Power SPPA’s cloud-first operational excellence with your expertise!

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) administers pensions for Scottish Teachers, Police, Firefighters' and National Health Service employees on behalf of the Scottish Government. We’re responsible for protecting the financial futures of over half a million people - that’s around 1 in 10 people in Scotland. If you’re looking for meaningful work, a supportive environment and a career with purpose, you’ll find it at the SPPA. Our office is based in Tweedbank in the Scottish Borders, the train station is a short two-minute walk away and offers regular services to and from Edinburgh Waverley, making it a convenient and well-connected location for commuters. The surrounding area offers access to green space, walking routes and a strong sense of local community, supporting wellbeing both in and outside of work. Our modern office building is designed to support flexible and collaborative working, with spaces for teamwork, quiet focus and hybrid working. Colleagues benefit from a comfortable, welcoming environment that reflects our commitment to wellbeing and inclusion.

As the Senior Infrastructure Engineer, you will be central to enabling SPPA’s secure, reliable and modern cloud services by leading the design, implementation and ongoing management of critical infrastructure across Azure and wider platforms. Working closely with colleagues, suppliers and partners, you will drive the development of scalable, secure solutions using modern standards, scripting tools (such as Python and DevOps platforms) and infrastructure-as-code approaches, while ensuring robust governance, effective problem resolution, system integration and continuous improvement across SPPA’s technology landscape.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and line manage the SPPA Infrastructure/Cloud Engineering team.
• Build and maintain knowledge and awareness of best practice of cloud and IT infrastructure management. An in-depth knowledge of MS Azure is critical to this role, as is knowledge of the wider Microsoft product suite and Linux.  Oracle knowledge, or the ability to acquire it rapidly, would be advantageous to the postholder. Knowledge of securely integrating MS Azure with other cloud platforms is essential.
• Work closely with SPPA colleagues, suppliers, and managed service providers to deliver the design, implementation and ongoing maintenance of critical cloud services. This should include a deep cloud expertise, including key IaaS, PaaS and SaaS technologies such as IAM, Networking, Storage, Compute and Governance.
• Manage the environment and ensure quick and easy deployments using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) via Terraform and have some experience using and supporting scripting and software tools, in particular a knowledge of Python and MS DevOps platforms would be beneficial.
• Design and implement infrastructure solutions and services, for example, networking and physical infrastructure, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, open-source packages and solutions, or virtual and cloud computing.
• Use information security practices and available security controls to contribute to protecting solutions and services.
• Shape contributions to IT Change and Architecture Boards in the capacity of trusted advisor, and/or present to them, to ensure compliant and secure services are developed in line with best practice and architectural principles.
• Own an issue until a new owner has been found or the problem has been mitigated or resolved and consult specialists where required determine the appropriate resolution and assist with its implementation, initiating and monitoring actions to investigate patterns and trends to resolve problems and determine future preventative measures.