Ask for help

Last updated: 19 Dec 2023

If you and your colleagues can’t resolve a technical issue, problem or question, you should try talking with (in this order):

Contact Senior Tech

You can ping @govuk-senior-tech-people on Slack, or email govuk-senior-tech-members.

The GOV.UK Technical 2nd Line team (#govuk-2ndline-tech):

monitors the GOV.UK hosting platform and applications, and works to fix any issues
calls on experienced members of other teams to assist in incidents
deploys changes on behalf of teams that don’t have sufficient access
triages technical issues and recommends when to escalate to a site reliability engineer

The GOV.UK developer community (#govuk-developers):

helps each other with specialised knowledge about specific areas of the platform
supports each other with issues deploying changes to GOV.UK
ensures missions are delivered technically in the best and most appropriate way

The GOV.UK Platform Security and Reliability team (#govuk-platform-security-reliability-team):

works on long-term improvements to the reliability and security of GOV.UK
manages some access control automation such as govuk-user-reviewer
manages some AWS infrastructure that supports multiple teams (together with Platform Engineering team)

The GOV.UK Platform Engineering team (#govuk-platform-engineering):

manages the Kubernetes clusters and base images on which GOV.UK applications run
works on long-term improvements to the efficiency and reliability of GOV.UK
supports CI/CD (build, rollout, release) automation
can offer advice on monitoring and alerting
can offer design reviews and advice to help build your application for reliability, robustness and low maintenance (especially at the early stages of the software lifecycle)
can offer advice and assistance with changes such as migrating from one database to another as safely and efficiently as possible