DevOps Engineer - AI Operations
We’re looking for two exceptional DevOps Engineer to help us make a difference to our planet.
As our DevOps Engineer, the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.
Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week. Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.
World changing work
From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.
- We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
- We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
- We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
- We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
- We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers
Your world of expertise
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating new, transformative, ways to deliver weather and climate science and services. It has the potential to reduce compute requirements thousands-fold compared to existing numerical weather prediction (NWP) methods, opening new opportunities such as high-resolution “km-scale” prediction, and moving forecasting out of the domain of supercomputers and onto edge devices. To realise any of these opportunities as an operational service that delivers customer value, the Met Office needs the capability to develop and run data-driven workflows in a secure, sustainable and cost-effective way. There is a strong need for a consistent AI Operations Platform that enables internal users to do foundation AI research, develop valuable datasets, and then rapidly pull-through to operations data-driven weather and climate services. In this post you will be a core developer of the AI Operations platform, implementing features to ensure it is suitable for Met Office weather and climate workloads and that deploying AI models into operations is repeatable, scalable and highly available.
Your key duties:
The DevOps engineer (GDaD DevOps role) for AI Operation’s key responsibilities will be to:
- Develop the AI Operations Platform to meet the requirements of research, development and operational AI workloads at the Met Office.
- Apply modern development standards, such as MLOps, infrastructure-as-code, and CI/CD, and support users of the service to adopt complementary processes.
- Build, maintain and support key AI/ML development toolchains suitable for a wide range of Met Office data science applications.
- Work collaboratively with users, architects and other stakeholders to refine specifications and develop prototype new services.
Why join us
Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is Great Place to Work UK certified. We are also featured on their ‘Best Workplaces in Tech’ 2023 and 2024 lists, as well as their ’54 Best Workplaces for Women’ 2023 list.
As our DevOps Engineer, your total reward package will be up to £49,806 annually, which includes:
- 33,794 base pay
- An outstanding Civil Service pension, with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
- Recruitment Retention Allowance (RRA) you will be paid £2,200 per annum as a market supplement to reflect the demand for your skills. Whilst in post, you will be paid this market driven allowance from April 2024 until March 2026 in your monthly pay
- Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave
Essential Criteria, skills and experience:
- Experience developing software and/or automation scripts in Python. (Experts by Nature)
- Understanding of modern agile DevOps workflows.
- Ability to work effectively within a multidisciplinary team. (Better Together)
- Experience or a demonstrable desire to learn and apply new tools and techniques, specifically in some of the areas of scientific programming, machine learning operations (“MLOps”), automation, and cloud computing. (We keep evolving)
How to apply
If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you! Click apply to begin your application. Please complete your career history and provide evidence against each of the essential criteria in the supporting statement questionnaire. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills.
Closing date 26/05/2025 at 23:59 with first stage interviews commencing from 09/06/2025. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.
How we can help
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact us at careers@metoffice.gov.uk.
If you’re considering applying and need support to do so, please get in touch. You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.
We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.
We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.
Rewards and benefits
Our rewards and benefits are as varied as our customers and our people, depending on your role, and which part of the business you join. The one thing they have in common is that they’re designed to recognise your contribution to our success.
Generous holiday allowance
Starting at 27.5 days and rising to 32.5 days after five years of service (both figures exclude bank holidays). As well as the flexibility to buy or sell annual leave annually.
Civil Service pension
You’ll automatically qualify to join our alpha pension scheme, part of the Civil Service Pension arrangements. The scheme is recognised as one of the most generous occupational pensions.
Continuous career development
We’ll invest in your training and personal development throughout your career to help you reach your potential. We provide you with the space and freedom to think, innovate and try new things and have professional frameworks aligned to each area. We encourage and support professional memberships, have an array of internal apprenticeship and qualification opportunities and a comprehensive mentoring and coaching programme to name just a few initiatives to create your world of development at the Met Office!
Cycle to work scheme
We can help towards the purchase of bicycles and equipment for healthy, low carbon travel via a salary sacrifice scheme.
Lifestyle support
Whether you wish to utilise our excellent family-friendly schemes, be paid up to 3 days for volunteering with your chosen organisation, have the reassurance of a generous sickness pay scheme or be part of an organisation that is happy to pro-actively talk about flexible working the Met Office wants you to have a great work and lifestyle balance.
Established hybrid working
We have bases all over the UK and some roles allow for you to work abroad so there is the option to travel for work also, we have established amazing hybrid working practices across all of our offices and have enhanced technology to enable office and home-based meetings. We work with employees to agree on a suitable working pattern that works for us both and have various working patterns in place.
Onsite parking and EV charging
We offer onsite free parking at our main offices with disabled parking spots also available. We are ever expanding our eCharging stations and have these available for use at most sites.
Benefits platform
We offer an enhanced discount shopping portal and schemes for employees to make everyday savings including retail shopping such as your weekly food shops, technology products, DIY projects, travel and trips as well as active lifestyle options. We also have an instant recognition scheme with the potential for you to receive vouchers for when you have gone the extra mile to demonstrate our Met Office Values.
Employee wellbeing
Across our offices we have an array of different options to support your wellbeing including 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) with phone and app provisions, lots of EDI initiatives to empower our diverse workforce and a dedicated wellbeing network with regular events to help you thrive!
Commitment to our environment and biodiversity
Our force for good value aligns perfectly with our support for environmental impact improvements. We were the first public sector body to be awarded the prestigious Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark Award and have different initiatives across our sites from our beautiful biodiversity butterfly garden, toilet water provided from the cooling of our epic supercomputer, car share schemes, team beach clean events and extensive recycling facilities for our everyday use.
It’s good to talk
We have a fantastic group of employee volunteers who form our Mental Health First Aiders as well as Dignity & Respect at Work groups. Alongside our EAP they are in the office or a remote call away to support with a listening ear and can signpost you to helpful resources and support.
ED&I staff networks
We recognise the benefits that networks can offer to our employees not only in terms of better together peer support but also in raising awareness of the challenges some of our employees may experience, and we know that people perform better when they can be themselves.
Investing in your development
The world around us is constantly changing. New technologies, shifting climate patterns, artificial intelligence. These factors and more shape the need for us to develop our skills and knowledge as a business and as individuals. Our investment in learning and development is testament to this and we have partnered with external bodies in each profession to help shape the way we develop the incredible talent right across the Met Office. We help everyone to understand their strengths and opportunities and tailor learning programmes that match their career. For us, this is world-leading learning and development.
More about what we can offer you
Meet some of the team
Mathew Gard
Lead Tech Architect
We're an expert voice representing technology and its possibilities, working together with other talented people in data, user design and products. Together we drive innovation in new technologies and ensure crucial data is made available for our customers to make decisions that affect their daily lives. The Met Office is a fantastic place to work and grow your career, with a well-defined corporate strategy and values that are embedded into our ways of working. Read my story
Beth Harper
DevOps Engineer
I love my role because every day is different. I like how varied it is and the fact that every day there are different customers to talk to, different problems to solve, and different solutions to work on. Read my story
Jim Ovens
Lead Technical Architect
I returned to the Met Office motivated by our purpose to help people make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. I know what I do is meaningful and that matters. Read my story
Jonathan Murch
Head of Security Operations
This is much more than a career for me. It’s an adventure where every project, challenge and partnership supports my development while achieving amazing things. Read my story
Tom Dufall
Software Developer
I particularly enjoy having a significant amount of autonomy and being able to see the impacts of my work. I've found the Met Office to be a great place to kick-off my career. I've had a lot of opportunities to do on-the-job training, and one of the best things is that from day one I've felt like a valued member of my team. Read my story
Luke Carr
Software Developer
I’m afforded ample opportunities to explore new technological avenues. Being trusted in this way has enabled me to develop while contributing to my team’s output. Before joining the Met Office, I couldn’t have imagined this approach being viable in a software delivery team. And now it’s this forward-thinking spirit that keeps me excited and motivated. Read my story
Our typical recruitment process
1. Eligibility
For those living outside of the UK, there are some roles where we can sponsor Skilled Worker visas. However, you will still need to pass security clearance which requires you to have resided in the UK for 30 months in the last three years.
2. Application
Apply through our careers website. Each application will be assessed against the essential criteria detailed in the job advert. We recommend that you use the CARL or STAR method to answer the key questions. Evidence your answers and reference our values to bring your application to life.
3. Screening
The sift panel will assess all applications against our essential criteria. Our screening process usually takes one to two weeks following the closing date of the advert. After which, we'll be in touch to let you know whether your application has progressed to the next stage.
4. Interview
Most recruitment processes will include a single-stage interview, some of which are virtual interviews and some may be in-person. Our interviews tend to blend competency questions, which focus on the essential criteria, with values-based questions.
5. Assessment
Some roles may require you to attend an assessment day. Any job-specific assessments will be outlined in the job advert and more details will be provided at the interview stage.
6. Offer
If you are successful following the interview, the hiring manager will contact you to offer the role. The Resourcing Team will then follow up with an offer letter and start your onboarding.
7. Onboarding
Before we can confirm a start date, we will first need to complete security clearance and reference checks. These usually take between eight to ten weeks to complete. We'll also discuss any workplace adjustments that you may need. So they are in place on your first day.
8. Your first day
On your first day your new manager will introduce you to the team and you’ll start our online corporate induction. You’ll also be asked to update your details in our People Hub system including bank details ready for your first pay day.
Ready to apply?
DevOps Engineer - AI Operations
Location: Exeter HQ Met Office
Reference number: 732
Can’t find the job
you’re looking for?
If you can't see a job that interests you, why not register for our job alerts by email service? And we’ll email you when a job that matches what you're looking for is uploaded onto the site.
Register for job alerts