Lead Technical Architect

Job description

As a GDS Lead Technical architect, you’ll share the responsibility for the digital transformation of government. You will help design and drive the technical strategy for the area you work in while ensuring alignment with broader GDS standards and goals. You’ll hold the vision for technical architecture best practice in your area, enabling us to build resilient and reliable government services, communicating this to technical and non-technical audiences alike.

Lead Technical Architects often work across different teams and services. You’ll ensure that technical designs meet user needs and acceptance criteria, whilst conforming to time and budget constraints. You’ll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working collaboratively with departments and multidisciplinary teams. Above all, you’ll want to make government better, which may sometimes involve challenging the status quo.

As a Lead Technical Architect you'll:

• lead by example, be a visible leader who takes responsibility and acts as a role model
• contribute to the development and iteration of GDS architectural and engineering practices, principles and standards
• design technical services or plan system integration, selecting necessary platforms and technologies to meet project requirements and user needs
• provide technical leadership and consultancy to both internal and external development teams, ensuring designs & solutions are fit for purpose, whilst meeting time and budget restraints
• build and maintain technical roadmaps, looking ahead for future opportunities or blockers, and ensuring decisions by development teams align with the strategy
• encourage communication across multiple teams and wider organisational areas to identify strategic requirements and dependencies
• help develop services by contributing code, testing technologies and producing rapid prototypes
• advise teams on the right mix of capabilities to achieve their roadmapped goals and desired service levels
• act as a digital ambassador across government, supporting recruitment, identifying good practices for GDS to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
• be involved in helping recruiting technical architects and other senior technologists, where appropriate, helping sift and interview
• manage, coach and mentor more junior Technical Architects as well as others in the wider software engineering community

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• a passion for technology and its delivery in building a user-centric service in an ever changing space, ensuring the right technology solutions meet outcomes for our users
• strong software development and application architecture experience, with good knowledge of cloud technologies, open source technologies, testing, and at least one programming language such as Ruby, Java, Python, Javascript or Go
• an understanding of how to influence, manage and challenge complex stakeholder relationships and communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences
• experience of developing and managing high performing, agile, technical teams and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture across boundaries and locations
• practical knowledge at all levels of the web stack, from front-end code down to infrastructure and networking
• a deep understanding of modern technology practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps
• a good knowledge of cloud security architecture, including threat modelling, analysis and operations
• experience developing and implementing technical strategy and standards
• experience defining and refining technical governance in multidisciplinary agile environments

If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Benefits

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

GDS offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in their local office. You’ll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Things you need to know

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 30 minute phone screen where you will be asked a few role-related questions to enable us to get to know you better (may not be required depending on the volume of applications)
• a 1.5 hour face-to-face interview including a presentation exercise (conducted over video conferencing)

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• communicating and influencing
• managing a quality service
• making effective decisions
• leadership
• developing self and others
• seeing the bigger picture

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the Lead Technical Architect role:

• Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
• Governance and assurance
• Making and guiding decisions
• Strategy
• Turning business problems into technical design
• Understanding the whole context

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.