Senior Application Operations Engineer (5320)

Social Security Scotland is looking for a Senior Application Operations Engineer to join our Digital Services Branch. In this role, you will support and improve a portfolio of enterprise applications that are critical to the delivery of benefits and services to the people of Scotland.

Working within a complex enterprise environment, you will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of business-critical applications, acting as a technical subject matter expert for assigned services. You will lead incident and problem resolution activities, coordinating support teams, technology specialists and suppliers to ensure issues are investigated and resolved within agreed service levels. Through effective troubleshooting and root cause analysis, you will help ensure systems remain secure, reliable and resilient.

You will develop a detailed understanding of the applications you support, their underlying technology stacks and their dependencies across the wider digital estate. Using this knowledge, you will investigate complex technical issues, identify factors affecting application availability and performance, and support the delivery of effective solutions.

As well as supporting live services, you will proactively review application performance and capacity to ensure services continue to meet business needs. You will identify opportunities to improve reliability, availability, security and operational efficiency, working with colleagues and suppliers to deliver improvements and maintain application roadmaps. You will also contribute to the assessment of application changes and support the introduction of new or enhanced services into live operation.

The role includes working closely with architects, engineers, suppliers, business owners and end users to resolve issues, improve service performance and ensure applications continue to meet organisational standards. You will support application patching, certification and compliance activities, working with Information Security colleagues and suppliers to ensure services remain aligned with technology, security and governance requirements.

This is an opportunity to work across a diverse and evolving application landscape, helping to deliver trusted and effective digital services that support the people of Scotland.

GDD Pay Supplement

This post is part of the Government Digital and Data (GDD) profession and currently attracts a £3,000 annual GDD pay supplement, which is paid monthly. Pay supplements are reviewed regularly.

• Manage application services and components to ensure they meet business requirements, service levels and performance targets.
• Assess, document and implement change requests, evaluating impacts and ensuring effective change management.
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, contributing to the design and delivery of optimisation initiatives.
• Diagnose, prioritise and resolve incidents, taking ownership through to resolution, mitigation or handover.
• Investigate recurring issues, monitor trends and implement preventative measures to reduce future incidents.
• Collaborate with technical specialists and stakeholders to determine and implement appropriate solutions.
• Translate technical and business requirements into practical, scalable frameworks and solutions.
• Utilise management systems (such as JIRA), monitoring tools (such as Kibana) and logical data models to investigate issues, analyse performance and produce reports.
• Install, configure, maintain and reconfigure application platforms and related technologies.
• Monitor, optimise and forecast application performance, capacity and resource requirements.
• Understand core technical concepts related to this role and apply them with guidance
• Review requirements and specifications, define test conditions, identify risks, and analyse and report testing outcomes.
• Engage users and stakeholders to gather requirements, conduct user-focused research, and use qualitative and quantitative insights to deliver user-centred outcomes.

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)

Expected Timeline (subject to change)

Sift – week commencing 16th November 2026

Interview – week commencing 30th November 2026

Location – In Person in either Dundee or Glasgow

To apply please submit an application form by clicking on the ‘Apply at Advertisers Site’ button.

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