Digital, Information & Technology (DIT) Senior Software Developer - MoD - SEO

Location

Tomlinson House, Norcross, Blackpool, North West
Abbey Wood North, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, South West
Glasgow, Kentigern House

About the job

Job summary

Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference? 

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence?  

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement. 

• Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
• Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability. 

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society.  

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working. 

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments.  Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.  

DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2027.

Come and join the DBS community today! 

https://youtu.be/gUw0ToaRGgk

Job description

A software developer designs, runs and improves software that meets user needs. In this role, you will:

• Be responsible for writing clean, secure code following a test-driven approach
• Create code that is open by default and easy for others to reuse

In this role, you will be responsible for writing clean, secure code following a test-driven approach. You will create code that is open by default and easy for others to reuse. You will be able to integrate APIs such as gov.uk/pay and gov.uk/notify and develop services in line with the Government Digital Service Standard. You will test and document code releases and support the team at GDS Service Assessments. 

As a Senior Software Developer, you will:

Technical

• Designs, codes, tests, corrects, and documents user interfaces using the right standards and tools.
• Work with Typescript, Node.JS, Kubernetes (KubeMQ), Next JS, React, and Event-Driven Architecture
• Supports implementation of new systems or upgrades for Automation Garage solutions
• Finds ways to improve system robustness, resilience, and stability
• Maintains and supports open Gitlab repositories - deploying and managing code changes, as well as other DevOps tasks.
• Manage Amazon Web Service storage, domain naming services and DynamoDB
• Develops good practice, ways of working
• Collaborate with others (service manager, technical architects, design team) to understand and review software requirements.
• Keeps the service and project managers informed of the status of development / service support.
• Innovates and improve the way processes are delivered to the business, assessing, and championing the adoption of new technologies to meet the organisations automation requirements
• Develops knowledge and keeps up to date with latest vendor offerings across multiple technologies including RPA, Chatbot, Power Platforms, Cognitive, Cloud and Intelligent Automation
• Grows the digital community, activity encourage collaboration.

Stakeholder Management

• Build strong relationships with outside technical teams to ensure implementation success
• Seen by the Business and team as the Public Facing Services expert
• Builds productive relationships internally and externally

Person specification

Essential experience

• Experience of Typescript, Node.JS, Kubernetes (KubeMQ), Next JS, React, and Event-Driven Architecture
• Availability and capacity management: You can manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and key performance indicators (Skill Level: Working)
• Development process optimisation: You can work under guidance to identify process optimisation opportunities and contribute to the implementation of proposed solutions (Skill Level: Working)
• Information security: You can design solutions and service with security controls included, specifically engineered to mitigate security threats (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• Modern development standards: You can apply modern development stands and support other in applying them (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• Programming and build (software engineering): You can collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications, and use the agree specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• Prototyping: You can approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes and testing with other; establish design patterns and iterate them; and use a variety of prototyping methos and choose ethe most appropriate (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• Service support: You can identify, locate and fix service faults (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• System design: You can design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity; select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, and ensure they are applied effectively; and review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• System integration: You can define the integration build, co-ordinate build activities across systems, and understand how to undertake and support integration testing activities (Skill Level: Practitioner)
• User focus: You can collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally; explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user; champion user research to focus on all users; prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so; and offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use (Skill Level: Practitioner)

Desirable experience

It would be great if you also have:

• Experience of Government Digital Standard (GDS) Ways of Working and Secure by Design principles
• Knowledge or experience of Redhat OpenShift, Postgres, Azure and/or AWS, Flask, and/or Python
• Knowledge of gov.uk websites and service

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• DDAT Senior Software Developer: Programming and Build (Software Engineering)
• DDAT Senior Software Developer: Information Security
• DDAT Senior Software Developer: Systems Design
• DDAT Senior Software Developer: User Focus