Lead Technical Architect - MoJ - G6

Job summary

This position is based nationally

Job description

Interviews: As this is a rolling campaign, we will be reviewing applications as soon as they come in and will hold multiple 1-stage interviews from 18th November.

We will also be presenting offers as we go. 

Grade: G6 

Salary (for more information, please refer to the T&Cs on the bottom): 

London: £70,303 - £87,875 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,572)

National: £66,314 - £83,700 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,386) 

Working pattern: Full time, Part time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent 

Vacancy number: 91904 

*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

The Role

We’re recruiting for Lead Technical Architects here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative teams within HM Prison & Probation Service designing and delivering digital services that make a genuine difference to people’s lives, alongside championing the adoption of emerging technologies. 

This role aligns against the Lead technical architect role from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

Our Lead Technical Architects work with and oversee multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking. They are responsible for defining and championing the strategy, leading the technical design of systems and services and justifying and communicating their design decisions.

They assure other services and system quality, making sure the technical work fits into the broader strategy for their agencies. They provide mentoring within teams and provide peer support to other architects.

They have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, can switch between different problems and responsibilities and are able to converse easily with and translate between non-technical stakeholders and technical practitioners. 

At Justice Digital, you’ll be working on our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything we do, helping us to transform government for the future. 

We are a flexible organisation and we understand that people can't always work 5 days a week or might have responsibilities that sometimes clash with standard office hours. We work as flexibly as we can, including offering part time hours, so if in doubt please do get in touch. If you're the right candidate we will do our best to work around you. 

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

• Work with the Principal Technical Architects to define, maintain and own the technical strategy and roadmap for services of various sizes and complexity, defining how they integrate with other services and teams, and how they evolve over time
• Collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing both technical and non-technical direction and challenge
• Mentor, coach, and line manage senior and mid level technical architects
• Guide technical teams, influence technical choices and seek out opportunities for digital transformation
• Undertake structured evaluation of technical concepts, translating this into technical designs that describe a solution
• Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse common components, communicating with both technical and non-technical people
• Assure other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency
• Align your team's work with departmental and wider government technology strategy
• Support hiring, taking part in recruitment for both Technical Architects and other professions such as Software Developers

Our Tech Stack

• Programming languages such as TypeScript/Node, Kotlin/Java.
• AWS, using infrastructure as code such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or ARM templates
• Container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes.
• Public GitHub repositories for our work
• Modern development practices such as domain-driven design, test-driven development, continuous integration and continuous delivery
• Mac laptops
• Plus other tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, AppInsights, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and more 

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 hybrid working, 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

Across Justice Digital, we use a variety of technologies and are looking for people with a proven architecture background but we don’t expect anyone to be an expert in everything. If you don’t feel like you meet all of the below, we still encourage you to apply as we will proactively help you learn our technical landscape. 

• Proven experience in a technical or solution architecture role, acting as a recognised expert to guide, critique, and support teams in delivering outcomes aligned with business needs.
• Practical knowledge of modern cloud-first architectures, leveraging cloud capabilities to design secure, scalable applications, while mitigating security risks in public cloud environments.
• Experience in designing software architecture for multi-tier web solutions, including micro-services, API management, event-driven processing, databases, and pub/sub patterns.
• Experience in introducing and championing best practices such as TDD, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and DevOps, fostering high-quality engineering culture within teams.
• Can communicate technical concepts for multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders, ensuring mutual understanding and fostering strong relationships, particularly with senior leadership.
• Experience making and guiding effective technical decisions by analysing trends and organisational practices, while consulting where necessary to ensure diverse user needs are met.
• Capable of identifying deeper problems and opportunities, making bold, unbiased decisions, and clearly communicating the rationale behind recommendations.
• Demonstrates technical leadership, successfully guiding cross-discipline teams to deliver complex outcomes, while ensuring alignment with wider strategic priorities and influencing future direction. 

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for BPSS 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.

Person specification

Please refer to attached job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £68,967, Ministry of Justice contributes £19,979 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Access to learning and development
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• Annual Leave
• Public Holidays
• Season Ticket Advance

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Candidates must submit:

• a CV which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above
• a cover letter which describes your suitability for the job and why you are applying. 

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
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions 

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 80-minute panel interview held via video conference, consisting of a 45-minute STAR interview, a 25-minute technical exercise, and 10 minutes for candidate questions. 

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on Technical Experience 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 a period of 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

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

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 (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).