SPM Lead Operations Engineer

Sift – week commencing 9th November

Social Security Scotland is currently seeking a Lead Application Operations Engineer to join our Digital Services Branch, providing technical leadership and specialist expertise for our Case Management System (Cúram) and associated batch processing services.

As part of our Digital, Delivery and Change Division, you will lead a hybrid support team of in-house Application Operations Engineers and supplier System Business Analysts. Together, the team supports 17 benefit products delivered through the Case Management System, ensuring service availability, platform stability, integration processing, and the accurate generation of client payments.

As the senior operational lead and subject matter expert, you will drive incident triage and resolution across all priority levels, including complex and business-critical incidents. You will build and maintain technical capability within the team, lead problem resolution activities, and work closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure reliable service delivery.

You will play a key role in improving service resilience, reliability and operational performance, while driving the maturity of monitoring, alerting, maintenance and support practices.

This is a highly visible leadership role with the opportunity to shape the future direction of Application Operations Engineering, influence team growth and capability, and drive continuous improvement across the wider profession.

We are looking for candidates with strong hands-on application support experience, proven technical leadership skills, and a track record of leading teams that deliver critical business services.

A Lead Application Operations Engineer defines the application strategy and the strategy for security administration.

• liaise with leads within IT operations on how applications are performing and changes that need to be put in place
• potentially manage and maintain certain aspects of an application (depending on the complexity and size of a project, and the likely impact it will have on the business)

• Maintain secure configuration and accurate information, including the management of Cúram security and licence assets, ensuring the security, integrity and consistency of system components and information.
• Manage service components to ensure they continue to meet business needs, performance targets and user outcomes.
• Deal with high-impact, complex change requests, providing technical expertise to support service delivery and continuous improvement.
• Lead the investigation, resolution and prevention of incidents and problems, taking ownership of issues, identifying trends and root causes, determining remedies and preventative measures, and supporting their implementation.
• Initiate and monitor actions to investigate patterns and trends, proactively addressing risks and driving long-term service improvements.
• Effectively engage and consult with specialists and stakeholders where required to support problem resolution and decision-making.
• Identify opportunities to optimise processes, contribute to the implementation of improvements, and support the development and adoption of best practices.
• Develop and maintain operational frameworks, procedures, standards and documentation to support effective, secure and consistent service management.
• Lead the planning and coordination of system, functional, non-functional and user acceptance testing activities, providing expert guidance on test strategy and planning.
• Collaborate with user researchers, stakeholders and subject matter experts to understand and champion user needs, distinguishing between incidents and service requirements.
• Prioritise and define approaches to understanding user journeys and user stories, guiding others in user-centred practices and recommending appropriate tools and methods to support research and service improvement.

• Can communicate with stakeholders at all levels. Can convey the benefits, risks and strategic operational considerations of IT solutions and their technical design, to technical and non-technical senior stakeholders. This includes explaining the impact of any technical decisions on the sustainability of the solution.
• Demonstrable experience of developing, supporting, coaching and leading others to achieve the organisation's strategic objectives.
• Evidence of delivering continual service improvement; willing to…