We are looking for a UK-based, Junior DevOps Engineer to join our team working exclusively on our Department for Education project. This is an entry level role that would suit a person who has an interest in DevOps and has some relevant learning experience.

The role will be for a 2-year fixed-term contract with the opportunity for extension.

Please note that as part of the requirements for this role, the successful candidate must be eligible to work in the UK and will be required to undergo a BPSS check. We recognise the importance of supporting people with a criminal record back into the workplace, so if you have a spent conviction this should not stop you applying, or if you honestly declare any unspent convictions we can then discuss this with the Department for Education who may decide the risk is acceptable under their specific criteria.

We are passionate about Equity, Diversity and Inclusion because we understand that by becoming a more diverse organisation we strengthen our foundation for success. We welcome applications regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief and use an anonymised interview selection process to remove any unconscious bias.

If you would like this job description or the application form in an alternative format, please contact recruitment@hiveit.co.uk.

Role: 

As a Junior DevOps Engineer, you will be responsible for learning about and supporting the infrastructure we have within the DfE project, automating deployment pipelines, and collaborating with development teams to ensure system reliability and scalability.

You will work closely with the wider development team to bridge the gap between code development and system operations while learning and promoting DevOps best practices. As part of your day-to-day, you will need to communicate your ideas and findings effectively and be expected to participate in regular team meetings and relevant Agile ceremonies.

We’d also love for you to be interested in following industry trends, best practices, emerging technologies and tools. We’d like you to participate in the evolution of the company’s development culture and improve the way we do things.

KEY SKILLS:

The ideal candidate for this role will have the following skills and experience:

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Cloud Platforms: Introductory knowledge of one major cloud provider, preferably Azure.
• Scripting Languages: Experience using at least one scripting language, preferably Bash and/or Powershell.
• Git: Understanding core concepts like branching, merging, committing, and pull requests.
• CI/CD Concepts: Basic familiarity with build and deploy concepts using tools like GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI, or Jenkins.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Theoretical knowledge or basic exposure to tools like Terraform, Bicep, or cloud-native templates such as ARM.
• Basic Networking: Core concepts like IP addressing, DNS, HTTP/S protocols, and ports.
• Troubleshooting Mindset: A logical approach to diagnosing errors and reading system logs.
• Collaboration: Strong communication skills to share your ideas.
• Continuous Learning: High curiosity and motivation to keep up with a rapidly evolving tech stack

Desirable Skills or experience:

• Docker: Understanding containerisation basics, including how to write a simple Dockerfile and run containers.
• Linux Fundamentals: Basic command-line navigation, file permissions, and user management.
• Firewall/secure configuration basics
• Knowledge of Agile ways of working
• Experience with Jira
• Understanding of Architecture Diagrams
• Experience with a back-end technical stack, preferably C# .NET.
• Experience with a front-end technical stack, preferably React / Next.js.

If you feel you are lacking in any of these areas, but have a passion to learn, then still get in touch. We love training and developing our people and helping them reach their full potential.

Salary:

£26.5k – £33k  (FTE) per year depending on experience.

This role is expected to be full time, with a 5-day working week .

Salary negotiations will not be any higher or lower than is advertised. Please do not apply for this position if you are not comfortable with your salary being within the advertised range. We are proud to be a certified Living Wage Employer.

At Hive, we prioritise the well-being and inclusivity of our employees by providing a comprehensive and equitable benefits package. This package includes:

• Vitality Health Insurance
• Westfield Health – Level 1 – Foresight
• PAM Employee Wellbeing Assistance Programme
• 5 volunteering days
• 27 days annual leave
• Discretionary closure over Christmas
• Extended Paternity, Maternity and Dependants Leave
• 5% pension contribution
• Bike to work salary sacrifice scheme
• Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice Scheme
• 3 x away days or social gatherings a year

We want to create a supportive and rewarding environment that values the diverse needs of our employees.

Location:

This role will be predominantly Sheffield based and we will require you to work from the office at least 2 days a week.

You should be based and eligible to work in the UK, and it would be advantageous if you have the flexibility to travel across the country, for project-related needs. Any travel that is required beyond our office locations will be reimbursed.

We genuinely value work-life balance and believe in giving our team autonomy and trust. We operate with core collaborative hours of 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM, allowing you the freedom to structure the rest of your day around your productivity—whether that’s an early start or a later finish (based on a 7.5-hour day plus a 1-hour lunch).

Need to do a school run, drop the car off for an MOT, or attend a doctor’s appointment? Life happens! As long as you give your team and line manager a heads-up in advance, we’re happy to offer the flexibility you need to manage your personal commitments alongside your work.

We hold monthly company meet-ups that you’re welcome to attend, but they’re not mandatory unless they directly relate to your work.

Additionally, we love to bring people together and organise social gatherings throughout the year. It’s completely up to you whether you’d like to join in and be a part of these events. We value your unique interests and respect your personal schedule.

Values:

Our core values focus on:

• Having an inclusive one team ethos
• Acting ethically and with understanding
• A love of creative problem solving
• Always forward thinking and learning new things
• Being friendly and honest with each other

So if our values match yours, we would love to hear from you.

Our recruitment process

Hive IT is a mindful employer and is dedicated to becoming fairer and more inclusive. We’re beginning to look at how this can be achieved through numerous activities, but as a starting point, we are moving to a blind application recruitment process.

What does this mean?

Simply put, the team in charge of making the decision on who to interview won’t receive any personal details as part of your application, only the skills and experience you submit.

We believe that this will help remove any unconscious bias and lead to a fairer hiring process.

Rather than submit a CV, we ask you to complete an application form asking for specific evidence relating to the Essential and Desirable key skills for the role.  Use of AI in completing that application form is monitored for. We appreciate that you may want to use AI to improve your sentence structure/formulate your point more concisely – but we will reject applications where AI has been used to answer whole questions or give false examples. Any examples or evidence that you do provide will be questioned further during interviews.

On submission of your application the process will be as follows:

Our hiring managers will store any personal information for the period of the recruitment process (personal details will be removed from our database once the job is awarded).
They will remove any personal information from your application including name, email address, age, address, educational background and any other personal information or gender identifying language. Only the skills and experience section of your application will be passed on to the team responsible for hiring for the position.
The hiring managers will review and score your application and will cross reference experience and review for the use of AI.  Any applications where there appear to be indiscrepancies, or the suspected heavy use of AI is found may be rejected. If your application form is rejected, we will be in touch to confirm this and the reasons why.
Any anonymised applications which pass screening and reach a minimum score will be invited to attend an  initial remote interview, where each candidate will be asked the same questions on which they will be scored.
If you are not chosen for an interview, you will be informed of this by our hiring managers, with relevant feedback.
If you meet the minimum score criteria from your initial interview you may be invited to complete a skills assessment. In this skills assessment, we appreciate that you may wish to use AI, but we will expect you to disclose which tools you used on submission and during our follow up meeting with you expect you to be able to discuss how you quality check your work and how you have used AI as part of the process.
If you are not chosen for a skills assessment, you will be informed of this by our hiring managers, with relevant feedback.
Following completion of your skills assessment (or your first interview), you may be invited to a final interview.
If you are not chosen for a final interview, you will be informed of this by our hiring managers, with relevant feedback.
Once all final interviews are completed, candidates will be informed of the result of their final interview with relevant feedback given.
If you are successful, we will then provide you with an offer of employment letter and begin discussing appropriate start dates, ideally within 4 weeks.

We expect that this full process would be completed within 8 weeks of the closing date. However, we are a small company with no dedicated hiring team and our team members are often busy on projects. This means that whilst we will strive to meet these timeframes, we can not guarantee it.

Please Note: To keep the application process fair, candidates will be asked not to share the skills assessment they undertook with any other candidates. Sharing details of the skills assessment will result in immediate disqualification from the application process.

No agencies please