Lead Software Developer - MoJ - G7

We’re recruiting for Lead Software Developers here at HMPPS (His Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service) at Justice Digital, to join our warm and collaborative teams.

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

We really want to hear from people who value making a difference and building user-centred services using modern tools and practices as part of a highly collaborative team. We strongly encourage empathetic approaches and cross functional working and are looking for people to help build on this culture of agility and openness.

As an example, you could be helping teams that are:

• Helping Probation staff to prepare court cases 
• Improving outcomes for offenders by building tools to manage rehabilitation services in our Probation team 
• Implementing solutions to manage identity data about the people we look after or link up to our heritage systems to help the flow of information around the organisation. 

 To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025 

Key Responsibilities 

In addition to hands-on development, you will inspire, mentor, coach, manage and lead Software Developers within a business domain. You will focus on generating a culture of quality, maintaining balance between building sustainable well architected products and unlocking citizen value early. The areas of your responsibility for leadership will shift between people, architecture, development and product strategy, depending on context and need. You will have responsibility for one team, or two small related teams, and report to the Principal Developers.

Technical Leadership:

• Collaborate with Technical Architects and Product Managers to set product direction 
• Collaborate with Technical Architects to help in the design of systems and implementation of coherent and sustainable technical roadmaps 
• Lead discussions with Developers to nurture consensus on technical/team decisions 
• Support backlog refinement, helping plan, define and prioritise actionable tasks for the team
• Build inclusivity and understanding by promoting strategies to share technical knowledge of our systems with appropriate documentation and other activities
• Support Delivery Managers in unblocking value where necessary and/or honest representations of effort in an agile environment as the teams learn more

Engineering Management:

• Managing, coaching and growing people with a focus on their wellbeing and development 
• Support Delivery Managers in improving team maturity

Engineering Profession:

• Work with your local Principal Developers and the wider community to improve and maintain good coding standards and practices 
• Help provide feedback on wider technical strategy of your business unit
• Share knowledge and build enthusiasm for sharing via activities like brown bags, cooperative workshops, chat discussions and other means 
• Encourage open discussion and drive communities in our primary communication tools 
• Have a mindset for growth and learning, looking for emerging technologies, tools and good practice 
• Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance 
• Take part in the recruitment and onboarding of other Developers 

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply! 

Benefits 

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours. 
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms. 
• Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow. 
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates) 
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service. 
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too! 
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app. 
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location). 
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers. 
• 5 days volunteering paid leave. 
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. 
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym. Person Specification

Essential:

• You have experience making and guiding complex technical decisions and contributing to technical strategy 
• You have experience nurturing a culture of good software practice that makes change easy 
• You have contributed towards building a high performing, inclusive team culture 
• You have experience in delivering value sooner and safer, through DevOps, XP or other ways of working that lead to agility and collaboration 
• You have experience either coaching or managing other people 
• You have been involved in building or contributing to a community of practice 
• Contribution towards the team e.g. being point of contact or team advocate, working with stakeholders, helping with DM/PM activities, improving processes 
• Contribution towards other developers: e.g. coaching / training / inspiring; encouraging L&D

You will be required to meet the requirements for SC clearance.

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. Our Tech Stack We rely on Java, Kotlin or NodeJS to write our application code, Circle CI or GitHub Actions for CI/CD, Sentry for application monitoring, Kubernetes and Docker to schedule and run our services (read about our Cloud Platform), AWS for most of our infrastructure, GOV.UK Design System for our web interfaces and use Macbook Pros. For front-end development, we value a robust understanding of the underlying web technologies. We value well-maintained, open-source tools that can be used to produce semantic HTML, performant CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript or TypeScript, and we assess all our services against accessibility criteria. For more information about the technologies, platforms and techniques we regularly use, refer to the HMPPS Tech Radar. We’re happy to help you learn our tech stack once you’re part of our team, and do not require an exact match in your experience of languages. Check out GitHub for a closer look at the technologies we use, and a complete list of services that we build and maintain. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development. 

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and Supporting statement (750 words) which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

Failure to provide both documents will result in a rejection of your application.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process: 

• Leadership 
• Working Together 
• Developing Self & Others 
• Making effective decisions 
• Delivering at pace 

 A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above.
Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference.
Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on experience making and guiding complex technical decisions will be conducted prior to the sift. Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for, but demonstrated the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and potentially offer you the position without the need for a further application.
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions 

Please review our Terms & 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 recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk   

Person specification

Please refer to attached job description.