lead architecture design experts to set design standards, guiding them across areas that include software, data, integration, security and infrastructure.

The selected candidate will also have to lead the design, development and delivery of large-scale hybrid cloud services, including working on servers, storage and virtualisation.

In addition, they will have to lead the DevOps, engineering and QA practice for DWP to frow continuous integration and deployment capability, and lead operational service delivery ensuring that DWP's services remain secure and resilient.

DWP is looking for someone who has experience of leading infrastructure programmes in a complex high volume, secure business using a range of technologies and transforming data centres to infrastructure-as-a-platform (IaaP), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and infrastructure-as-code (IaC).

Experience with UNIX/Linux infrastructures, and demonstrable experience of delivering mobile and online apps, RESTful APIs, big data analytics and visualisation, data warehouses, open-source ESB, converged networks, unified communitions and cloud computing.

Applicants should also have experience of managing budgets of more than £500m - and getting value for money from the budget. They should also be comfortable working successfully with, and influencing, senior stakeholders.

"There's never been a better time to join DWP Digital if you're inspired by the opportunity to re-imagine our country's future using data, design and technology," said Mayank Prakash, director general of digital technology at DWP.

He continued: "DWP offers uniquely challenging and fulfilling career opportunities for leaders interested in making a genuine difference to society on a massive scale."

The full-time position is based in London, Manchester and Newcastle. Applications close on 28 August 2017. There may be other forms of assessment before a final interview, including a briefing session with the Secretary of State.

The selection panel will be chaired by Prakash, along with DWP HR director Ian Pavey and Government Digital Service's capability director Holly Ellis.