Senior Developer

Job summary

We are looking for people who are passionate about Engineering to join our community led team in Shared Applications Service (SAS). You will work in agile multidisciplinary teams with over 200 engineers in a modern cloud environment using the latest technologies. Our purpose as a team is to bring technical understanding in-house for over 600 Home Office applications.   

You could be creating and maintaining some of the most critical public services in the United Kingdom and transforming how we use data and technology to improve these. We are responsible for designing, building and supporting solutions to help people prove their identity or apply for visas. You could also be working on critical IT systems that support policing and counter terrorism, which helps protect UK borders. 

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office. Applicants can raise any queries to the email address at the bottom of the advert.   

Watch this short video to hear from members of Home Office Digital talking about the projects they work on and their experience of working here: Working for Home Office Digital. 

Job description

The Senior Developer is key for our product delivery, you will develop core components of our solutions and help select appropriate technologies. Your subject matter expertise will enable you to operate with greater levels of autonomy and decision making. 

You will work to our technical standards writing clean, secure code following a test-driven approach, ensuring the code is open as far as possible and can be re-used. 

The Senior Developer will be expected to mentor and lead other engineers in technical tasks, as well as support recruitment and assessment activities.

Tools and Technologies we use: 

We are keen for Engineers to continue learning new technologies, we have a large range in the Home Office including:  

• Backend:  Node.js, Python, APIs (REST/GraphQL) 
• Frontend: React, JavaScript, Typescript, Angular  
• Data: Mongodb, Redis 
• DevOps: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Ansible, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines 
• AI: Python, Github Copilot, OpenAI.   

Person specification

Main Responsibilities

• Delivering secure, reliable and scalable software, and supporting your team with technical tasks when needed.
• Evaluating and advising on design choices and ensuring that software is high quality and balances technical and business considerations. 
• Defining and documenting test cases for new systems and maintaining live systems to ensure ongoing performance. 
• Evolving new approaches/solutions with other professions through discoveries, maintaining a focus on development and deployment.
• Helping prioritise and direct technical tasks across your team, to balance new and live services.

Like many organisations we need to maintain our services 24/7, therefore, on occasions there may be a requirement to work out of hours, for which you will be paid an additional allowance. 

Working Pattern 

This role is available on a full-time basis with the option of compressed hours working.  This role is also suitable for part-time working hours, with a minimum requirement to work 3 days per week due to business requirements. 

Essential Skills

• Designing scalable, maintainable and secure software solutions, including modern JavaScript-based architectures for web applications and services (SWDN – Level 4) 
• Developing high‑quality, testable code using JavaScript/TypeScript and modern frameworks, following agreed engineering standards and practices (PROG – Level 3) 
• Defining and implementing automated testing approaches (unit, integration, end‑to‑end) to ensure quality and reliability of JavaScript applications (TEST – Level 3) 
• Integrating and building services across front‑end and back‑end components, ensuring reliable deployment and interoperability in distributed systems (SINT – Level 4) 
• Managing and utilising application data effectively (e.g. APIs, state management, persistence layers), ensuring appropriate handling and governance (DATM – Level 4) 
• Supporting live JavaScript-based services, diagnosing issues, improving performance, and maintaining stability in production environments (ASUP – Level 4) 

SFIA capability framework 

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) version 8 is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework:  All skills A - Z English (sfia-online.org). 

We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process. 

The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework (based on the industry standard SFIA framework).  Use the SFIA Levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each technical skills listed below. 

Technical skills

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

• Software design (SWDN) - Level 4
• Programming/software development (PROG) - Level 3
• Testing (TEST) - Level 3
• Systems integration and build (SINT) - Level 4
• Data management (DATM) - Level 4
• Application support (ASUP) - Level 4

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £62,732, Home Office contributes £18,173 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Why work for us...  

Find out more information at: Benefits - Home Office Careers, but some of the primary ones are: 

• A Civil Service Pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%. 
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements. 
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service. 
• 8 days of public holidays, plus 1 additional privilege day. 
• 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 employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office. 

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