Senior Developer

As a Senior Developer in Service Transformation, you’ll:

• provide technical leadership within teams with varying degrees of technical knowledge, helping them identify solutions to solve user needs 
• advising and working with developers and non-technical colleagues to identify the best approaches and solutions
• take responsibility for solving complex issues, drawing upon a broad knowledge of web technologies
• work as part of a multi-disciplinary agile team, getting involved with every part of the lifecycle of a service, from user research to continuously deploying code to production in our AWS environments
• build robust, performant Java and/or TypeScript services to serve a variety of citizen and government needs, taking responsibility for the quality of code you produce
• implement tooling and automation to support development, operation, reliability, security and continuous improvement of the systems you work on
• share your work and the things you’ve learned through blog posts and show and tells, with the option of presenting at conferences and meetups
• share knowledge among the GDS/external teams, ensuring that your team is understood by others and understanding the working of the wider organisation
• use your learning and development budget to develop your career
• help recruit other developers and, where appropriate, get involved with sifting and interviewing

Person specification

The skills we would expect a Senior Developer to have: 

• experience in back-end development, with knowledge of either the JVM ecosystem or the JavaScript/TypeScript/Node.js ecosystem
• an awareness of technologies used for cloud based web applications, such as databases, backups, CDNs, containerisation, and serverless computing
• understanding of software design principles, and an ability to apply them
• proven experience of modern software development approaches including automated testing, test driven development, continuous integration, pair programming, code review and version control
• experience in management, helping colleagues with their career development and coaching more junior staff members
• understanding of common web security risks such as OWASP Top 10, and the corresponding mitigations
• enjoy researching and learning new programming tools and techniques and sharing their skills with others
• have experience working in a collaborative environment, and an understanding of the benefits of agile and multi-disciplinary approaches
• a desire to use their skills and experience to make a genuine difference, and to work on important services that are used by millions of people

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

Selection process details

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 20-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 45-minute pair programming technical exercise - you'll work with a GDS engineer to solve a self-contained programming problem given to you in writing. You'll be asked to discuss the problem with the GDS engineer, devise a plan for solving it, and then write code to solve the problem. As well as your programming and unit testing skills, we'll evaluate how you communicate and collaborate and break down the problem. You'll use your own development environment for this (conducted over video conferencing)
• a 60-minute video interview

In the event we receive a high number of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the lead criteria which is: 

• experience in back-end development, with knowledge of either the JVM ecosystem or the JavaScript/TypeScript/Node.js ecosystem

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: 

• working together
• changing and improving
• making effective decisions

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 Senior Developer role:

• programming and build (software engineering)
• modern standards approach
• systems design
• development process optimisation
• information security
• availability and capacity management
• service support
• systems integration

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.