Application Engineer - Disaster Recovery (DR)

Application Engineer - Disaster Recovery (DR)

JOB LOCATION: Stevenage or Bolton or Bristol

SECURITY CLEARANCE LEVEL - SC (BPSS To Start) UKEO

DURATION: 12+ Months Minimum (Extension possibility- Yes, Dependent on Performance)

WORK PATTERN: HYBRID 2 Days Onsite a Week.

Overtime: Yes (Project dependant)

PAY RATE: £500 Per Day = £67.57 UMB Umbrella Inside IR35

This is a specialised Client role, and would focus on Application Infrastructure Engineers, Application Resilience Engineers and Technical Application Engineers with strong Disaster Recovery (DR) experience.

The most important point: Client is not looking for a normal Application Support Engineer or Software Developer. They need someone who can build, automate, test and maintain recovery solutions for critical engineering applications.

Imagine Client uses applications such as PTC Windchill and IBM ELM to manage critical engineering information.

If a server fails, a datacentre becomes unavailable or a cyber incident affects these applications, Client needs a reliable way to recover the systems and their data.

This engineer is responsible for making that recovery technically possible.

Their main responsibilities are:

1. Application Disaster Recovery: Design and implement recovery mechanisms, failover solutions and resilient application configurations.
2. Data replication: Ensure critical application data can be replicated or recovered across separate environments, including restricted networks.
3. Application integration: Work with middleware, databases, infrastructure and networking teams to build reliable end-to-end solutions.
4. Recovery testing: Conduct disaster recovery exercises and prove that applications can be restored successfully.
5. Security and access: Implement application access controls and support compliance with defence security requirements.

This is a hands-on engineering role, rather than a business continuity planning or compliance-only role.

JOB LocaTION(S)

Bolton, Stevenage or Bristol

SECURITY CLEARANCE LEVEL REQUIRED? START ON BPSS? UK Eyes only?

SC, BPSS start

DURATION - LIKELY TO BE EXTENDED?

12 months (potential extension possible)

WORK PATTERN - UPLIFT? (FLEX/SHIFTS/WEEKENDS)

2 days min a week on site, the rest remote

TRAVEL REQUIRED - FREQUENCY/DURATION/LOCATIONS

Likely to be no travel foreseen.

PAY RATE

£500 per day= £67.57 UMB

Interview Process & HM Availability to interview

Initial phone screen (general fit/experience), followed by F2F/Virtual interview.

REASON FOR VACANCY (new role or replacement)

Workload

Essential QUALIFICATIONS

Skillset focussed

TARGET INDUSTRIES AND COMPANIES. Is Defence a must?

If not what industries can be considered

Def/Aero experience would be preferable; higher understanding of challenged etc. Can be open to others from other regulated industries too.

Essential Skillset & Tools

• Application Layer Knowledge: Proven experience working in environments specializing in engineering software ecosystems (eg, PTC Windchill, IBM ELM, Technical Publications Solutions), experience with Middleware components.
• Resilient engineering: Proven experience engineering resilient solutions with a focus on business continuity & digital resilience.
• Data & Pipeline Automation: Experience managing data replication across distributed or air-gapped systems.
• Defence Environment Familiarity: Experience working within air-gapped networks, or cross-domain solutions.

Application Engineer

Overview:

Digital Excellence function providing IT Services to the business.

Role Purpose:

We are seeking a highly technical Application Engineer to ensure the mission-readiness, availability, and survivability of our critical engineering application suites. In this role, you will be the technical anchor for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) at the application layer.

You will not just write policies; you will design, engineer, and automate failover mechanisms, fault isolation patterns, and recovery pipelines. This is a highly collaborative role requiring tight integration with our core Infrastructure, Cyber Security, and Network Engineering teams to co-design full-stack, infrastructure-supported resilience solutions capable of withstanding severe-but-plausible cyber and kinetic disruptions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Application BC/DR Engineering: Design, build, and maintain application-layer resilience mechanisms.
• Infrastructure & Network Collaboration: Partner closely with Infrastructure and Network teams to co-design resilient solutions and failover mechanisms.
• Impact Tolerance & Recovery Metrics: Establish, monitor, and continuously validate Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
• Joint Resilience Drills: Participate in end-to-end, multi-team disaster recovery exercises simulating extreme scenarios, including total datacentre loss, supply chain compromises, and air-gap isolations.
• Defence Compliance & Data Sovereignty: Ensure all applications and solutions strictly adhere to defence data regulations, air-gapping requirements, cryptographic mandates, and frameworks.
• Implement/modify access control mechanisms and auditing to meet defined acceptance criteria.

Skillset/Experience Required :

• Application Layer Knowledge: Proven experience working in environments specializing in engineering software ecosystems (eg, PTC Windchill, IBM ELM), experience with Middleware components.
• Resilient engineering: Proven experience engineering resilient solutions with a focus on business continuity & digital resilience.
• Data & Pipeline Automation: Experience managing data replication across distributed or air-gapped systems.
• Defence Environment Familiarity: Experience working within air-gapped networks, or cross-domain solutions.
• Security Clearance: Must be eligible for, or currently hold, UK Security Clearance (SC)