Senior Software Developer - Cabinet Office - G7

Location

We are offering location options for this role as below:
Existing CO staff can work in their original contractual work location.
Existing Civil Servants working in all other departments can work in Bristol, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich or York only.
External candidates can work in Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich or York only.

About the job

Job summary

The Senior Software Developer role is part of the Technical Live Services team within Cabinet Office Digital. Help shape the future of UK Government Digital Services as a Senior Software Developer, leveraging senior-level hands-on software development experience to push the boundaries of technology and make a tangible difference to the lives of millions. The Cabinet Office sits at the heart of the UK Government, driving a groundbreaking digital transformation to set a new global benchmark for public services. Over the next three years, our mission is to deliver world-class digital offerings, making public services digital by default, simpler, clearer, and faster to use.

As a Senior Software Developer in CO Digital, you will bring extensive, proven experience in designing, developing, and implementing customised solutions that support critical business functions and meet core project objectives. You will work closely with multidisciplinary agile teams, technical architects, and key stakeholders to gather requirements, integrate complex systems, and ensure the reliability, security, and scalability of our public-facing platforms.

In this role, you will help the government manage and reduce its reliance on legacy technology by designing, building, running, and continuously improving user-friendly digital services aligned with the government's digital strategy. You will bring a strong passion for well-crafted code, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) mindsets, and a proactive approach to problem-solving and innovation across the digital and data ecosystem.

We value both breadth and depth of technical capability. Above all, you will be motivated by truly important work that puts users first, thrive in collaborative environments, share knowledge patiently with peers, and demonstrate a drive to make government better—even when that means challenging the status quo.

Our business support hours are 8 am to 6 pm, and we ask that you be flexible with your shifts to cover these hours.

Job description

As a Senior Software Developer, your core responsibilities will include:

• Design, build, run, and improve high-quality, secure, and accessible digital services in line with government standards.
• Writing clean, secure, and well-tested code, including supporting technical documentation and clear code commentary.
• Helping to establish robust development and deployment pipelines (CI/CD) for new, existing, and previously unsupported sites and services.
• Adhering to internal processes and procedures, while advising and guiding others on software development standards and best practices.
• Delivering integrated, user-focused solutions that align strategically across multiple teams, systems, and platforms.
• Supporting and maintaining software in live production environments, using modern diagnostic tools to troubleshoot and resolve faults effectively.
• Packaging and deploying software releases (some deployment activities may occasionally occur outside core office hours in line with organisational policies).
• Collaborating across multidisciplinary teams and varying technical disciplines to deliver high-value outcomes.
• Build and transfer skills across the team, take personal responsibility for mentoring others, and continuously enhance technical expertise.
• Travelling between government sites for meetings, collaborative events, and workshops as required.

Person specification

To be successful in this role, you must demonstrate strong experience and high proficiency:

• Proven track record and extensive experience developing technical stories using modern tools and techniques, including Test-Driven Development (TDD), CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps practices.
• Self-starter and curious polyglot developer with a deep understanding of whole-system architecture and end-to-end service operation.
• Strong proficiency in core programming languages, especially Python and JavaScript, along with modern web application frameworks such as Django and Node/Next.js.
• In-depth knowledge of HTTP/HTTPS protocols and experience working with at least one major relational database management system (RDBMS) such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle.
• Deep practical expertise and strong proficiency with cloud platform services (specifically AWS) and complex system integration patterns.
• Proven ability to quickly research, evaluate, and adopt new programming languages, tools, and technical frameworks.
• Excellent communication skills, with a proven ability to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Thorough understanding of common application security risks and effective mitigation strategies.
• Ability to collaborate across disciplines to define technical requirements and drive system robustness, resilience, and stability.
• Proven experience working effectively within multidisciplinary agile teams to deliver user-focused digital services.
• Demonstrated experience in mentoring, coaching, and managing junior and associate developers to support their technical growth and career progression.

Desirable Criteria

It is desirable that you also have:

• Hands-on experience with mainstream content management systems (such as Wagtail or WordPress 6+) and customised content workflow integrations.
• Familiarity with implementing monitoring, alerting, and production support tooling.
• Experience with incident management techniques, root cause investigation, and live service support.
• Experience working in secure environments and utilising tools that enforce secure software development practices.

Technical Skills

Candidates will be evaluated against the following technical domains aligned with the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework:

• Programming & Application Frameworks: Expertise in Python (Django, Wagtail CMS), JavaScript/NodeJS, SCSS, HTML, and Frontend/Backend software architectures.
• API & System Architecture: Strong expertise in business logic/middleware development, API design, and database management (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Aurora).
• CI/CD & Source Control: Skilled in Git, GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy.
• Cloud & Infrastructure Ecosystem: Deep expertise and hands-on proficiency with AWS core infrastructure, including VPC, IAM, Security Groups, NACLs, Load Balancing, Autoscaling, and Lambda (Serverless).
• Software Engineering Practices: Strong skills in TDD, automated testing methodologies, problem-solving, clean code design, and Agile/Kanban delivery frameworks.
• Secondary/Desirable Stacks: Solid experience with Java (Spring framework, Servlets, JSP) or C# (.NET framework).