Senior Developer

Senior Developer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 9th November

Interviews: Beginning from week commencing 19^th October

Grade: Grade 7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary**:

£63,343 - £73,875 which may include an allowance up to £10,532 [London]

£58,511 - £69,150 which may include an allowance up to £10,639 [National]

Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of vacancies: 20

Vacancy number: 23197

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.

The Role

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. Please click on the link for details.

We’re recruiting for Senior Developershere at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative HMPPS team.

This role aligns against Senior Developer from the Government Digital and Data Framework

You’ll be confident working with other developers on our tech stack and comfortable learning new technologies and systems. We use a variety of different technologies and will work with you to place you in a team that matches your skills, interests and aspirations wherever possible.

As a Senior Developer, you could be working on projects such as:

• Improving how prison visits are scheduled and managed.
• Building digital services that help Probation staff support rehabilitation and prepare cases for court.
• Designing services that manage identity data safely and accurately across prisons and probation.
• Modernising legacy systems used by frontline staff, making them easier to use, maintain and improve.
• Building APIs and shared services that allow information to move safely between different parts of the justice system.
• Automating manual processes so staff can spend less time on administration and more time supporting people in prison and on probation.

You will work in multidisciplinary teams with user researchers, product managers, designers, delivery managers, technical architects and content specialists who share a vision for improving government through smarter use of technology.

Our Tech Stack

We use a range of modern technologies, and we’re looking for developers with strong experience in one or more of them, as well as an enthusiasm for learning new languages, tools and frameworks.

Our services are commonly built using Kotlin and Node.js. We use GitHub Actions for CI/CD, tools including Application Insights, Grafana and Sentry for application monitoring and observability, and Docker and Kubernetes to package and run our services. Much of our infrastructure runs on AWS, supported by the Ministry of Justice Cloud Platform.

For web interfaces, we use the GOV.UK Design System and MOJ Design System and place a strong emphasis on accessible, user-centred services.

For front-end development, we value a strong understanding of the underlying web technologies. We favour well-maintained, open-source tools and aim to produce semantic HTML, performant CSS, and maintainable, unobtrusive JavaScript or TypeScript. Accessibility is a core part of how we design, build and assess our services.

You don’t need to have used exactly the same technologies as us. We’re happy to help you learn our stack, and we’re more interested in strong engineering fundamentals and your ability to pick up new technologies. For more detail on our tech stack, look at the MoJ Technical Radar.

You can explore the Ministry of Justice GitHub organisation to see examples of the services we build and maintain.

We work in agile, multidisciplinary teams and follow the principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

Our developers are provided with MacBook Pros for their day-to-day work.

Our Community

You’ll be joining a large and supportive engineering community across the Ministry of Justice, with developers working on services used throughout prisons, probation and the wider justice system.

As a Senior Developer, you’ll help coach and mentor other developers, share your knowledge, and contribute to communities of practice across MoJ. We encourage developers to get involved beyond their immediate team through technical discussions, talks, meet-ups, open-source projects and shared engineering initiatives.

We take supportive and effective line management seriously. We’ll value the experience and skills you bring, while helping you develop further through coaching, learning opportunities and exposure to different teams and technologies.

As your career develops, there are opportunities to move between teams, take on different technical challenges and progress into roles with greater technical or leadership responsibility.

To get a feel for how we work, take a look at the Ministry of Justice Developer Portal or the Justice Digital blog.

You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:

• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.

You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.

Key Responsibilities:

As a Senior Software Developer at the MoJ, you’ll combine hands-on technical work with supporting and developing the people around you.

Technical responsibilities

• Designing, building and maintaining secure APIs, services and systems
• Working collaboratively on existing codebases, helping to understand and improve them over time
• Improving the resilience, reliability and maintainability of our software
• Using practices that support safe, frequent and sustainable delivery

Supporting people and teams

• Supporting the development of others through line management, coaching and mentoring
• Working closely with Lead Developers and colleagues to create supportive, effective teams
• Sharing knowledge and creating opportunities for others to learn and grow
• Helping to build and sustain a diverse, inclusive and welcoming development community, where different perspectives are valued

If this sounds like work you’d enjoy and you’re interested in joining a supportive development community, we’d love to hear from you.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

You will:

• Solve problems in a systematic and innovative way
• Champion software maintenance, clean code, coding standards and modern development and deployment techniques
• Enjoy sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team
• Thrive when you work as part of a team that abides by the spirit of the manifesto of agile software development
• Communicate technical information to a range of audiences
• Hold yourself and others to a high standard
• Demonstrate experience of delivering large and complex software solutions
• Demonstrate experience working in Java, Kotlin, TypeScript or JavaScript

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Salary Information**

Base salary for this role is from: £63,343 - £70,725 [London] & £58,511 - £65,329 [National]

• New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
• Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
• Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
• Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £10,532 per year (London) or £10,639 (National). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.

The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.

How to Apply

In Justice Digital, Data and Science, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession CapabilityandSuccess Profiles Frameworks. We shall assess a combination of your Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours during the assessment process.

Stage 1 - Application and sift:

• A CV detailing your career history (including any relevant qualifications). Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined within the Person Specification of this advert.
• A Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) which should outline your experience and skills, giving clear examples of work undertaken. It should specifically address the following 3 criteria listed below, using a separate paragraph for each.

• Demonstrate experience of delivering large and complex software solutions
• Champion software maintenance, clean code, coding standards and modern development and deployment techniques
• Enjoy sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team

Candidates who do not adhere to the Personal Statement directions above may be rejected on this basis.

A diverse sift panel will review the information in your CV and Personal Statement to assess the sift criteria specified above. We operate an anonymous shortlisting process. Please ensure your CV and Personal Statement do not include your name or any other identifying details.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on ‘Demonstrate proven experience working in Java, Kotlin, TypeScript or JavaScript’ will be conducted before the sift.

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply - Application Guidance

Stage 2 - Interviews:

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a panel interview held via Microsoft Teams. At interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements - Experience, Technical and the following Behaviours:

• Making effective decisions
• Working together
• Developing self and others
• Communicating and influencing

As part of your interview, you will be asked to take part in a technical test which will entail conducting a code review using one of our core development languages as outlined in the person specification above.

Appointments are made strictly in merit order. In the event that two or more candidates receive identical interview scores, relevant technical experience will be applied as the primary lead criterion to determine the final merit order.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk