Senior Software Developer - HM Courts and Tribunals Service - G7

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, Scotland, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

These are exciting times at HM Court and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). As an agency of the MoJ, we support the judiciary across England and Wales to deliver justice by running courts and tribunals and processing outcomes, and we are looking for talented people to help us achieve our ambitions. It will be challenging, important and rewarding.

HMCTS Digital and Technology Services (DTS) is a specialist technology directorate which provides support to HMCTS in the use of IT and Digital. DTS is creating a place in which it is great to do work and part of our offer is brilliant training opportunities and support from expert colleagues. As well as that you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued.

Please follow this link for further information about HMCTS: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service

Job Description:

As a Senior Software Developer at HMCTS you will work with a wide range of stakeholders such as user researchers, product managers, designers, business analysts, delivery managers and digital architects, all of whom share a vision for making better government through smarter use of technology. You will innovate to radically transform public services for the better.

The development squad you are placed on will be agreed closer to your start date, but examples of products can be found in our GitHub repository:  https://github.com/hmcts

You can find more information about our ways of working in the HMCTS Way: https://hmcts.github.io

Technologies we rely heavily on:

• Java and Spring Boot to write our backend services
• Node.js to write our frontend services
• Power Platform for low-code development
• Jenkins for CI/CD
• Dynatrace for application monitoring
• Kubernetes and Docker to run our services
• Azure for most of our infrastructure
• Terraform for infrastructure as code
• Postgres and Redis as our databases.
• GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces
• Macs to do all the above
• In addition, we use a range of other technologies and continue to evolve by employing new technologies that help us deliver better services to our users

As a Senior Developer in HMCTS you will:

• Develop, improve and document code, following best practices and internal standards. 
• Continuously learn and stay up to date with relevant technologies, identifying potential issues. 
• Ensure product security, data confidentiality, and integrity, raising risks as needed. 
• Support and maintain software, including limited out-of-hours work when required. 
• Plan development, coordinate integration, and contribute to process improvement. 
• Manage service availability effectively and cost-efficiently. 
• Build and test system interfaces. 
• Use test-driven development, write automation scripts, and participate in code reviews. 
• Mentor junior colleagues and share technical expertise.
• Take ownership of the technical roadmap and promote best practice across the development lifecycle.
• Influence product strategy by providing technical insight to stakeholders
• Design and develop software based on user stories.
• Participate in recruitment and procurement.

Person Specification

We’re seeking a full stack developer with the ability to develop and deploy high-quality code. The ideal candidate will have:

• Experience in building scalable enterprise applications using Java.
• Strong frontend proficiency with modern JavaScript frameworks (e.g., Angular, React, or Vue).
• A solid grasp of RESTful API design and relational database architecture (e.g., PostgreSQL).
• Proficiency in cloud-native architecture including infrastructure as code (e.g., Microsoft Azure, Terraform)
• Knowledge of the full development lifecycle, including CI/CD, authentication (OAuth2/OIDC), and system monitoring.
• Leadership capabilities, with a proven track record of mentoring junior engineers and driving technical standards.
• Experience utilising DevOps practices and containerisation tools (Docker/Kubernetes).
• A security-first mindset, with the ability to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities (OWASP top 10) during the design phase.